Through - Whew!

As updated in "Shelter in Place", I raced to the top of my first round group (without playing a Jerome Gambit) in an Italian Game tournament at Chess.com, completing my games - only to have to wait until others in my group finished theirs.

Lvercotti surged ahead of me, eventually taking first place in the group with a score of 10-0-2. Next came mikerj, galloping by with 8-2-2. I managed a draw off of each of them.

At 7-2-3 I could only wait for the outcome of the last-to-finish game in our group, FedorMarkov - Lvercotti, to see if  White won, also reaching 8.5 points, possibly knocking me out of third place - and a chance to advance to the second round of the tournament - on tiebreaks.

Curiously, in a R + 5Ps vs R + N + 2Ps, where the  position was balanced, but White seemed to have all the winning chances - the first player lost on time. Given that the time limit was 3 days per move, something must have gone wrong for him...

Group 2 has yet to finish, although it is already clear that will_thrash, 7thSon and Diogenes_of_Sinope will all advance to the second round, in some kind of order, as the trio has broken away from the rest of the pack.

With luck, Round 2 will see some Jerome Gambits.