For me, the Speigel Cup was quite a chaotic tournament. The rather sunny weather provided a contrast to the stormy conditions inside the hotel. Indeed, even the first round against Jesse Nicholas proved to be difficult, as shown by this position. 

 

 

Here, Jesse missed the simple Nxd5, and if I recapture, he can play c4, exploiting the pin and winning a pawn. 

 

This was not the only problem I had. In my last round against Winston Huang, I happened to get very lucky. 

 

 

Here, I played my knight to e1 intending to play it to g2 to reinforce h4 from sacrifices and to go to e3 and f5, which is a nice outpost. However, neither Winston nor I noticed that the rook on a1 was hanging for two turns until I pointed it out. 

 

In the other two games, one was against Felix Yang, who provided a tough fight after an opening mistake I made. We went into a time scramble, and with one second left, I managed to mate him in the corner with a knight and a pawn. I consider this game to be a revenge game since I lost to Felix last year as white in this tournament. Plus, we are both rivals and go to the same school (although he is two grades older than me).

 

Still, I felt my best game was actually against Zaroug Jaleel, which is what I’m going to be annotating. 

 

I had a lot of fun at the tournament site, doing what I love to do. The atmosphere was one that I hadn’t visited in a while. Ken Ballou sternly telling off the troublemakers. Lou Mercuri sneaking a peak at his students. It was a great event, and I will be sure to remember it.

 

 

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.f3 0-0 9.Qd2 Be6 10.0-0-0 a5 I suspect that Jaleel has prepared for this line considering that he has seen me play this at the Hurvitz Cup. 11.Bb5 Na6 12.Kb1 Nc7 13.Bb6 Qc8 14.Bxc7 [14.Ba4 Nd7 15.Bxd7 (15.Bxc7 Qxc7=) 15...Qxd7=] 14...Qxc7 15.a4 Rfd8 Here we're probably both out of theory. Since he stopped a4, I'm switching plans to play the equalizing d5. 16.Nd5 Nxd5 17.exd5 Bf5 [17...Bd7 is another interesting line. While it exchanges my good bishop, the idea is to take advantage of the weakened a4. 18.Qd3 Rdc8 19.c3 Bxb5 20.Qxb5 Qc4=/+] 18.g4 Bg6 19.h4 Rdc8 20.Rc1 h6 21.g5 h5 22.Rhe1 Bf8 23.Re2 Qb6 Probably the wrong plan. I should have relocated my bishop instead with Bf5 and g6. [23...Bf5 24.f4 g6 25.fxe5 dxe5 26.Bd3 Bg4 27.Rf2 Bg7+/=] 24.f4 exf4 25.Qxf4 Rc7 A nice attack-defense move, planning to hit c2 and to exchange a pair of rooks. 26.Ka2 Rac8 27.c4 A mistake. c3 is a much better positional move, covering the dark squares. 27...Re7 28.Rxe7 Bxe7 29.Re1 Bf8 30.Qe3 Qc7 31.Qc3 Ra8 32.Re3 Bf5 33.Nd4 Bg4 34.g6 Here, I was a bit nervous. g6 weakens e6 which looks bad, but really isn't a problem considering I still have my lightsquared bishop. 34...fxg6 35.Be8 Be7 36.Nb5 Qd8 37.Bxg6 Qd7 38.Qe1 Bf6 39.Be8 Qd8 40.Bg6 Bxh4 41.Qb1 Qg5 A waste of tempo 42.Qe4 Qf6 43.Qe8+ Qf8 44.Nxd6 Bf2 45.Qf7+ Qxf7 46.Bxf7+ Here Zaroug was under time-pressure, and simply blundered a piece. 46...Kf8 47.Re4 Bg3 48.Nxb7 Kxf7 49.c5 Bf3 50.Rd4 h4 51.c6 h3 52.Rd3 Be4 53.Rxg3 Bxd5+ 54.Ka3 h2 55.Rh3 h1Q 56.Rxh1 Bxh1 And as they say, the rest was history. 57.Nd6+ Ke6 58.Nb5 Bxc6 59.Nc7+ Kf5 60.Nxa8 Bxa8 61.b4axb4+ 62.Kxb4 g5 0-1