By Hikaru on 5/29/2008 9:56 PM

Hello! As I have been very busy this past week, I have not had a chance to blog. Since I am now comfortably situated in Evry, France I will attempt to update everyone assuming my wee-fee connection remains strong. This past week I played the Chicago Open which was held in Wheeling, Illinois. Overall the tournament was a success from a financial standpoint, however I was not at all pleased with my play. At the beginning of the tournament I started off by playing two very shaky games against Matthew Parry and Josh Friedel. Although I was able to outplay Parry from an unclear middlegame, I was not able to against Friedel and lost. After this, I continued playing terribly and was very lucky as I swindled Floran Felecan from a drawn position to win. After this I started playing slightly better and beat GMs Hernandez and Kolev before taking a draw in the last round against GM Tigrano. As some people are no doubt wondering why I took a draw, I will attempt to explain. Surprisingly, in the Chicago Open I had several ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 5/17/2008 1:56 PM

Hello everyone! It has been far too long since I last blogged so now seems to be an apt time for one. Recently, I have been enjoying life in Vancouver as I mentioned before with very little to no chess. Although for those who are interested, I did indeed do a simul in Richmond, BC scoring 35 wins and 2 draws against a field of 37 players. For further information and pictures go to the site http://www.bjdy.com/juniorchess/GM_simul.html

Onto the US Championship, it seems that many people have been asking me why I am not playing in it. Although there are a plethora of reasons, as I blogged several months ago this weekend marks the end of my brothers college career as he will be graduating from UPenn - Wharton School of Business. Throughout my life, chess has been the driving force and having missed both my brothers middle school and high school graduation due to tournaments, this is the final opportunity to spend time with him before he also moves off in his own direction with life. I wish ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 5/3/2008 2:35 AM

Where to begin...? As many people seem to know, I am currently attempting to reside in lovely British Columbia (as the license plates state for those who are Canadian) and what a wonderful world it is. This past week I actually decided to check out the great site www.meetup.com! As per request from Jesse and our lovely host Yvonne, I am deciding to blog on this great topic. One of the great things about being out here in British Columbia is the extremely eclectic and cosmopolitan mix of both people and restaurants. It seems as though on any given street a person can find a great mix of an Iraqi restaurant,Mongolian or Italian restaurant.

All this aside, tonight I ate at this great restaurant The Afghan Horsemen (http://www.afghanhorsemen.com/) with a great group of people. Surprisingly, despite having traveled to many, many countries across various continents; before tonight, I had yet to ever eat Afghan food. What can I say though, it was excellent cuisine. Later on as the group was g ... Read More »