The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

**Bob Armstrong** · Sunday, 15th July, 2012, 08:38 AM

TIO - Day 1 - Pre-Rd. 1

Now added to the list of top titled players are IM Artiom Samsonkin and IM Arthur Calugar. This brings the GM/IM total to 7 players. Looking like it should be a battle for first in the Crown section.

There are now 29 pre-registered players in my U 1900 section, and I am still on the bottom!:(

I hope to post my full Day 1 blog, reporting on Rds. ! & 2, late this evening, before midnight, hopefully.

Bob

**Zeljko Kitich** · Sunday, 15th July, 2012, 10:22 AM

Re: TIO - Day 1 - Pre-Rd. 1

Originally posted by Bob Armstrong View Post

Now added to the list of top titled players are IM Artiom Samsonkin and IM Arthur Calugar. This brings the GM/IM total to 7 players. Looking like it should be a battle for first in the Crown section.

There are now 29 pre-registered players in my U 1900 section, and I am still on the bottom!:(

I hope to post my full Day 1 blog, reporting on Rds. ! & 2, late this evening, before midnight, hopefully.

Bob

Don`t worry, you fight best when you fight uphill :)

**Bob Armstrong** · Sunday, 15th July, 2012, 10:36 AM

Re: TIO - Day 1 - Pre-Rd. 1

Hi Gerry:

Thanks for the words of wisdom - I'm definitely going " uphill " in this one!!

Bob

**Jordan S. Berson** · Sunday, 15th July, 2012, 11:53 AM

Re: TIO - Day 1 - Pre-Rd. 1

Bob,

I used to always play up one or two sections when I grew up in Montreal. My rationale was simple: A 5-round tournament for $50 meant that I would get at least three or four full slow games against higher-rated players for only $10 per game.

Also, even the top player in a U2000 tournament is not always the favourite, so fighting for a win in each game to try to win prize money added unnecessary pressure. My wins against much stronger opponents would be brilliant, my losses would be lessons, and I would always go home from the tournament with way more than $50 worth of valuable knowledge and satisfaction- especially when I would analyse my games afterward and the big players would chip in their analyses.

Just keep your eye on the goal by maximizing what you can learn from your games, rather than pressuring yourself to win every round. In the long run, your losses will turn into lessons, and your lessons will turn into wins ;)

Good luck! Jordan

**Erik Malmsten** · Sunday, 15th July, 2012, 02:13 PM

Re: The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

I assume that there were a couple of late entries today (Ed Zator and Greg Beal?), but based on this list, Bob, you have to play 4 of the 6 FIDE-rated players to get your first published FIDE rating. Luckily, you don't have to beat any of them, as they will be tough opponents. But you may not meet enough of them.

The 20 unrated-FIDE players will have to score 1/3 against the 6 FIDE-rated players to start a partial rating. There will be a couple of new FIDE listed players.

U1900 Section fide/cfc rating

1880f/1827 John Chidley-Hill
1848f/1864 Carlos Romero
1792f/1859+CO Ian Finlay
1763f/1784 Daniel Zotkin
1708f/1750 Sergey Noritsyn
1669f/1749 Jiaxin Liu

partial 2/7f/1773 Mario Moran-Venegas
partial 1/4f/1724 Nicholas O'Bumsawin
partial 2/8f/1702 Bryant Yang
partial 1.5/4f/1659 Zhanna Sametova
partial 1/5f/1645 Robert Armstrong

unr/1712+CO Benjamin Blium scored 5-4 in the U2000 section of the Canadian Open, but I don't think that section was FIDE rated.

In the U2200 Oleg Tseluiko & David Cohen need to get a point to start their FIDE rating. Stephan Tonakanian just got his first published rating while Ben Olden-Cooligan and Constantine Khayutin will get enough games for a published rating.

The U1600 section will not have any FIDE-ratable games.

**Bob Armstrong** · Monday, 16th July, 2012, 02:18 AM

TIO - U 1900 - Day 1, Sunday, July 15 – Rds. 1 & 2 ( Part I )

TIO – Day 1, Sunday, July 15 – Rds. 1 ( 12:00 PM ) & 2 ( 6:00 PM )

Wee Hours of the Morning - Introducing the Blog

I posted the introduction for the blog ( above ) here on ChessTalk at about 1:00 AM Sunday morning.

