GM Finegold: Missouri Invitational Champion

The CCSCSL was host last weekend to the Missouri Invitational Championship and the Missouri Amateur Championship. The Invitational had 15 participants, and the Amateur had 55, much more than expected.

I played well (for once) and won the Invitational with 4.5-0.5. A mild surprise was clear-second finisher Kevin Cao, who once again broke 2200, and beat IM Michael Brooks along the way, scoring an impressive 4-1. IM Brooks took clear third with 3.5-1.5.

The Amateur was full of surprises, as several class A players (Alex Marler, Spencer Finegold, and Al Howlett) fought for first place! Spencer lost in the last round to Expert Mark Ferber, whilst Marler won a long game from Howlett. Ferber and Marler tied for first with 4.5-0.5, with Alex winning the State Title on tiebreak! Congrats to CCSCSL employee Alex Marler for not only winning, but getting a ton of rating points to boot.

Final standings of both events can be found at: http://main.uschess.org/assets/msa_joomla/XtblMain.php?201008150941

I was able to beat KDJ (Kevin Dale Johnson in round 1) by employing the rare (for me) 1.e4! The game was a weird Alapin (c3) Sicilian, where my opponent missed a cute tactic, and his king paid a dear price!

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I played Kevin Cao in round 2, and tried the Caro-Kann, which I play occasionally nowadays. The game was about equal for a long time, then Kevin made some positional concessions and eventually lost a weak pawn and his position collapsed.

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Round 3 was a perfunctory draw with IM Brooks. In fact, I spent a lot of the day going home to help Alisa Melekhina prepare for her next game in the 2010 World Junior Championship! Alisa finished up with 8.5-4.5, drawing her only game in the last round, after a 50+ move battle. I was her "coach" even though she was in Poland and I was at the CCSCSL (thank you Internet). Info on her event at: http://www.wjcc2010.pl/en/listauczestnikow 

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Round 4 started bright and early at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, and I once again trotted out 1.e4! I always wanted to broaden my repertoire, and preparing Alisa for her games gave me the confidence to play 1.e4 this event. Nick Karlow played a sharp variation of the Sicilian whereupon he wins 2-3 pawns at the expense of his king safety and development. The complications were too difficult for Nick, as he lost a miniature. IM Brooks lost a wild game to Kevin Cao, so first place was in my hands, if I could win the last round.

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I had black versus Jialin Ding and decided to play the Sicilian. Jialin played an early king-side fianchetto (g3) against my Classical Variation, and a positional battle ensued. Jialin made too many weaknesses on the dark squares (a4, c4, e4, g4 were all played by white by move 15!)...and I was able to break through on the king side and win a nice game.

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My next tournament will be next weekend, in Indianapolis, http://www.chesstour.com/io10.htm. The last time (and only time!) I played there was the 2009 U.S. Open.

Enjoy the games!