By Jim O'Neil

The next five days I only managed 2/5 in Challengers B. A performance rating of 1859, not great.

All games are available from the Gibraltar Chess website.

1. White against a 2120 Dutch player. I played the Jobava London system again. My bishop and queen penetrated the queenside but I ended up nearly getting the queen trapped and lost a piece. No compensation and no tricks led to an early end.

2. Black against a 1987 Moroccan player. Played a Sicilian with English attack. The opening led to a French position and was fairly balanced. I had a plan to go for an attack on the kingside but I rushed it, it backfired and I lost in his attack.

3. White against a 1690 Dutch player. A Scandinavian against e4 which led some tactics in the middle game leading to a mating attack by me.

4. Black against a 2154 guy from Argentina - I came out of the opening slightly ahead - I thought I could create a strong attacking position against his Queenside castled position but looks were deceptive and it was easily defended. I did not recover properly and he overwhelmed me on the kingside.

5. White against a 1702 Polish player. Another Scandinavian. This time black sacrificed a pawn for activity and I just developed. After some complications and exchanges, the position was stable with the extra pawn intact. I tried to limit his black squared bishop on the QS by putting all my pawns on black squares and limit his KS white squared bishop with pawns on white squares supported by the knights. This worked up to a point but as time got short, tactics ensued and he went astray.

Not such a good second week with only 2 wins but still a lot of fun chess. Over both weeks I had 5/10 and a performance of 1945 so I was pleased.

The gap up to 2100+ players still seems too big to overcome.

A new application is available called ChessDrop - I have loaded my games into it. Check it out!!

Jim in Gib