Pacific Southwest Open

     After another mediocre tournament, I lost four more rating points to drop my rating to an even 2300. A week later, I traveled to LA to play in the Pacific Southwest Open. We arrived around midnight due to giant traffic jams. In the first round, I got an even position from an Exchange French against Vikram Ganesh. After dropping a pawn, I was able to secure a draw. In the second round, my opponent, Matthew Shuben, didn't know the opening and mixed up the move order. I was able to win quickly after his mistake. In the third round, I got an edge with black against William Duckworth's Trompowsky. Eventually, my exchange and attack were good enough to win. In the fourth round, I was white against IM Dionisio Aldama. I outplayed him and eventually won the two-pawn up endgame. In the fifth round, I had a double-white against GM Sevillano. As white, I got an equal position, but he pressed too hard and I started to become better. Eventually, I had a completely winning rook endgame which I managed to draw. That could have been my first GM win! I was upset, but tired after the long 5-hour duel. I had about half an hour to prepare for my last round game against IM Roman Yankovsky. The winner had a chance to tie for first place, depending on what happened on the first board. We got an equal position out of the French, and then he started pushing the rook-and-knight vs. rook-and-bishop endgame. He ran into time pressure and then got into a drawn rook endgame. However, I pushed my pawns quickly and he make some mistakes allowing me to get a winning position. Guess what happened. -_- Again, I messed up, this time allowing him to go into a drawn rook vs. pawn endgame. This game also went for five hours, leaving us with a six-hour drive home plus dinner at 10:00 in the night. We finally made it home at 6:00 AM and I slept in till 1. If I had won my last two games or even got 1.5/2, I would have gotten a share of first. Anyway, I still gained 30 USCF points and 80(!!) FIDE points, due to the new system.