Later in the Morning

At prior Canadian Open tournaments, and most weekend tournaments, my sleeping goes into “ tournament mode “. This means I often get only 4-5 hours sleep. And it doesn’t seem to matter when I go to bed, or how tired I am. My eyes just flutter open, and I am rested. And it generally seems that I am not overly tired by the end of the day ( though I’ll be 67 years old later this month ). So I went to bed at 12:30 AM this morning, and lo and behold, I’m wide awake at 5:30 AM – starting the sequence off with 5 hours sleep, with the first two rounds to play today. May as well shower, and get at life!
Afterwards, I went to my trusted friend, Robo, my computer, to do some prep work for keeping this blog. First was to get the obligatory morning coffee. Second task – get the most up-to-date pre-registrations for my U 1900 section ( I am rated 1645 ). The TD, Aris Marghetis, of Ottawa, had kindly posted early this morning ( after I went to bed ) the latest update as of 7:00 PM Saturday, when pre-registrations by on-line had closed – 29 players in my group. So I was able to make up my score chart for my section, where I fill in the results and standings as the tournament progresses, to report on it all here, in the blog.

Next was to do a partial draft of my Day 1/Rds.! & 2 blog – I try to type up the template as much as possible during the day, before the round begins, so that in the late evening and early hours of the next morning, I have much less to do, to complete the day’s blog and post it, hopefully that evening, or early next morning. Some of this will depend on the system the TD has for pubic posting of results of rounds, and the time of that. I will not likely be able to get results for all games from the results page being filled in in the tournament hall, or not at all if the results are given in by “ results card “. We’ll just have to see how it all goes.

Got some breakfast, and then continued the partial draft blog. About 9:30, I continued entering games from Rd. 6 of the Scarborough CC Spring into Summer Swiss. I do this as a volunteer effort at my club, serving as Chair of our SCC Games Database Committee. At the end of each tournament, the tournament database of SCC member games is sent out to each member, to be able to play over the games of other members during the tournament. I intended to finish off at 10:15 AM, and then start to prepare to leave for the playing hall by public transit..

One point of some interest, is that when I play in a longer tournament, my wife of 41 years hightails it out of sight to our Meaford farm for the week. She says I’m useless while playing, and better to be off enjoying her gardening and reading! So, as a result, I’m alone. But when we did renovations two years ago, we added a small guest room in the basement. So Mario Moran-Venegas, a chess friend from my chess club, Scarborough CC in Toronto, who is playing in the same U 1900 section, is going to make a reappearance in this blog, in his somewhat glorious role of chess companion! Mario is from out-of-town, and so this works well for him. He came and stayed with me during the 2011 Toronto Canadian Open, and gained some notoriety during his blog role at that time. We look for great things from him again this year! He checked in with me on Sunday night to confirm we were still on ( concerned about the Annex air conditioning – I don’t know if it is air conditioned – it wasn’t when they first started holding weekend tournaments a few years ago ). I said I’d see him at the playing hall before Rd. 1.

The U 1900 Favourites

As I mentioned, there are 29 pre-registrations in my section ( and there likely may be a few last minute on-site registrations, to be added to the following list ). I’d have to consider the 1800’s on the list, the favourites, being the highest rated – there are at pre-registration: 8 1800’s, 15 1700’s, and 6 1600’s. There were 5 on-site registrations with one being in the 1800’s, and the other four in the 1700’s ( the section now totaled 34 players, with me still on the bottom ). So, here are the 9 1800’s who we’ll be watching, until some from the pack jump up into the lead as well:

Chen, Richard 1880
Romero Alfonso, Carlos 1864
Finlay, Ian 1859
Zhong, Joey 1847
Preotu, Rene 1838
Xu, Jeffrey 1832
Oganesyan, Hayk 1829
Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Coren, Daniel 1821

Off to Battle!

