Day two of the Seattle Fall Open

Day two started off with Round 4, and I lucked out after my strong opponent just blundered a pawn. It turned out I still had the skill to convert that into a win.

Between rounds, it was crazy. I had lots of fun playing chess and joking with Vignesh Anand, Andy Huang, and others.

And also many "Yu" jokes went around with, who else?, Jason Yu!

"See Y(o)u later"!

"Y(o)u gonna loose"

"Thanks Y(o)u!"

In case Y(o)u are reading this Jason, I was NOT critisizing you. In fact, he had a decent counter: Joseph TROLLson.

Anyways, as the games ended, I had 3.5/4. Luckily Fred Kliest didn't take too long to get a pairing for my game, it was easy! I was clear second with 3.5/4, and first was a 1600 with 4/4.

And, I was lucky to get white, maybe due to Fred hearing me say that a LOT of times in the skittles room. Thanks Fred :).

Well, my opponent played the French, and to not loose, I played the Echange, which did not go well after he had his Ne7 ideas. Soon, we kept ginving each other the advantage, until the endgame. Stockfish gave him a .2 pawn advantage, but he lacked a good plan, and I had a strong one. Luckily, he did not catch the flaw in the plan, and we got into a drawn pawn endgame. In one of the issues in Chess Life, a great issue was written in "Chess to Enjoy" about how maddening Pawn endgames really are. My oppoennt and I would agree. He took about 2 hours and 50 minutes during the game with only 10 minutes left by the end of the game. But I was lucky, and I won. HE was very dissapointed, which made sense.

 I was happy to win $150, and be clear first in the Reserve Section

YAY :)

UPDATE: My rating is now 1665, up from 1611 before the event