Ann Arbor Chess Club

Tonight, for the first time in my life, I came in first place in the Ann Arbor chess club blitz tournament. Five people showed up: me, Jennifer Skidmore, Atulya Shetty, Larry Foti, and Chris Schmidt.

Jenny and I went to a new Thai restaurant beforehand, called "No Thai". It is located on South University and Forest. I liked the food. For those of you who like spicy food, they have five levels of spiciness. I chose the second highest (Yoga Flame). It wasn't too bad. The highest one was called Death -- I was too afraid to try that one.

The blitz tournament was a double round-robin, and I scored 7/8. I lost to Chris Schmidt in the first round, but won my final seven games. This was a tremendous improvement over my previous showing two weeks ago at the city club, where I scored a lackluster 2.5/9.

1 Ho 7-1
2 Shetty 5.5-2.5
3 Skidmore 4.5-3.5
4 Schmidt 3-5
5 Foti 0-8

Round 1: Ho-Schmidt was a Sicilian Dragon by transposition. White lost on time in a nice position.

Round 2: Bye

Round 3: Shetty-Ho was a King's Indian Classical Variation. White accidentally hung a knight (touch move) and did not recover after that.

Round 4: Ho-Foti. White won a rook early on. Black lost on time.

Round 5: Skidmore-Ho was an Alekhine's Defense. White lost on time.

Round 6: Schmidt-Ho was a Danish Gambit.

1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2 d5 6. Bxd5 Nf6 7. Bxf7+ Kxf7 8. Qxd8 Bb4+ 9. Qd2 Bxd2+ 10. Nxd2 Nc6 11. Ngf3 Rf8 12. e5 Ng4 13. Nc4 Be6??



I saw White's 14th move, but missed his 15th move. Oops...

14. Ng5+ Ke7 15. Ba3+ Ke8 16. Bxf8 Bxc4 17. Bxg7 Nd4 18. Rc1 Ba6 19.Nxh7 Kf7 20. Nf6 Nxf6 21. Bxf6 c6. I got lucky this game. Later in the game, Black had a perpetual, but White avoided the perpetual and instead got checkmated.

Round 7: Bye

Round 8: Ho-Shetty was a Sicilian. 1. e4 c5 2. f4 d6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Bb5 Bd7 5. d3 e6 6. O-O a6 7. Bxc6 Bxc6 8.c4 Nf6 9. Nc3 Be7 10. Ne2 O-O 11. Ng3 b5 12. b3 bxc4 13. bxc4 d5 14. e5 Ne8 15. Qe2 dxc4 16. dxc4



In this position, Atulya played 16...Bxf3, I guess because now Qd4+ picks up the rook. I missed this move, but fortunately for me, I found 17.Qxf3 Qd4+ 18.Be3, which blocks the check and now the rook on a1 is protected. There followed 18...Qxc4? 19. Qxa8, and White was up a whole rook. White went on to win the game.

Round 9: Foti-Ho was a Philidor. The game was close, but Black won a pawn and then shortly after that, White lost on time.

Round 10: Ho-Skidmore was some sort of Slav. We got down to a Queen+Knight endgame. Then after queens got traded, my Knight ran rampant throughout the board and wreaked havoc.