By Hikaru on 1/28/2008 12:18 PM

Yay! Today was, without a doubt, the best game I've played all tournament. After my fairly shaky last couple of rounds, today I was paired against WGM Harika. I've actually known her for quite some time, so I was fairly familiar with her style. For this reason, I chose to play into the Meran yet again. However, I chose to play the order with d5,c6,e6 in order to avoid the Moscow variations with Bg5. Harika slightly surprised me by playing the Shabalov variation with 7.g4. Ironically I have also had this position with white against Shabalov (Nakamura-Shabalov, Foxwoods 2006). As such, I'm fairly well versed in many of these lines; I chose the fairly quiet 7...h6 variation in order to avoid a huge theoretical discussion. Most of the moves were fairly standard until I deviated from Dreev-Petrosyan, Aeroflot 2006 by playing 17...0-0. Although 17...Qb4 was perfectly fine, I felt that in that game after 18.Qd2 Qb5 19.0-0-0 c5 20.Bxb7 Rxb7 21.dxc5 0-0 22.Qd3! was too drawish. I am not sure whether Harika ha ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 1/27/2008 5:37 PM

Greetings! So today I will blog because I am not actually on the verge of committing suicide. Yesterday I played a perfectly solid Alekhine and simply got careless trying too hard to win. Alas, this seems to happen too often to me here in Gibraltar (Efimenko 2005). Anyway onto today where things were slightly better, I guess? I actually did not really study any chess today before my round as I wanted to clear my mind after the disaster yesterday. The opening today against Caspi was a Center Counter/Scandinavian with 3...Qd6 and 4...c6. I had a solid advantage out of the opening, but somewhere around move 20 I started to misplay it and achieved a slightly worse position! Fortunately, I had a significant time advantage and my opponent started erring around move 28. 1 win down, 4 to go!

By Hikaru on 1/25/2008 3:18 PM

I had a tough game against GM Al-Modiahki.

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By Hikaru on 1/24/2008 3:18 PM

Rather unfortunately, I did not have time to blog yesterday due to being extremely busy. One of the many reasons why I come to Gibraltar is for the fun atmosphere which abounds in the evenings.

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By Hikaru on 1/22/2008 2:47 PM

Greetings everyone! Today was the beginning of the tournament and, as usual, there was plenty of drama in the round. There were many intriguing games and matchups.

I was paired against the Dutch IM Edwin Van Haastest whom I beat in the Dominican Republic several years ago. I prepared a rather quiet subline within the English Attack of the Najdorf and was about equal until my opponent misunderstood the position and played the move 15.Nce2?! after the game we analyzed the highly interesting 15.g4 which would have led to a much more complicated game. However, after this slight blunder I was able to take control of the game and win without too many worries.

On the other top boards there was a lot more drama. On board one Wang-Dzagnidze saw a complicated middle game arise, but despite obtaining a solid positional edge, Wang was unable to convert and the game ended in a repitition. On board two in the game Paehtz-Bu, led t ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 1/21/2008 3:52 PM

 

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By Hikaru on 1/18/2008 10:41 AM

By Hikaru on 1/10/2008 7:49 AM

First Blog Entry

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