Reykjavik City Championship 2011

So the first tournament of 2011 is underway for me. Hopefully I can play more this year than in 2010 where I could only play in 3 tournaments plus the league (two weekends) and one training tournament. The first tournament of the year is traditionally the Reykjavik Championship. This year I am the 3rd seed but the top is very packed and is very strong. I came 2nd last year undefeated with 7 out of 9 so naturally the goal must be to do one better this year! To do that I must dethrone the current two time champion and top seed, Hjorvar Steinn Gretarsson.

The first round went more or less according to plan. Like in a traditonal Swiss the pairings are uneven and #1 plays #36, #2 plays #37 etc. Of those 35 games only ONE wasn't won by the favourite. And it was this one below, a huge upset!

I played myself against a 1691 rated player with white and managed to win in a rather clean game. I analyzed and posted the game on Chessvideos.tv and you can find it here:

http://www.chessvideos.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8117

In the 2nd round again most of the top seeds one their games but there was still one upset as a 1900 rated player (local rating) with no FIDE rating yet beat WGM Lenka Ptacnikova 2317. I don't have the game yet as the broadcast of the game froze.

I also won my game which was a tense Benoni and I had to sacrifice more material than I comfortable with normally ;-) I'll probably make a video on this game as well.

Anyway the 3rd round is friday and the pairings will be up later tonight.  I will probably post my thoughts and my preparation with a timestamp so it will appear just after the game starts (starts 19:30 Icelandic time...I think we have the same clock as for instance the UK right now). Then you can watch the game here:
http://dl.skaksamband.is/mot/2011/STHR2011/r3/tfd.htm

I will post another link if this one is incorrect. The homepage of the tournament on ChessResults is also here:

http://chess-results.com/tnr42716.aspx