After going 1/2 in the first day I ended up taking a bye for round three in order to go to church and to meet up with some people about starting a chess ministry at that church. With high spirits and a full stomach, we did some last minute studying and drove over to the tournament for a 3:30 game. Sundays here in Delray seem to be crazy as I had to park a whole 10 minutes away from the chess club and ended up walking into my fourth round match with 15 minutes already off my clock. Round 3: bye (Score 1.5/3) Round 4 (1360 Opponent): After finally arriving at the tournament I found my opponent and went and sat down for the game. Sitting across from me I would was a player between the ages of 11 and 13. I had the black pieces again for this round and my opponent started off 1.d4. this past week and a half I've done a heavy dive into studying how to play against 1.d4. I've been reviewing course made by the guys over at chessgoals.com on how to play the slav defense versus this opening. We ended up following a line in the Notebook variation that I had memorized and ended up in the middle game with a fairly even position, still holding on to a one pawn advantage that white normally gives us and tries to win back later. It took portions of the middle game to unwind the rest of our pieces and get them developed at which point I would have guessed that we had an even position. After some shuffling of pieces and a minor piece trade, I was able to strike on the queen side. After a poor Bishop move by my opponent. It became a game of my queenside attack versus my opponent's kingside attack. As many would recall my first game, I ended up in time trouble and in this game I ended up with 5 minutes left in my clock by the end of the game. I'll wait for the YouTube video but I was able to get all the major pieces traded off except a pair of rooks and then Queen one of my past pawns. After a couple moves after queenkng, my opponent then resigned. (Score 2.5/4)

Yesterday was the kickoff of the Delray Beach Open. I am currently participating in the under 1800 section and we got to work early in the morning at 11:30. Looking around the room it reminded me of what I've told myself in the past that chest tournaments are full of scholastic kids and older gentlemen and depending on who you play really shaves the type of game you're going to get. For reference, later on the tournament time limit was 2 hours for each player with a 5-second delay on your clock. No increment is added so you can only lose time but never add time. Game 1 (1700 Opponent): Sitting down for game one. I ended up getting the black pieces against a higher rated opponent than me. It was a nice only gentleman that ended up coming late to the game and right as he sat down he played 1. g4 the grob attack. Now earlier this week I started studying a course on the slav defense from the guys over at chessgoals.com and I'm happy that I decided to study one of their chapters that said off beat opening moves. I have probably only seen the grob attack a few times from online play with most of those games just winging how I respond to this opening. The course I was studying had a great response to this opening and I ended up getting a winning position heading into the middle game. The problem though with only studying and opening and not playing it a lot over the board or online is that you don't really get to develop the skills and how to close the game out once you get an advantage in a certain position. This holds especially true for when you're not playing with increment. I had to spend a lot of time on moves in the middle game trying to develop a plan forward, even knowing that I had a winning position. More than likely. This caused me to have some severe time trouble at the end of the game and eventually slipping up and dropping my queen with 7 seconds left on my clock. I'm excited to share this game with you guys on YouTube once the tournament is over and I have time to put together a video. It would have been nice to start off the tournament with a win but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. (4hr+ game time)

It was awesome to finally meet @Damon Phillips and being able to go over one of the Daily games we played against one another as well as one of his swiss games vs. a 2000+ opponent! Looking forward to more calls like this in the future. The Chessable Classroom feature has a lot to offer and definitely will be taking more advantage of the features in the future.

Taken from one of my rapid games today...enjoy this mate in 4 puzzle! I was living off increment the last 7 moves of the game but we ended up closing it out! Lichess Tactics Study: https://lichess.org/study/nGNcq2ce/lvvzBKU4#57 Link to the Game: https://lichess.org/5kUFfu1V

Had the pleasure of playing against Alec this week in my Wed. night rated OTB game....setting the stage for diving into a 6 round tournament this week here in Delray Beach Florida!