By Hikaru on 6/10/2008 8:48 AM

Hello, sorry for not blogging for a long while but I have been extremely busy between playing chess and traveling. These past couple of weeks have been very up and down. I will attempt to recount my various adventures over the past several weeks.

After the tournament in Chicago, I flew back to Newark and then immediately had to go to JFK in order to fly off to Nice, France. From there I flew to Paris early in the morning. After this, I ended up going to Rolland Garros to see the French Open with several teammates. It is hear that I must mention that on this day we ran into the Armenian Grandmasters Gabriel Sargissian and the late Karen Asrian. Before I continue on with the story, I must mention that it is a very sad story involving Asrian. Although he never was a top level grandmaster, he was a very solid player and generally a friendly person who always was smiling or laughing particularly during the last olympiad in Turin. My best wishes go out to the Armenian chess community and his ... Read More »

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 »

By Hikaru on 4/28/2008 5:10 PM

Since I have neither been on ICC or blogging much lately, I am sure people are wondering where I have vanished off to. Matter of fact, I've been spending time in the lovely Pacific Northwest. This past week I was staying in absolutely beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. After that I returned to Washington State for a mere two days to do a simul at the Washington Elementary Championships in Redmond, WA. Now, I am back in Vancouver for the next two weeks before I try and remember how to play chess amidst all the calm and beauty. Till next time, keep it classy Chess World! (Takeoff on Ron Burgundy for those who didn't see Anchorman).

By Hikaru on 4/14/2008 3:07 AM

So, yesterday I played GM Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu with white in the last round of this 2nd leg of the French Top 16 Team Championship. Nisipeanu first became famous way back in 1999 when he had a magical run in the Fide World Cup at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas by beating GMs Ivanchuk and Shirov along the way before losing in the semi finals. Since then, he has consistently performed at a very high level and is considering an extremely solid player. Surprisingly despite having played in several of the same tournaments, this was the first time I ever played him. The game was rather short by my standards as it was a 14 move draw in a Nimzo Indian. Playing morning rounds is always difficult and I was quite tired and played a very dull line which led to a very drawish position.

Unfortunately, while I put up another solid performance scoring 3/4 my team suffered. We only scored 1 win out of our 4 matches with 3 losses. Nevetheless, despite these two rather disappointing performances the playe ... Read More »

By Hikaru on 4/12/2008 4:15 PM

So today I played a rather dull game against GM Kasimdzhanov. The opening was a Meran Slav with 6.Qc2 followed by 7.Bd3. Shortly afterwards queens came off and I held a draw with relative ease. Nothing special, but its hard to complain about draws with black. Tomorrow my team Antibes will face the extremely strong Clichy club (Nisipeanu,Fressinet,Pelletier,Tregubov top 4) and hopefully we can find a way to survive.  I do not yet know who  I will play, but due to the fact that it is a 10 AM game (11:15 PM here now) I probably should go and get some sleep. Till next time, au revior!

By Hikaru on 4/12/2008 3:47 AM

Hello again! So I beat a 2377 French IM with black yesterday to remain perfect with 2/2. Today, I will probably be black against GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov who I beat in the finals of the Corsica Rapid tournament. About the previous post, I attempted to copy and paste the game against Bauer with annotations but unfortunately it did not work. For everyone who is interested, here is a link to the French website with results. http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Equipes.aspx To find the results go to the right tab which shows "selectionnaire une competition" and select "Interclub Adultes" followed by "Top 16" On selectionner division tab. In case this does not work I will post the results from the website thus far.

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By Hikaru on 4/11/2008 12:13 AM

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By Hikaru on 4/10/2008 5:53 PM

Since it is going on 1 AM here in France, I will make this blog brief. Today in the first of four rounds, I beat French GM Christian Bauer with white in an English. This is the second of three legs of the French League Championship and we'll see how it ends. Thus far my team Antibes has not performed extremely well but there is plenty of time. I will blog more in-depth soon, but I am totally exhausted due to my four and a half hour game and several of my teammates having six hour games! Till tomorrow adieu.