Kamsky - Karagianis, Denver Open 2015

Denver - June. I missed the Friday night (June 12) lecture marathon with Brian and Gata and the following simul while hiking in the North Cheyenne Canyon near Colorado Springs with Emily. Our original intent was to check out Jeff Baffo's recommendation of Seven Falls but it was unfortunately closed for renovations. Maybe they're installing a Starbucks inside one of the mountains?

In fact, the trail we chose was rather poorly thought out. It resulted in 8 miles of up-and-down grueling trail work. Nonetheless, it was beautiful, and I highly recommend a visit and a hike along the Columbine trail (Both lower, mid, and upper if you want to take the real Pepsi challenge).

 All day Saturday it was a struggle to get up from the board. Something between my middle back and right hip (maybe a flexor? idk) was seriously sore and it probably confused an opponent or two to see me elevate myself from the chair like an octogenarian and limp my way out of the playing hall. It turns out that eight miles of near-tree-line hiking was about six and a half miles too many.

 But ok, the tournament began and sooner rather than later I found myself behind the roped-off boards battling Super-GM Gata Kamsky in the third round. I asked Brian to hold off e-mailing the moves to the list until I could get a .pgn of the game formulated with a few notes, and he kindly agreed. Here it is.