Food and chess

The first round is in the books at Reykjavik. I won my game as Black against Hakan Ostling (2151 FIDE, from Sweden). The tournament is pretty strong for an open swiss. There are about 110 players led by GM Areschenko (about 2675 FIDE); there are about 20 GMs and a lot of players around 2200 – 2400 FIDE. Tomorrow, I’ll probably play someone around 2350 FIDE. The tournament site is here.

One of the things I was worried about before coming to Reykjavik was whether there would be a good amount of vegetarian food to choose from. In France, I generally struggled mightily to find vegetarian food. In Cappelle la Grande, the meals were provided at the tournament site, and while I normally pass on provided meals that aren’t vegetarian, the buses to/from the hotels would leave for the meals and they sandwiched the rounds in between those trips. Meanwhile, in Paris, I had the unfortunate experience of running into the stereotypical Parisian waiter – when asked whether his restaurant had anything for vegetarians (in French), he responded, “This isn’t a pharmacy.” I was served some bread and cheese, along with a small bowl of plain, pureed vegetables.

Here in Reykjavik though, people are in general much nicer. One example is from a restaurant called Caruso from two days ago. GM Yury Shulman (the current US Champion) and I were having dinner there, and Shulman asked the waiter if he could order a calzone (even though it wasn’t on the menu). The waiter said, “Of course. Everything is possible.” Yury was happily provided with the calzone he ordered. The provided food here is also better – at dinner, they have 4 different vegetarian appetizers and 4 vegetarian main dishes to choose from as opposed to the tried and true, plain egg omelet available in Cappelle.

Oh yes, and my game. The diagram is after I just played 17…Nxe6. Rather than be stuck with a bad pawn structure and material equality, White pushed his pawn all the way to e6. However,  that pawn wasn’t going to make it back home:

Ostling played 18.c4, and after 18…Bxc4 (not 18…Bxf3 19.Qxe6 is check, and then he’ll take on f3 next) 19.Bxa8 Qxa8, he had “won” the exchange for two pawns. However, Black was already winning because of his two pawns and the powerful light-squared bishop. White had been kind enough to weaken the long light-squared diagonal with g3 on move 2, so after I rearranged my queen and bishop on the long diagonal, White found himself short of moves and quickly resigned.

Long overdue: The Cappelle la Grande Roundup

This is a few weeks late, but better late than never. The GM House made an excursion to France in February/March 2009 for the Cappelle la Grande tournament. The tournament started on the 28th of February, but we went to Paris a few days earlier to do some sightseeing and the like.

The tournament went alright, which was some relief after a couple bad tournaments in Berkeley and Delhi. I finished with 6.0/9, performing at about a 2490 FIDE clip. I lost two games – as white to Bobras, a GM from Poland, and as white to Graf, a GM from Germany – and drew a pair of games against lower rated players. I beat everybody else (but they were all lower rated). Josh played the best tournament of us, also finishing with 6.0/9, but he played some strong players in the last 4 rounds. David also finished with 6.0/9, although he struggled a bit more at the beginning of the event, while Jesse finished with 5.5/9. Josh was the only one to finished undefeated.

I’m now off on a tour of Europe and Asia. My first stop is for the 2009 Reykjavik Open in Iceland. I arrived a couple days ago, and the tournament starts tomorrow (the 24th). It ends on the 1st, after which I’ll make my way to Spain for a couple events. After that, I’m going to India to visit relatives.