Minnesota Class Championships, Class D, Round Five

This was the final game for my section. I was on Board 1 versus Chris, a student who played a remarkable tournament.

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Twin Cities Chess League, 2006-07,Round Three

This is an exciting draw featuring an exchange of my Knight for two pawns with the benefit of a very active d-pawn.

Chess Castle, Thursday Knighter IX, Round One

This is a game from September at the Castle. It went from quiet and positional to wildly complex in time trouble for each of us. I lost, but, oh, what a game!

Chess Castle, Thursday Knighter VII, Round Four

I still feel like I'm shaking the rust off my game with this Scotch Game against my opponent. If I played 12. a3, avoiding the pawn loss in the next couple of moves, I would have had an even position against Charles. Regardless, I found it instructional, as we were in the endgame fairly early.

Twin Cities Chess League, 2005-06

Our team, Tal Tales, formed between the second and third rounds. We played five matches and ended up with three draws and two losses between November and March. The last round was Friday, March 10. I played Alan Johnson for the third time in my life. We were 1-1 against each other before this game.

Instead of playing the Smith-Morra that I played against him in the Minnesota Open, I played the standard 2. Nf3. What I thought was interesting in this game was my plan to cramp his postion. This was finalized by my twenty-third move, in which I parked one of my Knights on d5. This gave me time to mobilize my other Knight, one of my Rooks, and my Queen against his kingside. Here is the link to my win against him.

Game 7, Twin Cities Chess League: Erjavec vs Johnson

113th Minnesota Open

During the weekend of February 17th through the 19th, the Minnesota State Chess Association sponsored the 113th Annual Minnesota Open. It was a great tournament, and I highly enjoyed myself. I ended up with 3.0 out of 6 in the Sophomore section with two wins, two losses, a draw, and a half-point bye. I felt good about all of the games, including the two losses.

I drew the first game as Black playing the King's Indian Defense. Game two was an exciting King's Gambit Declined that I lost playing White. In game four I won playing the Scotch Game as White. I played the Dutch against 1.d4 in game five. Although I lost this one, it was highly energizing, as I had to finding a saving move with just five minutes left. Once I did that I had but 45 seconds left in the entire game. I played as quickly and sharply as I could by making 17 moves in that time before a blunder which ended the game for me. In game six I played the main line Caro-Kann as Black and won that. This was a very interesting game, as I was up an exchange, but my opponent had great counterplay. He made an amazing number of moves as he was running short on time. I checkmated him, but he gave it his all in the tense endgame.

Game 6: AM vs Erjavec

This game does not show the final position, as we stopped keeping score. My strategy from that point was to first remove White's pawns at f4 and g5. The final position had his King at c5, his Bishop at e3, his Rook at a7, and one Pawn remaining at a2. I had my King at e6, my Rooks at c4 and b4, and two Pawns remaining at a6 and g4.

A Blackmar-Diemar Gambit

In mid-January, my opponent played 1...d5 against my 1. e4. I did not want to play the Scandinavian, again. (I've played against it too many times, and I wanted some variety). So, I played 2. d4, leading to a very exciting Blackmar-Diemar Gambit.

Erjavec vs M Johnson

An Attacking Game on the Internet

I played one of my friends over the Internet. (There is a link to this site on the Links page). It features my use of a Bishop at c4 to control Black's f7 pawn and an exchange sacrifice of a Rook for Bishop to weaken the pawn structure around Black's King.

Erjavec vs RD, Internet Game.

Minnesota Class Championship, 2005

The weekend of December 3 and 4, 2005, I played in the Minnesota Class Championships at Southdale Mall in Edina.

The event was sponsored by Games by James. (Because they were a sponsor, I stopped in and got a book of sudoku puzzles to work on between rounds.)

Since we only had six people in our section (Class D), it was a round robin versus the typical Swiss pairing. I finished only 2-3-0 for the tournament, and each game was rather intense.

Ours were all G/90 (game in 90), which is a shorter time period than I typically play. Regardless, it was a great time! I have attached all five of my games, as I consider each one instructional.

Round One
Round Two
Round Three
Round Four
Round Five

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A Miniature from April, 2005

Here is a short, sweet game from early last year. I played the Smith-Morra Gambit against the Sicilian. My opponent made one miscalculation which allowed me to launch an attack which led to his early resignation.

Erjavec vs Bayer