Quarter-finals Round up: Primates 3.5 – Runners 0.5

Playoff Quarter-finals: Primates v Runners U2000

It figures. If we are playing in the 4545 League, we at some point should play the Runners (I believe we have played them a total of 5 times in three tournaments). Pairings will be up on Tuesday, but I suspect that I will face “Chiiwen” again, against whom I have never won (but most if not all the games have ended in draws).

So, you may ask, how did things go?
Everything seemed to go right for us in this round; I am not sure whether that bodes well for the rest of the playoffs --- or not. I played arguably my best round in T42 against an old time nemesis (that is meant in a friendly, jocular sort of way), Chiiwen, We have played 3 times prior and I have yet to notch a win against him (2 draws and 1 loss). In fact the 2 draws were both with me as white and I could not dent his super solid Accelerated Dragon setup. So, knowing that we more than likely would play another Accelerated Dragon AND I would need to push for the win, I spent some extra time coming up with a sharper line to play against it. It seemed to catch him by surprise and I came away victorious in a very tense struggle. Once my game was over, Tom quickly followed suit with a win, then Darren’s opponent forfeited the game, sealing the match victory. In a somewhat ant-climatic finish, Curt and his opponent agreed to a draw before the game started but couldn’t figure how to work out the mechanics to do a “GM draw”, so they played one move and then agreed to split the point.