The TIO is being played at the Annex CC, 918 Bathurst Street, just north of the first signal light north of Bloor ( and just north of the Bathurst Subway Station ). I live near the Greenwood Station, on the Danforth side of the Bloor-Danforth east/west subway line. So getting to Annex is pretty easy….generally. But today, the happy little Toronto Transit Commission ( TTC ) has decided they need to do work on the subway tracks from Broadview ( 4 stops west of me ) to St. George Station ( 5 further stops west ). Bathurst Subway station is then just 2 stops west of St. George! There will be shuttle buses running along Bloor from Broadview to St. George - my prior experience with this is tremendously long lines, and too few buses – in other words, a long wait. But there is no way to avoid this problem. And it seems it is just in the morning, since service is apparently supposed to resume at 12:00 PM – too late for me! So I decided to leave for the playing hall at 10:30 AM to give myself some wiggle room – the Rd. 1 starts at noon ( what Rd. 1 ever gets off on time? ). I socked a good book into my bag.

But at about 10:00 PM, Mario called to say he was coming from Angus, a little over an hour from Toronto, where he lives. He intended to go to the playing hall and park there for the day ( and then go park at his daughter’s for the rest of the tournament – parking around Annex is not easy - and then come to my place ). So he said he could pick me up in about a half hour, and we could go to the hall together. He had waited ‘til he was close to Toronto to call on this, since you can never be sure if there might be a back-up on the Hwy 400 he takes to Toronto, and if there was a problem , he wouldn’t have had time - I was saved! So I continued to enter the SCC games until he arrived. My great wife called soon after from our Meaford farm, where she was hiding out from my chess, to wish me luck – she knows I need it ( since Jan. 2011, my rating has plummeted from 1811 to 1645 )!! Mario showed up, true to his word, at around 10:30 AM. He got himself settled in the guest room, and we were off to the hall at 11:00 AM!

Pre-Rd. 1

While waiting for Rd. 1 to get paired, and started, I saw a number of familiar faces, and chatted with some friends. Also said “ Hi “ to a number of juniors in my section, who are from my Scarborough CC ( and all of whom have defeated me in our last encounters! – nothing like a challenge ). The hall was nicely set up, with tablecloths on all the tables, giving all us patzers the sense of “ professional chess “. Rd. 1 got going relatively on time, at about12:20 PM.

Continued in Part II below

**Bob Armstrong** · Monday, 16th July, 2012, 02:19 AM

Re: TIO - U 1900 - Day 1, Sunday, July 15 – Rds. 1 & 2 ( Pt. II )

Part II ( continued from above post )

Rd. 1 Results in U 1900 ( Top Boards )

Noritsyn, Sergey 1750 1 - 0 Chen, Richard 1880
Romero Alfonso, Carlos 1864 ½ – ½ Liu, Jiaxin ( Dora ) 1749
Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748 1 – 0 Finlay, Ian 1859
Zhong, Joey 1847 1 – 0 Wang, Eric 1724
Prost, Bernie 1721 0 – 1 Xu, Jeffrey 1832
Oganesyan, Hayk 1829 ½ – ½ Blium, Benjamin 1712
McNelly, Peter 1703 0 – 1 Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Coren, Daniel 1821 ½ - ½ Yang, Bryant 1702

My Rd. 1 Game/Result

Nickoloff, Steve 1- 0 – Armstrong, Robert

Post Rd. 1

The Scarborough CC contingent of Mario, myself, Doug Gillis, Dinesh Dattani, and Ken Kurkowski, all decided to go out to a local Bathurst restaurant for early dinner shortly after 4:00 PM – some games were still continuing ( the time control is Game/90 + 30 sec. increment - the increment is always a wild card in tournaments, since a tough game can theoretically go on forever, and run into the start of the next round, and delay pairings for the next round ). Then Mario, Ken and I went to have a coffee at the Green Beanery, on Bloor, before the next round. Rd. 2 started on time at 6:00 PM

Rd. 2 Results in U 1900 ( Top Boards )

Only 3 of the 9 favourites won their first game! They were joined by six 1700’s who had won:

Maheux, Pierre 1776 0 – 1 Zhong, Joey 1847
Xu, Jeffrey 1832 0 – 1 Yu, Patrick 1781
Chidley-Hill, John 1827 1- 0 Nickoloff, Steve 1769
Zotkin, Daniel 1784 1 – 0 Noritsyn, Sergey 1750
Preotu, Rene 1838 ( .5 ) 0 – 1 Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748

My Rd. 2 Game/Result

Armstrong, Robert J 1645 1 – 0 McNelly, Peter 1703

I now had climbed back to 50%! I was no longer on the bottom!

