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.

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January 2009 FIDE Ratings

Here are the rating changes of the current members of GM House:

GM Vinay Bhat: 2495 (-2 from 2497 in Oct 2008)

GM Josh Friedel: 2511 (+14 from 2498 in Oct 2008)

GM Jesse Kraai: 2506 (+4 from 2502 in Oct 2008)

IM Irina Krush: 2457 (+5 from 2452 in Oct 2008)

IM David Pruess: 2422 (no change since Oct 2008; no FIDE rated games)

We generally started working together more starting in December, so the fruits of those labors will show up in the next rating list (April 2009). At the Berkeley event, Irina was the only one to gain any points I believe.