World Open FINAL

I ended up winning in round eight pushing my score to 7-1, and I was facing the only 7.5 in round number nine. If I lost I would get at least $500, a draw at least $1300-$1500, and a win at least $7500, or even $10000. Suffice it to say I won a pawn early, and was better, but it was tough. It came down to me having a knight against a bishop, with us each having two roks on the board, and me having an extra queenside pawn. It would have been very tough to win, but I had real chances. Then I decided to trade the knight off for the bishop, and make my extra pawn isolated, and as soon as I did that the game was a draw. I should have left the minors on and tried to trade rooks, but even that would have been tough. I didn't realize how very drawn the double rook ending was until I got there, but that is ok. It may have cost me $6000, but I am still happy with how I played, and I learned so much by being there (for example my last round game was the first double rook ending I have ever been in in a classical time control game). Anytime you play nine games in a row like that you are bound to learn a lot, and I did. My rating is approaching 1800, and I think that very very soon I am going to officially be an A player.

I may or may not annotate some of my games from the World Open, we shall see. This was mainly set up to lead up to the World Open, but I want to continue to improve from here. Let me know what you guys think (the very few of you who still read this).