Vs. J. Zhang: Queens and Pawns and Diagonals, Oh My!

I did moderately well at the Iowa City Open, with 3.0/4.0. My horrible lack of sleep the night before made things difficult, luckily all four games were pretty straightforward. It also helped that the tournament was only about two blocks from where I live, so I got to go home and rest between rounds. In the third round, I played Jiahua Zhang, a young player who in early 2009 I told Hank Anzis was going to be a strong player sometime in the next few years. Here it is a year and a half later, over 600 points later for Jiahua, and him coming off a nice draw against an expert, I knew I had my work cut out for me. The opening and middlegame of this game were nearly nonexistent. It felt like it just went 1. e4 c5 2. Rxe8+ and endgame. Because of this, there was obviously no room for a flashy attack. So I just did what I always do when I'm playing a dangerous young player, I just out-endgame them. For all my flashy attacks, I actually think my chances are better in any given ending than any given middlegame. Don't get discouraged by this video being about endgames, I still try to keep it interesting by adding in lots of pretty colors. Enjoy and share your thoughts in the comments!

Video: Against Steiner: How do you reach these positions, you maniac?

Finally I have returned to making video posts. I had a rather successful North American Open in Stillwater, OK. I scored a solid 6.0/10.0. Yes, that's right, out of 10 rounds. With 3 wins, 4 draws, 1 loss, and 2 byes, I felt like I played pretty well. Of my games, I believe this one to be the most entertaining, played against expert Tim Steiner in round 7. Since when I made this video, it was over 20 minutes, I chopped off most of the opening, since it was just a ...Bd6 Evans Gambit. That cut it down to 16 minutes of listening to me drone on. If you want a pgn of the game in its entirety with my notes, email me and I will send you a copy.

Upcoming videos

Hi everyone who still occasionally check this! I've been gone a while continuing unsuccessfully to find a job. I've also been working through some personal problems as of late. Hopefully the job situation improves since I am close to having to start repayments on my student loans, but at least the personal problems are all done with for now. That means I can get back to making the super-duper-mega-high-quality videos that you have come to love. I played in the North American Open in Stillwater, Oklahoma over this past weekend and had several games worth making videos out of, so you should be seeing some more activity from me quite soon. I plan on having the first video up sometime tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon my time, so until then you will just have to settle for this text post.