Saturday, December 4, 2010

LAX American Open



My tournament in LA didn't go very well. I scored only 2.5 out of 6. In the first game I wasn't playing focused, but in the second game I had a chance for a draw, went for the win and lost. In the third game I beat Ojas Chinchwadkar after a sharp attack. I lost again in the fourth game after getting tired. The next day I won the fifth round after another sharp attack before drawing a 2000 in the endgame of my final round. We also saw many cool sights at LA. The LAX airport was right next to us, but the hotel did a good job of keeping the noise down. Many blinking cylinder lights stood around us. They kept changing their color into green, yellow, orange, red, purple, and pink. I had tasty food to eat every day. For example, we ate delicious chinese food before the fourth round. Most of the lunches were from Subway because that is where I usually eat on chess days. The drive back took two hours more than the first one because there was a lot of traffic because of the end of Thanksgiving weekend and we drove more relaxed.
On Tuesday nights I am playing a FIDE tournament (FIDE stands for Federation Internationale des Echecs) called Tuesday Fight Knight to improve my rating because in many tournaments you have to play in the Open to get a FIDE rating. There are 12 players and 11 rounds so we are going to play everybody in the round robin. It is in San Jose and my chess friends are also playing so I see them every time. I won my first game against Randy Moon, a 1750 who won the A section in Bay Area on Thanksgiving, but there are 10 more rounds to go.