This game is from the spring tournament I played in our chess club. I mention the tournament on the blog several times, but I still have something to share with you :)

I think I have never mentioned we have to play 40 moves in 100 minutes and then we have 30 minutes until the end of game. No time increment as you can see.

Personally I have no experience with time increment in serious tournaments. What I like on our system is that each player knows how many time has for the whole game and he has to keep it somewhere in his mind when he thinks about the moves and plans. It is needless to get won position but having 4 seconds on chess clock to win it.

On the other side – when you have time increment you can win those games. The dark side of having time increment is the fact that when you play under the time increment only you are in the permanent time pressure. And it must be hard to play under that pressure (as I wrote above, I have no experience in playing serious games with time increment). And another minus- you can not go to the toilet! :)

OK, back to the game which I want to show you. It is one of my won games. It was it the 11th round. My opponent was another friend of mine – after several years playing in one club you realize that all your opponents are also your friends :)

I wanted to win the game, so I chose Benkö gambit as black. I was able to place my knight on beautiful square d3 during the game and it was really dominating piece on the board. This knight took a lot of space of white pieces and I think it was the main factor why I realize my small advantage and pressure into the whole point later on.

Incredible! Yesterday we could watch the second round of the US Women’s Chess Championship which is played in Saint Louis. None of the games finished by draw again. So far there were 10 games played and all of them finished with win of one of opponents. What a combative tournament!

The standing after 2 rounds:
1.-4. Krush, Zatonskih, Melekhina, Zenyuk 2.0
5.-6. Abrahamyan, Rohonyan 1.0
7.-10. Baginskaite, Foisor, Marshall, Marinello 0.0

The round three contains very interesting game on its schedule. It will be game between Anna Zatonskih and Irina Krush. Just to remind you – Zatonskih is still the US Women’s Champion while Krush finished as the second last year. Does it sound interesting enough?

Here are the games from round2:

The US Women’s Chess Championship started yesterday. The first round was very interesting and we experienced really bloody battles. No one of five games finished by draw!

The game I like the most from the first day is the win of Irina Krush. Irina Krush has the highest rating of the tournament and she is definitely among the biggest favorites of the championship. In the game against Beatriz Marinello she had a small advantage after entering end-game. Her pair of bishop was better than opponent’s bishop and knight. How Irina Krush gathered the whole point from the ending is very nice and useful to study!

I hope we will see more games like this one in the next rounds!

The standing after 1st round:
1.-5. Krush, Zatonskih, Abrahamyan, Melekhina, Zenyuk 1.0
6.-10. Baginskaite, Foisor, Rohonyan, Marshall, Marinello 0.0

Here are the games from the 1st round:

White to move.

Today the US women’s championship will start in Saint Louis. Great occasion for all chess fans in the USA, right? I am sure you watch this event closely at least on the same level as I am going to watch it.

You may remember I post polls on the blog sometimes. It is always good to know your opinion and/or to know who is your favorite player in the tournament/match.

I think, the question of today’s poll is clear – it could not be clearer :)

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Voting is open until July 13rd only! Hurry and vote now! ;)