I’ve decided to play in the 2006 Georgia State Championship from May 5-7 at the scenic Emory University campus. I haven’t played tournaments since last year. I’ll be playing a completely new opening repertoire for the first time (that as of this post I know maybe half of). And I’ll be fighting against the Curse of Emory. So it looks like I have nothing to lose :)
I scored 2.5 out of 5 in last year’s championship. It should be fun!
FM Miles Ardaman
2005 Georgia State Champion
FM Todd Andrews
2004 Georgia State Champion
FM Stephen Muhammad
2003 Georgia State Champion
You were able to convince yourself in 5 days to play in a tourney again! :) Good luck in the championship.
That Todd Andrews looks like quite a phenom. Look through his MSA history back to 1995. He began that year at 1100 and finished it at near-expert. Heck of a year for that guy! He should have written a book called “800 pts in 365 days!”
Comment by CelticDeath — April 17, 2006 @ 5:50 pm
Thanks. I’m looking forward to it.
Yes, Todd is an excellent player. A couple years ago I drove up to the Tennessee Open and didn’t realize until I arrived that I’d have to play in the Open Section. I jokingly told my friend that maybe I’d get paired with someone like Todd Andrews. Sure enough, round one, I’m at board #1 against Todd. After some initial nervousness (a combination of sitting across from a FM and having just drank a 4-shot large latte from the local coffee shop named, I kid you not, Badass Coffee), I actually gave Todd a good fight. I lucked out in that he played a variation of the French Tarrasch I knew 15 moves of theory on, but I eventually messed up what was probably a drawn endgame. I did well that tournament, beating two experts and winning some prize money, but my proudest game had to be the one I lost against Todd, just because I didn’t come off as a patzer in his eyes.
Comment by Chris — April 17, 2006 @ 8:47 pm