At last beat Coons in mainline Slav !! 5/6 in Waukesha championship.

I lost 2 games trying to win from drawn positions and drew 2 more against Coons in the mainline of Slav in last 1.5 years. Last time time I had white against him, I played 1.Nf3 2.b3 and won. Incidentally our first game (3 years back) was also a mainline slav which I won. This time was planning 1.a3 but then just before the game he was mentioning how much he prepared the Slav lines for this game and I couldn't resist me from taking the challenge and played the mainline. Typically he plays 20 moves from his memory but here i could take him out of main line. Got a double edged position and then won the game with two bishops. It feels good ! It confirms the belief that if you can play the middle game and ending better, it doesn't matter if you come out of the opening with no advantage.

Williams leading the tourney with 6/7. Both i and Sasha have a chance to catch him with a score 5/6. And next round (last game) we are playing each other. Lets see what happens !