{"id":1247,"date":"2012-01-03T07:47:27","date_gmt":"2012-01-03T15:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=1247"},"modified":"2012-01-03T07:47:27","modified_gmt":"2012-01-03T15:47:27","slug":"good-start-to-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=1247","title":{"rendered":"Good start to 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Year Open ended yesterday on a very positive note for me. After winning zero prizes and having zero good tournaments in 2011, I broke both streaks. I’m not sure exactly which prize I’ll win, but I’m in line for either a tie for third place or top under-2100 or both.<\/p>\n

I don’t have time to show any game analysis, because I am leaving today on a trip to Boston. However, here is what I know about the results.<\/p>\n

In round five I won a nice game against Eric Steger, a class-A player I’ve beaten before. So going into the final round, the standings were:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Milos Pavlovic — 5<\/li>\n
  2. Emory Tate — 4<\/li>\n
  3. Mike Splane — 3.5<\/li>\n
  4. Nicholas Karas — 3.5<\/li>\n
  5. Dana Mackenzie — 3.5<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In addition, I was leading for the under-2100 prize, as all of the other four players are rated over 2100.<\/p>\n

    In the final round, Pavlovic played Splane, Tate played me, and Karas was paired against George Mandrusov, who had 3 points. Against Tate I played an interesting pawn sac and got a lot of pressure. (Against a good attacking player, it always helps if you can sacrifice first!) He offered a draw on move 24, and although I felt my position was better, I accepted because I was not sure that I had a way to break through, and also because a draw was fine with me. I would win a bunch of rating points and secure some kind of prize.<\/p>\n

    Pavlovic outplayed Splane in what Mike said was a very well-played game. He was proud of it even though he lost. I want to congratulate Pavlovic on an outstanding tournament. Although he was rated 200 points or more above anyone else in the field, it is still very hard to go 6-0. I am impressed.<\/p>\n

    The Karas-Mandrusov game was still going on when I left. My handicapping on unfinished games has been pretty bad, but it looked to me like a probable draw, in which Karas seemed to have no hope of winning. If he draws or loses, then I will at least tie for third.<\/p>\n

    By the way, I want to make one correction from my last post: Mike Splane did not forfeit round 4; he took a half-point bye. There must have been some mix-up in communication with the TD, because he was paired for round 4 and his opponent was awarded a full point.<\/p>\n

    Hopefully while I am Boston I will have some time to do a little game analysis. I do have the score of the last-round matchup on board one between Mike and Milos Pavlovic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The New Year Open ended yesterday on a very positive note for me. After winning zero prizes and having zero good tournaments in 2011, I broke both streaks. I’m not sure exactly which prize I’ll win, but I’m in line for either a tie for third place or top under-2100 or both. I don’t have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1363,12],"tags":[1602,1638,2035,1257,2039],"class_list":["post-1247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-news","category-tournaments","tag-emory-tate","tag-mike-splane","tag-milos-pavlovic","tag-new-year","tag-nicholas-karas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}