A new hope. A new day. Saturday. Started out by being 5 min late to the tournament.

So in Friday’s game, I misplayed the opening and ended up going down a Bishop. A great motivation to play better.

So what do I do the next game? Misplay the opening and end up going down a Bishop.

This time it happened early, and I was absolutely disgusted. Would this be my first ever rated loss to a sub-1400 player? The first game was already my worst ever (a 196 rating point difference).

But I had a few advantages: a strong Bishop, a half-open file. Plus my opponent was taking geologic ages to make his moves. If I could string out the game long enough, maybe there was a chance…

Red shirt addendum:

CMoB wondered what was wrong with my shirt (see picture at the end of the post). What happened is this: it’s summer in Houston. It’s hot and humid everyday, around 95F/30C with 75% humidity. And the A/C in my car is broken. Even with the windows down, I was sweating signficantly–it’s not usually an issue because mostly I drive short distances. But the tournament was a good 40 min drive.

Between rounds 2 and 3, I realized I had some powder in the car, so I tried to use that to dry off my body. Of course, some of the powder ended up on the shirt. (On Sunday, I wore an undershirt to soak up any sweat, preventing this problem.)