Can you imagine? So far, all five Kings Indian games were lost. These are terrible news for me as an avowed Kings Indian fan. I had to decide whether I either try to improve this score or play something else. Shame on me, I decided to try Benoni for the first time of my life. In defense I have to say that I wanted to try this opening for a long time and it seemed to me like the perfect moment. My boyfriend supported me during preparation. He is kind of a Benoni expert although he has no idea about the theory. But he understands the plans and for me this is far more important than knowledge of certain variations.
I summarize my game as follows: the opening was okay, the middle game awful, and the endgame exhausting. Luckily, my opponent – IM Simon Bekker-Jensen – blundered in a better but complicated position. Like yesterday it resulted in a knight-endgame. This time, however, it was easier for me since I was two pawns up. After almost 7 hours my opponent resigned… maybe I´ll get a price for the longest games in the tournament :-).
I recognized I haven´t written anything about the other players so far. To compensate for my selfish behavior I catch up with it now. After five rounds there are two players with four points: IM Matthias Blübaum and GM Vlastimil Babula. Matthias defended Vlastimil today in a very convincing manner and has now some serious chances to win the tournament and to achieve his second GM-norm. IM Twan Burg is with 3.5 points on the third place. He is followed by GM Gennadij Fish, IM Gerlif Meins and me with respectively 3 points. GM Tomi Nyback, who has the highest rating, has only two points. Like him, IM Sven Joachim, FM Dr. Joachim Asendorf and IM Simon Bekker-Jensen are probably not pleased about their results so far.
Let´s see what happens in the last four rounds!