Standings in U 1900 After 2 Rounds ( the 5 with perfect scores – 2/2 )

Zhong, Joey 1847
Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Zotkin, Daniel 1784
Yu, Patrick 1781
Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748

The Leaders Rd. 3 Pairings Get Tough – Winners Play Winners ( Starting Favourites in Bold )

Zhong, Joey 1847 – Zotkin, Daniel 1784
Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748 – Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Yu, Patrick 1781 – Zhang, John 1773 ( 1.5 )

Heading Home
Mario finished his game a bit early ( a loss ), and so had some time to go park his car for the week at his daughter’s, not too far away. I had finished when he returned. The games concluded a bit after 10:00 PM, and Mario and I headed out to the Bathurst Subway Station to head back to my place

Late Hours of the Day 1

Mario and I got home about 11:00 PM. We were starved, so I cooked us up some hotdogs, while we both guzzled a beer, and chatted about our games. Then Mario went to settle into the basement guest room, and I headed upstairs to my study, and my trusty computer, Robo, to finish this Day 1 blog, and post it here on ChessTalk, and repost it on the Cooperative Chess Coalition ( CCC ) Facebook chess discussion board, CCC – Chess Posts of Interest. It got posted in the wee hours of Monday morning.

Invitation.

Finally, I'd like again to invite everyone to join into the discussion - any comments, suggestions, questions, criticisms of the blog are welcome - and of anything to do with the Toronto International Open. I will try to respond where it seems appropriate.

Bob, Intrepid Warrior!

**Normand Arsenault** · Monday, 16th July, 2012, 01:11 PM

Re: The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

I enjoy this blog Bob.

Please continue with it for the remainder of the tournament.

Norm

**Bob Armstrong** · Monday, 16th July, 2012, 02:12 PM

Re: The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

Hi Normand:

Thx for the positive feedback. It is fun to do, and encouragement makes it even more fun!! Glad you find it of interest.

Bob

**Bob Armstrong** · Tuesday, 17th July, 2012, 01:22 AM

TIO -1900 - Day 2, Monday, July 16 – Rd. 3 - Part I

TIO – U 1900 - Day 2, Monday, July 16 – Rd. 3 - Part I

Wee Hours of the Morning

After Mario and I analyzed our games from Rds. 1 & 2 ‘til about 12:30 AM, I came up to complete and post my Day 1 Blog, and catch up on some of the outstanding work on some of my chess volunteer time. I got to bed at 2:40 AM.

The U 1900 Favourites ( 1800 & Over ) - 9 – How Are They Faring?

Chen, Richard 1880 – 1 ( junior )
Romero Alfonso, Carlos 1864 – 1.5
Finlay, Ian 1859 - 1
Zhong, Joey 1847 – 2 ( junior ) ( co-leader )
Preotu, Rene 1838 - .5
Xu, Jeffrey 1832 – 1 ( junior )
Oganesyan, Hayk 1829 – 1.5 ( junior )
Chidley-Hill, John 1827 – 2 ( co-leader )
Coren, Daniel 1821 - .5

The Current Leaders

It is interesting to note that only 2 of the 9 favourites are currently co-leaders – it is proving a tough tournament for them. It may indicate the small strength range between 1600’s and 1800’s, where there are so many upsets. The higher-rated’s do not dominate the field. There are 34 in our section, and I still am guarding the rear of the column!

Zhong, Joey 1847 ( junior )
Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Zotkin, Daniel 1784 ( junior )
Yu, Patrick 1781 ( junior )
Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748

Later in the Morning of Day 2

I’ve mentioned before that I do not generally sleep a lot – 1:30 AM to 7:00 AM is quite common – 5 ½ hours sleep seems to do me. But when I play in chess tournaments, it is even less. Sunday morning I got 5 hours sleep. This morning, though going to bed at 2:40 AM, I awoke at 7:00 AM – less than 4 ½ hrs. But amazingly ( is it the adrenaline? ) I seem rested, and am not tired at the end of playing a long game at night. Don’t know if this will continue as I troop on into the future ( I’m 67 years old later this month ), but I’ll not complain! More time to live !!

So I got the obligatory morning coffee, and said “ Hi “ to Robo, my trusty computer friend, and checked out some of my chess stuff that I do with some of my volunteer time – CFC Governor; OCA Governor; Greater Toronto Chess League Board of Directors, Scarborough Chess Club ( SCC ) Newsletter editor, and Chair of the SCC Games Database Committee, and Coordinator of the chess discussion promotion group I founded, Cooperative Chess Coalition ( CCC ), which operates the most interesting and active chess discussion page on Facebook! Then I began doing a partial draft of my Day 2 Blog, to be completed late tonight after I get home from Rd. 3

.After than, I started entering my game from Rd. 1 ( I lost, but early this morning, Mario pointed out where he though I’d missed a win, and it appeared good to me – but later analysis by Fritz showed it didn’t work ). I then use Fritz 13 to analyze my games. But I don’t do it on “ full analysis “ over an extended period of time. I do it individual move by move – I use a system I have developed called the “ Comprehensive Game Annotation System ( CGAS ). It is more elaborate than most annotators use.

After I enter and analyze my games, I use a public game database storage website for all my games – Chess5 ( www.chess5.com ). I will in due course be posting my analyzed games there, and, if interested, you will be able to go there to see them and to see what my CGAS annotations look like. As I’ve said in prior Canadian Open blogs in prior years, I like to think “ class “ games have some interest. I believe in some ways they are more educational to class players than GM games, if properly annotated. They are understandable, because we all think similarly – GM moves are many times incomprehensible to us class players. For years now, I’ve used this chess website, Chess5 ,as my own personal chess games blog, for this very reason – I have gotten to know the owner/administrator Eydun, quite well over the years. I introduced Canada to his website, after I first saw it. Canada is now one of the main posters to this on-line databank. I hope that my “ Comprehensive Games Annotation System “ makes my “ class “ games even more helpful to viewers. Click on the heading link “ public games “. and you get a list of games posted this month so far ( hopefully it will include mine from this Open soon ).

About 9:00 AM Mario surfaced from the basement guest room, for his morning wake-up coffee. Then he went to enter his Rd. 2 game into Chess5 as well ( without annotations ). A bit later, I heard him kindly pitching in to do the dishes ( many of which were mine from before he came ( I had been batching it for a few days prior to the tournament ) ! ). At 10:00 AM I cooked us up bacon and eggs ( Mario on toast detail ). In the process, my wife called to see how I was doing, and wish me luck in Rd. 3 tonight. But the real reason she was calling was to give me an opportunity to wish her a “ happy birthday “! I had to plead with her that I had in fact remembered, and was going to give her a call after our breakfast – I think I was believed! After that, Mario and I reviewed my Rd. 2 win. This led us into unduly lofty discussion. “ What does White have on move 1?? “ I said “ initiative “, but no more – the position after any first move for White is at best within the computer statistical range of equal ( 0.00 to 0.25 ), with Black playing perfect defence. But Mario disagreed! As does Fritz 13! Fritz says after 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 that White has a “ slight “ advantage – over 0.25!! Mario agreed – he feels though that with perfect Black defence, White’s advantage is whittled down to nothing by about move 14, even with White making no mistakes. I have always maintained that “ human “ chess history has postulated that with perfect Black defence, the best White can achieve is equality, and if both play a perfect game, the outcome is a draw. Lofty concepts!! What view do you take – agree with me or Mario??? Post your responses in my blog, and become “ notorious “!!

By 11:30 AM we had both worn each other out, and Mario returned to the basement to set up a lunch with his daughter, but it turned out to be a bad time for her, since she had a dental appointment. I went back to analyzing my game with Steve Nickoloff in Rd. 1 – my system makes an analysis of a single game very time consuming! But I think it is worthwhile, on a cost-benefit analysis!

