Toledo February Swiss

So everyone bailed out on me, and I drove down to Toledo by myself. I get there at about 10:20 and Jim Jagodzinski, the TD was in the process of taking me out of the pairings. So he put me back in and I asked him what time the tournament started, and he replied 10 o'clock. My bad! I thought the tournament started at 10:30. Anyhow, I was fortunate that the tournament got off to a late start. At least that is what I thought until I saw the pairings. The tournament was posted as a 2 section tournament, with the lower section being U1600. However, there weren't enough players for that. Instead, Jim ran 2 round of accelerated pairings. That yielded some very difficult matches early in the day.

Round 1- White vs. Master John Bidwell (2200)
This was my second match vs. Bidwell, and I think I was white the other game too. John played a Pirc defense against my e4 opening, and the game was relatively even until I got in to some pretty serious time trouble. With less than a combined 3 mintes remaining on our 5 second delay G90 clocks, I resigned.
Overall Record- 0-1

Round 2- White vs. William Rhee (1884)
This was also my second opportunity to play Rhee. Last time I sacrificed an exchange needlessly and carelessly overlooked some winning opportunities before triumphing when Will succumbed to time pressure. Last time we met I was black and played a Tarrasch Defense against his Queen's Gambit. Today he played a Sveshnikov style Sicilian Defense against my e4 opening. I played the same line against Lineas Baze in Jackson a few months ago and wound up with a favorable position. Rhee varied early on from the line Baze played. After I player b4 attacking Will's knight, he found a tricky combination that lead to a series of attacks on my queen. This yielded a knight fork of my rooks. However, I responded accurately with a rook lift on the e-file threatening to pin his queen to his king. Then will played a skewer of my rook and bishop. I temporarily sacrifice the exchange as I calculated that I would also be able to collect a pawn and a knight for the rook. With two pieces for the rook I proceeded to defend carefully, and in the end Will resigned after hanging his queen. In all fairness, Will's clock may have expired at this point, and I think he was trying to play the first move he could find in 5 seconds or less.
Overall Record- 1-1

Round 3- Black vs. Earl Mowery (1146)
This was my first time playing Earl. He opened with the English, and I played the Tarrasch Defense. Earl fianchettoed his bishop light squared bishop on g2, but failed to exchange his c-pawn for my d-pawn before doing this. After castling I decided to capture the hanging c-pawn. He tried to get it back, but I forced an exchange of queens. Some tricky tactics in the middlegame wiped out Earl's remaining queenside pawns, and left me with a 6-4 pawn advantage in a rook endgame. I played this out accurately enough to convert into a win.
Overall Record- 2-1

Round 4- White vs. Jonathan Clinton
This was my first showdown with young Mr. Clinton, whom I expect will imrove very rapidly in the next few years. The opening was a King's Gambit Accepted. Jonathan played the Schallop Defense, but after exchanging knights and giving back the gambit pawn, Jonathan had nothing to show for his first 6 moves. My lead in development was cashed in when I threatened mate on g7, with a bishop on h6 and queen on g3. Jonathan was forced to give up the exchange. I managed to grab a pawn, exchange the queens and escape into an endgame where I had 2 rook and a knight against a rook and he bishop pair. Fortunately I had a couple of extra pawns. In the end, Jonathan exchanged a bishop for the knight and gave me a pair of connected passed pawns with rook sitting behind them. I pushed the pawns down the board for a victory.
Overall Record- 3-1

Oddly, this was enough to win my section, even though there were 2 other players in my section who had 2 points after 3 rounds. However, both of them withdrew, and I stuck around and got to take home the prize money.

David Allen managed a second round win against John Bidwell and agreed to a draw with Richard Shtivelband, and they tied for first with 3.5/4.