I thought the chess season was over, but apparently, some of us are still free to play chess on Monday evenings. And so Sid and I are playing every Monday now, until I leave for the summer in July. We should hopefully have 7 games, which we’ll play at the Upper Canada Academy on Brock Street (which is why we’re calling it the “Upper Canada Series”).

Anyway, game 1 ended today, with a loss by me on White. Congratulations to Sid on the early 1-0 lead, of a 7-game series, hopefully.

I played e4 as White, and Black responded with the sicilian defense. I thought I’d play the Grand Prix Attack, which is a favorite of KingsCrusher, a chess commentator whom I follow on YouTube. Black played an unusual e5 on move 2, with a morocy bind type structure. I don’t think I played the opening very well. Here are some things to remember for next time:

1 – I should play the g4 push earlier in the game. The Grand Prix is all about attacking on the King side with tempo.
2 – I should not open up the queen side in this opening. Expanding on both sides of the board make me susceptible to infiltration.

I think those were the 2 main problems with my play in this game. You can check out my full commentary here:

http://www.azroykandan.com/2012_UpperCanadaSeries.html

I’ll get you next time, Sid!