The Afternoon

I continued to analyze my Rd. 1 game, and saw that I did have a slight advantage in the middlegame with my K-side attack. This required another coffee, given the excitement of this discovery!! Mario by now had migrated to the back deck with his chess board and was playing games out of “ Chess for Zebras “ ( think I got this right ), and happened to be looking at a Tal-Keres game when I came out to say “ Hi “. Then back to the analysis.

Given that it is my wife’s birthday today ( no, I won’t give away her age – I know – captive to past stereotypes – but I value my life! ), the licence plate sticker on her car expires today of course – and she’s up at our farm – so dutifully I trooped off to the Service Ontario office at 2:30 PM, and to get some coffee ( Mario and I had finished the little I had left ), and then to the bank to pay bills! I got back about 4:15 PM, and Mario was still reading out on the deck – good book he says – about adult learning, and using chess as the vehicle to convey the information. I made a sandwich for an early dinner , and went back upstairs to continue my Rd. 1 game analysis, and blog draft for Day 2 ( today ).

Off to Battle!

At 5:00 PM Mario and I headed out for the playing hall by public transit – only took about ½ hour from my place to Bathurst Station – time enough to go get a large coffee at the Green Beanery, to get me going for Rd. 3.

Pre-Rd. 3

Chatted with Geordie Derraugh, Alex Ferreira, Marcus Wilker, Ken Kurkowski, Jack Maguire, and a few others prior to the start of the round, which began a bit after 6:00 PM.

Rd. 3 Results in U 1900 ( Top Boards )

Zhong, Joey 1847 0 - 1 Zotkin, Daniel 1784
Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748 1 - 0 Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Yu, Patrick 1781 1 - 0 Zhang, John 1773 ( 1.5 )

The two leaders out of our 9 initial “ favourites “, Joey and John, have fallen by the wayside! We now have no 1800’s among the co-leaders.

My Rd. 3 Game/Result

Coren, Daniel 1821 1 – 0 Armstrong, Robert J.

Standings in U 1900 After 3 Rounds

1/3 – 3 pts.
Zotkin, Daniel 1784 - junior ( member of my Scarborough CC )
Yu, Patrick 1781 - junior
Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748

4 – 2 ½ pts.
Romero Alfonso, Carlos 1864

Continued in Part II Below

**Bob Armstrong** · Tuesday, 17th July, 2012, 01:24 AM

Re: TIO -U 1900 - Day 2, Monday, July 16 – Rd. 3 - Part II

Part II - Continued from Post above

The Leaders Rd. 4 Pairings

Zotkin, Daniel 1784 ( 3 ) – Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748 ( 3 )
Zhong, Joey 1847 ( 2 ) – Romero Alfonso, Carlos 1864 ( 2 ½ )

Note: Co-leader, Patrick Yu ( 1781 ) took a bye in Rd. 4 .

Post Rd. 3

My game with Daniel was very interesting, and at one point, quite a complex attack by me as Black, though down material. We went to the skittles room to do a post-mortem. We were initially joined by a friend of Daniel’s ( Omar? ), Ken Kurkowski of my Scarborough CC, and Hugh Siddeley of Annex CC. Various people then came in and out as we struggled with the critical position – everyone who came up immediately thought I had a crushing attack but it was hard to find – Daniel had his pieces well-placed to defend against all the tactical sacks possible. Bill Evans, former SCC’er, came by and tried a few ideas…unsuccessfully. Mario then cam over. Then the Canadian Champion, GM Bator Sambuev, who was sitting at the next board, waiting to help a junior analyze his game, looked over and found the position so interesting, he leaned over and started analyzing it – he then tried out a sac idea, which was not bad, though I still ended up losing, but not nearly so badly. Then Erik Malmsten came along, and he had a chess program on his phone, so he inserted the position – and lo and behold, one of the lines it followed had a number of Bator’s ideas in it, though it was a bit better, but I was still losing.

After that, I went out to copy down some results for this blog, and got into an interesting lengthy discussion with Ted Winick, moving force behind the Chess Institute of Canada, which founded the Annex CC, and which was organizing this tournament. Then Mario and I watched the last U 1900 game in the hall, between juniors Hayk Oganesyan and Sasha Cuchin ( who’d defeated Mario in an earlier round ). A win by either of them would put them in a tie for fourth, but it ended in a draw.

Heading Home

So Mario and I headed for the TTC about 10:15, and got home at 11:00 PM.

Late Hours of the Day 2

We got ourselves a tasty ham sandwich and settled in for a while to review Mario’s Rd. 3 loss to junior Kevin Yie, of Scarborough CC. About 11:45 PM, Mario headed to bed, and I went up to the study, and Robo, to catch up a bit on my chess volunteering, and to complete my blog for Day 2. With typical efficiency, Aris and his team had had the Rd. 3 Results/Rd. 4 Pairings posted here on ChessTalk at about 11:30 PM. for me to use. I was able to post the blog shortly after 1:00 AM Tuesday.

Some Random Thoughts at the End of Day 2

1.Thanks all around – I think, as chess players, we don’t appreciate enough those who provide us with the competitive chess experience, even if they may be making nominal income. Thanks to Ted Winick and the Chess Institute of Canada for taking this on, IA Hal Bond as organizer, and the TD’ing team of IA Aris Marghetis, Rene Preotu and Alex Ferreira. It is my belief that fewer problems arise, the more these guys do things right. And that enhances the chess experience for all of us!
2. A true chess player learns from his losses – Mario and I both lost in Rd. 3, but we worked hard at not being discouraged. Of course, we both love playing, regardless of result, but it is important to make use of your losses to learn what you had missed. I found many worthwhile ideas came out of my post-mortem with Daniel, and the hordes. Similarly, Mario and I were able to see where Mario might have misjudged in his game ( he had also done a post-mortem with Kevin, and Kevin’s coach, Mikhail Egorov ). The willingness to learn, has to trump the discouragement of the loss.

Invitation.

Finally, I'd like again to invite everyone to join into the discussion - any comments, suggestions, questions, criticisms of the blog are welcome - and of anything to do with the Toronto International Open. I will try to respond where it seems appropriate. I’d also like to thank all those chess players I know, who have encouraged me to keep doing my “ class “ blog, and given me such wonderful, positive feedback over the years. It is fun to do, but this encourages me even more to make it an annual. Some wish the others would not encourage me at all!! LOL I’d note that on ChessTalk, the thread had already hit 584 views, before I even posted this Day 2 Blog! Thanks again everyone, and I hope the blog is somewhat interesting, and entertaining.

Bob - Intrepid Warrior

**Eric Hansen** · Tuesday, 17th July, 2012, 02:21 AM

Re: TIO -U 1900 - Day 2, Monday, July 16 – Rd. 3 - Part II

Hi Bob,

Keep it up! I find all the little details and thoughts about each day very interesting.

**Daniel Coren** · Tuesday, 17th July, 2012, 02:50 AM

Re: TIO -U 1900 - Day 2, Monday, July 16 – Rd. 3 - Part II

This blog is a great idea, Bob (and your game with that Daniel Coren guy does sound interesting).

**Francis Rodriguez** · Tuesday, 17th July, 2012, 02:59 AM

Re: The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

Hi Bob,

I mentioned to both Mario and you at previous Canadian Opens
how much I've enjoyed your blog! It has a wonderfully ambient
charm, and if anything, I regret that Mario and you are not foodies!

A coupla hot-dogs here, cereal or a Molson there, bah!....Ah, you guys
should be feasting over morning analysis on a chess-buffet of Caissa's
finest brekkie offerings - fragrant juices, blueberries 'n cereal, bangers n
mash, hash browns, the sizzle of rashers and yolks swirling in the air!

As for dinner.....:-) Seriously though your blog is delightfully atmospheric
and if you could colour the action with sexy sacs, rampant rooks, kamikaze
queens (okay, I borrowed that from Murray Chandler:-), it would so zing!

Thanks again Bob, for making the time to keep us enthralled!

Francis

The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

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