Today I played the first game I was happy with of the tournament. Perhaps I missed the most accurate moves in a couple of positions but overall I saw a lot and the moves seemed to flow quite well. My opponent played the Fianchetto Variation against my Kings Indian. I’ve got quite a good score with the Gallagher Variation but I tried a new idea that I looked at a couple of months ago and reached a good position out of the opening. My opponent was obliged to sacrifice a pawn to defuse my initiative and then played inaccurately allowing me to pick up another pawn and exchange into a winning endgame. I’ve attached the game below which I’ll probably annotate for ChessBase.
We had a quiet night tonight, a couple of drinks at the Sport Bar and then dinner as we have two games tomorrow; the first starting at 9.30am. Wish me luck!
###pgn###[Event “Reykjavik Open”] [Site “Reykjavik ISL”] [Date “2011.03.11”] [EventDate “2011.03.09”] [Round “3.19”] [Result “0-1”] [White “Jacob Carstensen”] [Black “Gawain C B Jones”] [ECO “A49”] [WhiteElo “2332”] [BlackElo “2578”] [PlyCount “96”] 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. O-O d6 6. c4 Nc6 7. Nc3 Rb8 8. d5 Na5 9. Qd3 c5 10. e4 a6 11. Rb1 b5 12. cxb5 c4 13. Qd2 axb5 14. Nd4 b4 15. Nce2 Ng4 16. b3 c3 17. Qc2 Qb6 18. h3 Bxd4 19. Nxd4 Qxd4 20. hxg4 Bxg4 21. Be3 Qg7 22. f3 Bd7 23. Rfd1 f5 24. Bd4 Qh6 25. a3 fxe4 26. f4 bxa3 27. Qxc3 a2 28. Rb2 Qh5 29. Re1 Qxd5 30. Rxa2 Nxb3 31. Bf2 Qc6 32. Qxc6 Bxc6 33. Bxe4 Bxe4 34. Rxe4 Rb7 35. Rae2 Kf7 36. g4 Nc5 37. Bxc5 dxc5 38. Kg2 Rd8 39. Rc2 Rd4 40. Rxd4 cxd4 41. Kf3 d3 42. Rd2 Rd7 43. g5 Ke6 44. Ke4 Rd8 45. Rxd3 Rxd3 46. Kxd3 Kf5 47. Ke3 e5 48. fxe5 Kxe5 0-1%%%pgn%%%