Disaster struck early on boards 1 and 4. Larry Stevens showed his deep understanding of the French. The subtle 8. Bd3 gave him a great position against John Hale, a lifetime French player. John erred a few moves later and the game was over. Chris Stychinsky got steamrolled by Gerald Ruiz Morra gambit:
Chris just played 6 … Nf6. How does Gerald punish him?
Hamlet Tovmasyan found himself in a difficult position against me. The opening clearly didn’t go his way. But he defended tenaciously and we reached the following position:
How should black proceed?
Artem Aleksenko and Arturo Armagnac fought a battle with many ups and downs. But it was Artem who made the last mistake
Black has a huge advantage, how can he finish the game?
Russel played a fantastic game against Lisa but stumbled just before forcing Lisa to resign.
Kyan Hsu mounted a ferocious attack against Manu Prasad weakened dark squares and delivered a picturesque checkmate.
David Faulkner and Patrick van Haeren chose the queen’s gambit accepted as their battle ground. David didn’t allow much counterplay by skillfully exploited black’s queenside weaknesses.
Randy Hough and John Wright had one of their ongoing discussions in the exchange Slav which ended in John’s favor this time.
Here are the games with some annotations. Feel free to comment.
Standings and pairings for round 4 can be found here: