Picking up where I left off almost a month ago, after my ugly thrashing at the hands of A. Mann in the Reno CC June Swiss I played the son of Arlo, James Mann (1538) the following week and for perhaps the third time since 1983 (in a tournament game) I ventured 1. e4 and ended up losing an interesting Sicilian where I played a kind of English Attack (f3, g4) and finally came out second-best in the wild and wooly complications that followed.
That at least was a fight, but the next week as black against R. Arteaga (1407) things reached a nadir, a low point, a climax of bad form. Or just idiocy:
1. e4 d5 2. ed Nf6 3. Bb5+ Bd7 4. Nc3? Nxd5 5. Nxd5 Bxb5 6. c4 Bxc4 7. Qa4+? b5 8. Qa5 Qxd5 9. Qxc7 and now any reasonable move stays a piece up with what I would certainly characterize as a dream position after nine moves as black...and of course his Queen can't do anything all by itself (can it?); so let's look for the killer...9. ... Qxg2 ????????????? 10. Qc8 mate 1-0
Okay, I won't even try to explain. The game will live in infamy.
After a week off with some traveling and participation in a wedding in Seattle I was back last night, playing C. Christiansen (1525) with black and drawing. He had an edge the whole game, won a pawn and was probably winning, but I scatched and clawed and fought and finally he went into a pawn ending and it turned out that despite appearances, it was a draw! So kudos for fighting spirit, but it wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I wanted to whup up on somebody. But a lot better than two weeks ago!
Some games, and Part II of my thoughts on annotations coming soon.
