A total of 22 players showed up to take part in round 2 of Tuesday Night Action 30. Our feature game this week is a Taimanov Sicilian (reached via transposition from the Kan) between Aditya Shivapooja(1767) and Grant Oen(2147). After dubious play in the opening by White, Black fails to take advantage. The game then enters a very long phase that feels like a really bad day in the stock market. White repeatedly shows an interest in trading when these trades would result in loss of the advantage, whereas his stock would rise if he coordinated his pieces. The two times when trading down would lead to a better endgame for White, he refused to do so. On the flip side, Black, who many times had the opportunity to trade off, decided instead to constantly hold on to his pieces and they continued to lose value. The game continued this way for quite a while until White finally croaked on move 56, and after a slight boo-boo by Black on move 57, White failed to take the final opportunity to draw, and Black achieved a winning Rook and Pawn ending and converted it for the full point.
The game can be viewed below:
Elsewhere in the top section, Black continued to dominate. On board 2, Patrick McCartney(2131) and Dominique Myers(2117) featured a battle where the Kings were castled on opposite wings. Black's attack on the Queenside was far too fast while White could barely get his attack going and Black won in short order. Pradhy Kothapalli(1870) got knocked out by Gary Newsom(2014). David Richards(1641) was taken down by Vishnu Vanapalli(1975). The final board saw the only game won by White as Luke Harris(1585) beat Ali Shirzad(1695).
In the lower section, Carl McKern(1534) grabbed the lead all to himself with a victory over Hashan Hashemloo(1307) while Sampath Kumar(1448) defeated Debs Pedigo(1340) to hold on to second place with a point and a half. Other winners include Kiru Mendez(1640), Carlos Zuniga(1497), and Daniel Boisvert(1089), while Rithvik Prakki(1193) and Sanjit Pilli(898) declared peace.
The current cross table can be viewed here.
After move 45 or so, I stopped notating since I was in time pressure, I actually did go 57...Rb3 58.Rg2 h4! and converted the rook endgame.
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