By Hikaru on 10/15/2008 12:47 PM

Greetings from Seattle! Tonight I will be playing in the US Chess League for the last time during the regular season. So far it has been a great run and I've enjoyed it immensely. Since I have not commented on last week, I will make some brief comments. Unlike last year when I lost to Bhat, (largely because I wasn't paying attention) this year was simply that I made a very stupid blunder in a much better position. However, despite my misfortune, our board 3 Readey also missed plenty of wins in his game so it wasn't solely my fault. Another note which I'd like to comment on is that I recently noticed GM Wolff annotated the game Esserman-Lian and said the Smith-Morra is a bad opening. I do not believe someone like Wolff who has been retired from chess for so many years and would rather make money at a hedge fund than play chess has any right to comment on the current state of chess theory. I would also straight up say that in a 10 game match in the Smith-Morra, Wolff would lose to Esserman if he played black. & ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 10/3/2008 11:42 AM

Hello again. Sorry if I have not been blogging much lately, but between the US Chess League and some rather unfortunate computer issues I have been quite busy. I will start off with the US Chess League. So far, so good as I am now 3/3 having beaten GMs Benjamin, Mitkov and Fedorowicz. Although I was not particularly crazy about the first 2 wins against Benjamin and Mitkov, my performance was good enough. However against GM Fedorowicz I played a double edged variation of the Kan and got a reasonable position out of the opening. In the middlegame, I think he missed some chances when he decided to play 24.Bxh7 instead of the sharp 24.Nd4 which would have led to a complicated tactical melee. In the ensuing endgame, Fed just got a bad position and lost without putting up much of a fight. Fortunately, Andy May won a very nice game on board 4 while Vancouverite Marcel Milat had a miracle save on board 3 which was enough for us to win the match. As of right now, pretty much everyone (Greg,Arun,etc) seems to have abso ... Read More »