The 27th New York State Open was held in Lake George from 5/17-5/19. Despite my typically suspect play, I managed to tie for first, so let's have a look at the games.
In round 1 I played a pretty low-quality game but was able to win a drawn major piece endgame against an 1800 player.
My 11.h3?! squandered any hopes of an advantage with white, and after 19. ... Qa8 the game was completely even and should have ended in a draw. The biggest mistake black made was actually trading rooks, because it severely limited his chances for counterplay - this is a good rule of thumb to remember by the way: the side with an outside passed pawn almost always wants trades; the defending side should avoid trades. This is especially true in major piece endgames.
In the second round, I got a dream position out of the opening with black against an expert:
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In round 3 I had to grind down a resilient class-A player. Compared to my first round, this was actually a high-quality game where I was satisfied with the way I played.
In round 4 I played a young expert, and made a disastrous blunder in the middlegame after following through with a bad plan.
Suspicious opening choice, but the reason I lost that one was the strong desire to avoid white's idea of trading pieces with Nd5, so much so that I was willing to put my rook on the horrible c5 square, and I completely overlooked 26.Bd8
In my defense, that same kid also drew the other master in the tournament the following round, so I didn't beat myself up too badly. In any case, I made things a little better by getting a fast win against another expert in the last round.
My next tournament probably won't be for a while, so until next time!
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