Welcome to OMC Weekly (formerly My Chess Week), where I write about my weekly exploits across the chess board and give perspectives on chess in my own life and around the world. I am on the road this week, so I am posting this from a region with limited internet access and limited time to full annotate this week’s games. This has been a very exciting week in the world of chess as the 2014 Chess Olympiad in Tromsø has been raging with some of the greatest chess talent in the world! I spent much of my week following the games and cheering for the United States Chess Team in its various matches, so I did not get to play nearly as much online chess as I normally would play.

I played five correspondence chess games this week and had two wins. The first game I want to examine was an exceptional game played against a player with a 1300 ELO.

No game provided more frustration this week than the one below. This is where my blitz rating reached its floor of 692 this week before bouncing back up slightly. I am back to studying tactical puzzles this week…I have a long way to go.

Instead of going through the second correspondence game, I figured that I would simply post the final position and ask my readers to consider how they would proceed from this position.

There were many more blitz victories this week than last week, which was a welcome change. Next week’s OMC Weekly will be the last post for awhile (details to come).

In other news, the August issue of Chess Life and 2014/#5 issue of New In Chess is out and should be coming to a mailbox near you. The August issue of Chess Life has post game analysis from the 2014 U.S. Championship in Saint Louis and one of the worst magazine cover photos you will probably ever see. It is free to download in PDF format for US Chess Federation members. 2014/#5 of New In Chess features Grandmaster analysis from Hou Yifan and Magnus Carlsen and is available in print and online editions.

I plan to post an addendum to this entry later in the week. My wife and I are currently visiting family out of state and I am excited about the opportunity to play and post the results of a long overdue match between myself and my brother-in-law, Scott Russell, who describes himself as an “old tournament player.” What out, Scott! Whether you win or lose, you will be immortalized here on the pages of Off My Chess.