David:
I started my 5-round Under 120 section on Monday. I was happy with the way that I played. The game was looking like a draw by move 34. However after much further manoeuvring my opponent managed to find a way through to gain his win.
In his second round game, Ben’s position had some positional weaknesses which his opponent managed to exploit to win. Toby had a good attack which led to him having a material advantage going into the the end-game. However, his opponent managed to gradually reduce the advantage, leading to a draw. In Lucian’s game, he made a couple of sacrifices which did not give him enough compensation, arising in a loss for him.
Paul:
Brian Valentine and I were paired in Round 2. Neither of us really wanted that, but we played a proper game and it turned out to be well contested and didn’t contain any major blunders. Let’s hope 1.5/2 will be tactically superior to 2/2.
Meanwhile, in the elite section, the usual suspects lead the way with Adams, Howell and Jones on 3/3. However, Adams was a tad fortunate in round 3!
Imagine you’re Fodor here – you’ve just played 60 moves against a super-GM more than 200 grading points your superior and you’ve had the edge more or less throughout – “… if only I could exchange queens … I know, 61. Qe5 …”. What was Adams’ swift response leading to immediate victory? You can see the solution and the full game at bcc 2018 rd3 Fodor-Adams