I have been unable to post on this blog in two days due to a hectic tournament schedule and some unexpected trouble with my wheelchair. On Friday night, the joystick on my control box became loose and a safety feature prevented me from even turning the power on. After the round 2 game, my opponent GM Vinay Bhat (photo at top left) kindly pushed the wheelchair to my hotel room. For about 18 hours, I was stuck. Then in a classic moment of engineering, my dad and I stuck our fingers into the joystick, wiggled them around and presto! I still do not know exactly what went wrong.
To make a long story short, I have two wins, one loss to GM Bhat and an emergency half point bye in round 3 for a total score of 2.5/4. I should face a GM or IM on Sunday morning. Kudos to my student NM Steven Zierk (photo at top right) for continuing his undefeated record against Grandmasters by drawing with GM Alex Yermolinsky in the first round. He now has 2.0/4 after losing to IM Enrico Sevillano. My other students are entered in the Expert and A sections--all with mixed results so far.
Check out my Western States Open story on Chess Life Online and the accompanying slideshow on my Flickr album. I hope to update more photos later today.
In other news: Viswanathan Anand leads the World Chess Championship by 2.5-1.5 after winning with black in game 3 on Friday. I have updated the right sidebar after each game. Also, the World Youth Chess Championship begins tonight in Vietnam. Local representatives are FM Danya Naroditsky in U14, FM Sam Shankland in U18 and Alisha Chawla in GirlsU8. I will have more coverage of both major events over the coming weeks.
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