Reykjavik Open 2014 – Finally an Icelander! (Round 10)
I came to Iceland to play chess but it was only in the last round that I got paired with an Icelandic player! And just to reaffirm my fondness for the people from the north, I won again! So to sum up, I beat 3 Norwegians, 1 Swede and 1 Icelander.
My opponent was an IM, so I was surprised when in the opening he gave me a tempo by 7…Bf5 instead of the normal 7…Bd7. One move later he made another dubious move and I thought I was getting an advantage. In order to avoid a direct attack he sacrificed a piece on move 13. Things weren’t as simple as I thought and he had many tricks based on sacrifices on e3, but after his weak 17h move I managed to stabilise the position and from then on my extra piece made itself felt. Even though the game lasted 43 moves, I never gave him a chance.
I finished the tournament on 7/10 and a shared 11th place. It was a rather uneven tournament in terms of the quality of play. I think I played well in the first 5 rounds, but then my quality dropped in rounds 6-8 and then again I played well in the last 2 rounds. The only regret I have is that I didn’t manage to play stronger opposition as I never got out of the rut of playing players rated around 2300. But that is entirely my responsibility as I missed my both chances to enter the higher eschelons, in round 5 when I drew a winning position and in round 7 when I even lost after his dubious queen sacrifice. I will have to address this issue and draw some conclusions.
The closing ceremony will take place at the Reykjavik City Hall in about an hour. I missed the opening party of the tournament because of my late flight, so let’s see how the closing ceremony will be.