The fourth Edmonton International was my first GM round-robin event, and I'm sure that I've learned a lot. Here is a quick summary of each of my games.
Round 1:
I played GM Victor Mikhalevski (2607) with white in the first round. I prepared a line that he hasn't faced much in his career and got a pretty decent position out of the opening. I played well and got to a slightly better position right after the time control at move 40. I then made the error of trying too hard to trade off into a drawn ending. I got into a bit of trouble but thanks to some neat tactics that I played in severe time pressure, I managed to get the position to a dead draw. I had been playing on the 30 second increment for about 20 moves when, unfortunately, I hung my knight. It was a terrible oversight which caused me to lose a lot of sleep that night. It did show me that I could compete with a very strong player though. 0-1
Round 2:
I got an equal position as black against IM Gergely Antal (2495) in the second round, but I tried too hard to DO something in the middlegame. I sacrificed a pawn, but the sacrifice was unsound. It took him a long time to finish me off, but eventually he did. 1-0
Round 3:
Against FM Vladimir Pechenkin (2372) in the third round, I was white. I played a good game and was never worse, but he defended well and got to a theoretically drawn ending. Despite my attempts to win up a pawn, I couldn't and the game ended in a draw. 1/2-1/2
Round 4:
IM Edward Porper (2445) is a very solid player, and my choice of opening against him was really not very good. I gave him the type of position that he enjoys, and I suffered the whole game long. Although my position wasn't much worse, he eventually ground me down. A good positional win by him. 1-0
Round 5:
I was feeling pretty down after losing to Porper, since I didn't play a great game. My attitude going into my game against FM Eric Hansen (2409) could have been much better. I think that my losing attitude was due to Eric's dominant score in our previous tournament encounters. In the actual game, I mounted an assault on his king, but for some reason, I thought that I was worse. I played a terrible move without correctly looking at all of the responses. This was a big mistake which ended the game. 0-1
Round 6:
My game against IM Marc Esserman (2408) was very strange. He attacked like crazy right from the beginning of the game, and I thought that I had found a good defense to his early sacrifice by returning the favour. Unfortunately after my return sac, he followed up his initial pawn sac with the sacrifice of his knight. There was a long forcing variation that occurred which ended with him being up a pawn. I wasn't able to hold the pawn down ending that ensued. 1-0
Round 7:
I didn't want to get slowly outplayed by a stronger opponent in my game against GM Josh Friedel, and so I tried to follow the game that Nakamura won against him at the US Championship this year. He played a slightly different line which I had looked at (but not nearly enough to play it against a GM in such a sharp position.) I lost quickly since my intuitive twelfth move was actually a pretty big mistake. 0-1
Round 8:
At this point in the event, I was just trying to remind myself that the tournament was a learning experience and that I needed to play my best chess to get maximum benefit from my games. With white against GM Jesse Kraai (2509), I played one of my best games and won after playing a great combination with a very subtle fourth move. Earlier in the game, he made a positional sacrifice of a rook for bishop, but I found a pretty good time to give back the material and get a better position. 1-0 This is my first win against a GM, and it is great to know that I can now compete with players at that level.
Round 9:
FM Dale Haessel (2201) played white against me in the last round. I tried to play a tricky move order to avoid a certain opening, but the plan backfired somewhat as I ended up in a position that he knew a little better than I. He spent a lot of time in the opening and had a slight advantage when his draw offer came after about an hour and a half of play. 1/2-1/2
Final Thoughts:
The last round of the tournament is still being played, so the winner of the event is still anybody's guess. Marc Esserman and Eric Hansen are both playing for their first GM and final IM norms respectively, but it's not looking too good for either of them. As for me, I finished with the dismal score of 2/9, but I played some good chess and beat my first GM! The games are available for download at
this webpage
*Update*
GM Josh Friedel and GM Victor Mikhalevski tied for first in the event with 7/9. Here are the standings
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