February Aquinas

Hey Everybody! Today I went to a monthly chess tournament at Aquinas Chess Collage. I go to this tournament regularly, and it is very well organized. Thanks to the tournament director, Eugene Brumley for organizing such a fine event, and for Antowine Jordan from the Calvin Tournaments for assisting Eugene.

The tournament went very good for me, and I was happy for it. In my first round, I was playing my friend Bill Ignasiak as white again. He decided to play 1. ...d5 against my 1.d4, and so I headed into a queen's gambit, which he is not used to. He didn't get any advantage out of the opening, but I can't say the game went bad for him. Here's how it went:

Joshua Posthuma - Bill Ignasiak
1571                       1565

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 h6 Black is aiming to stop white's bishop from coming to g5. 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.e3 Be7 6.Bd3 0-0 7.0-0 c5 Gaining equality in the center. 8.b3 a6 9.Bb2 Nc6 10.cxd5 exd5 11.a3 cxd4 12.Nxd4 Nxd4 13.exd4 IQP games... Atleast it means open files. Re8 14.Re1 b5 15.a4 Around now, I have about 5 minutes left (plus a 5 second delay), and my opponent had about 15.  15. ...b4 16.Ne2 Be6 17.Rc1 Qd7 18.Nf4 Bf3 19.f3 Bxd3 20.Nxd3 Bd6 21.Ne5 Qb7 22.Qd2 Rac8 23.Rxc8 Rxc8 24.Rc1 Rxc1+ 25.Qxc1 Qb8 26.Qc6 a5 27.a3 g6 28.Kg2 Kg7 29.Nd7 Qe8 30.Ne5 Qe7 31.Qb6 Bc7 32.Qc6 Qd8 33.Kf2 Ng8 34.Qd7 Forcing the queen trade. Now he either trades or loses a bishop or gets mated. At this point I have about 3 minutes and Bill About 6. 34. ...Nf6? A blunder missing the mate. White to move and mate in 2: 35.Qxf7+ Black Resigns. The checkmate would continue 35. ...Kh8 36.Nxg6#
1-0

The other two games went great for me also, and so I ended the tournament with 3/3. I won $10, and had a fun time. My rating climbed into B class, and I'm now rated 1633! Here are the rating crosstables, and also congradulatins to Adam DeHollander from our chess club who won his section. Even though he has only played chess for 2 months, he is climbing very quickly, and is very talented.

I'll have a post on my next tournament, the Michigan Junior Championships at MSU. Talking about Junior Championships, look on the Holland Chess website for the flyer of the Second annual Holland Junior Championships on the 24th.