Round two of the Bob Brooking Round Robins saw a number of clear leaders emerge in some of the groups. James Morris leads Group A with 2/2 after another comfortable looking win, this time against Malcolm Pyke. David Beaumont leads group B with 2/2 after escaping from a difficult position against Justin Penrose. Group C has Michael Addamo, Peter Fry & Jim Papadinis all sharing the lead on 1.5/2. Gary Bekker & Anthony Harris share the lead in Group D with 2/2, while Michael Hain is the sole leader in Group E with 2/2. Although some of these leaders were the pre-tournament favourites, there are a few surprises in there, particularly Michael Hain leading group E after beating the pre-tournament favourite Jason Chew in round 2.
My own game in round 2 was like many other games that I have played throughout my chess career ... a promising start becomes a good middlegame, and I then proceed to stuff up an attack, miss a defensive move by my opponent & lose horribly. I played the opening a bit unusually, but managed to win an exchange fairly early. I then played aggressively & got a good attacking position, but rather than exchanging some more pieces off, I saw some ghosts & missed a strong continuation, so rather than playing 28.Nxd4, I went for the complications of 28.Qg5, which allowed black to have connected passed pawns in the centre. This made my attack need to be precise, so although Ng3 would have been better, Nf4 was also OK, but Qh5+ needed to be played before f6, as I missed the defensive resource Qc5, which turned the game around & made the central pawns a real threat.
The game of the round in the A group once again sees James Morris playing very logical chess to slowly dismantle Malcolm Pyke's position.
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