As the title says, I've been doing my best to prepare for the Denver Open coming up two weekends from now. I've been studying my openings and tactics as per usual however I have fallen short of finishing my Circles on the problems 401-800 in CT-ART. This is mainly due to me getting a new job that has been taking up my time. That being said, I did find some of the problems much harder (difficulty 40+) than I had previously expected. I think for now I will only focus on problems with level difficulty 30 and below until I get them 96% or better. This should be much more manageable and more realistic to actual improvement.
I played at the Denver Chess Club this week for the first time since week 1 of September when I beat Andre Patin(1818 USCF). I had the white pieces against a 1705 rated player and I played much too quickly. We had a nice, slightly tactical middle game that wound up with me having an isolated d-pawn and I made a horrible positional mistake that cost me the game a few moves later. I went home and analyzed the game and learned from my mistakes as much I could.
Last night I was down in Colorado Springs and decided to play in the monthly Panera Bread tournament that runs on Thursday nights. Time control is G/90 + 5d. The tournament only costs $10 for the entire month and since I wasn't there last week I opted to take a bye for that so I could play someone else who had half a point. I was paired with Anthea Carson(co-author of Tactics Time); her USCF rating is 1713. I took my time on my moves and played a damn solid game of chess. I had the black pieces and came out with a full point. Below is my game if you're interested:
