Ben's Blog: Spring Spice Cup - Round 2 Report

Today was quite boring from a chess point of view, as GM Julio Becerra and I played a snoozer of a game.  I prepared quite a while for Julio's Slav/Semi-Slav/a6 Slav, but, I decided to also do a little prep for his other openings, King's Indian and Gruenfeld. 

I prepared a line I have never played before, that I could do against any Nf6/g6 combination, but, unfortunately, Julio played solidly, and the game was equal throughout. Tomorrow there are two rounds, and I play black versus IM Gergely Antal in the morning, and white versus IM Dean Ippolito in the afternoon.

I got quite a nice tour of the University, along with the father of wunderkind Darwin Yang, from tournament organizer GM Susan Polgar.  She also took us to the Buddy Holly Museum, which was quite cool.  When I told my mom last year that I was playing chess in Lubbock, TX, she said "Buddy Holly is from there."

Darwin was able to win today against IM Davorin Kuljasevic. IM Dean Ippolito drew quickly with IM Gabor Papp.  IM Irina Krush showed up in good from, winning a nice game from IM Gergely Antal.  GM Jesse Kraai drew FM Eric Hansen.

[pgn|pgn=<<<1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. c3 Bg7 4. Bf4 O-O 5. h3 b6 6. e3 Bb7 7. Be2 d6 8. O-O Nbd7 9. a4 a6 10. Nbd2 c5 11. Bh2 Ra7 12. Re1 Qa8 13. Bd3 Ne4 14. Nxe4 Bxe4 15. Bxe4 Qxe4 16. Qb3 1/2-1/2>>>|white=Ben Finegold|black=Julio Becerra|white_rating= 2534 |black_rating= 2538]

Standings after 2 rounds:

1-3. Ippolito, Becerra, Yang 1.5
4. Krush 1.0 (with 1 game to play)
5. Kraai 1.0
6. Finegold 0.5 (with 1 game to play)
7-10. Antal, Kuljasevic, Papp, Hansen 0.5

Not much of a report, but, until next time.....  Goodbye Baaaaaby!

Ben