One last tune-up before the US Open here in Madison. The tournament attracted 30 players to its open section and another 10 to the reserve section. It was the first tournament for Growth Chess since they moved to their new location on the Westside of Madison. The weather was very hot, so I stayed at the venue for the entire tournament (which it shares with a salon). Certainly the tournament went better than the previous one in June -- of course, I haven't had a worse tournament than the one in June. My initial pairing was with a National Master rated somewhere around 2340. With a rating difference of nearly 800 points, the pairing wasn't really very friendly. Still, I played the white side of a Closed Sicilian. My problem, in the past, is that Sicilian players know to pursue a pawn storm on the queenside and I have had historic trouble repelling that invasion. At two different points of the game I could have leveled the middle game, but passive decision making led to poor results and, eventually, a blunder that cost me my queen and the game. My second pairing was with a 1400-rated player who is also the house assistant tournament director. We played a Ruy Lopez and once again I played too passively with the black pieces. In the middlegame I should have been down a pair of pawns and probably should have also lost. I was surprised to see a rook sacrifice on the board and almost immediately accepted it. It put my king in danger from a pair of advanced pawns, but the extra material proved too much and I won after his hopes for a swindle or back rank mate fizzled out. My third pairing was with a player from Iowa and I had black again. This time I was on the black side of an English Opening and I have no useful response to that. After a combination early in the middlegame, I was down a full piece with a completely unpromising position. That meant that the first three rounds went as they statistically should have. Plus, I was much happier with my play than in the June tournament. In the final round I had white against a Sicilian Defense. I tried a Closed Sicilian against a young girl rated about 1240. This time I had an excellent and seemingly hard-to-stop attack on the kingside. Just the reason I turned to this opening in the past. However, the attack bogged down and I made some poor decisions about piece placement once I realized I wasn't going to succeed at the attack. In response, black pursued a counterattack on the queenside and, once again, I was unable to repel it. My work on the Sicilian Closed needs work. Even though I lost, I was happy with the position I got out of the opening and pleased with my kingside attack. For some reason, I just couldn't find a way through. So, much better play this weekend, even if I am unhappy with the result from round 4.