Participants Pairings Results Progress Table Games Round Report 5

This was a good round for me as I played a decent game against Alon Greenfeld - a really tough player. We both were out of our book very early on, as we played cat and mouse with move orders and opening choices. According to Mark Orr , Alon is an expert in the G3 Kings Indian, so I was curious as to why he refrained from playing his normal opening against me? I would have liked the chance to test out a few ideas of my own.

Anyway what happened was very interesting and this game really tested me. I even missed a win when my opponent offered a draw after playing the losing 36 dxc5 at the end. I just accepted without thinking and iit was only later, when we were both looking over the tense game, we discovered that 36 dxc5 was a losing blunder. Still a draw was a fine result for me.

The really big result of the day however was the defeat of GM Stuart Conquest by Phillip Short. Stuart is having a difficult time of things but still plays fighting chess everytime. Meanwhile Mark Hebden had another win, this time against Stephen Jessel, in a typical grind. Meanwhile in true Ex-Soviet tradition (As in- The Soviet school of chess) Alexander Baburin drew very quickly against Algimantas Butnorius. In fairness, as Black it does seem very practical to not bother even trying to play, especially if you want to save your energy and give yourself a sort of free day with which to relax and prepare for another string of wins perhaps?

The games from this round are now thankfully available. for download as pgn files

Also See games section for an idea of how this round developed.