The Bergen Chess Mates had its annual holiday party last night at one of the function rooms of Ridgewood's United Methodist Church on Dayton Street, across from the park. Not everyone attended but those who were receiving a trophy and a cash prize did. It was also awards night for the just concluded 5-round, club championship. I won the U-1800 section with a score of 4 ( 2 draws and 3 wins ) edging out another member for first place via tie breaks.

A 4-round, G10 blitz tournament immediately followed the party, and that took us to almost midnight before all the rounds were done. Once again, good fortune was upon me and I managed to win first place in the non-master section with a score of 3.5 ( 3 wins, 1 draw ). I must be doing something right nowadays, but I don't know what it is. Above is a good faith reconstruction of a position that occurred in one of my games, just to show the winning idea. My opponent moved his rook to f3 to load up on my pawn on f2 and get his rooks connected somehow, but that allowed me to go for 1. Qf3 taking advantage of black's weak back rank. Play continued a bit more, but black could not recover from being a rook down. Nothing brilliant, but it was the winning move.