Another day ...

Its now 3.5/6 in the Zonal.
Managed to play a decent endgame against Fijian Calvin Prasad, slowly converting advantages from a pawn in the middlegame to an exchange in the ending, to eventually achieving an overwhelming position with his knight almost trapped & my king and rook ready to either checkmate, or mop up his remaining pawns.
However in the afternoon I played my worst game of the tournament against IM Mirko Rujevic. This was a game that I never really got into. I misplayed the opening & wasted moves in a position where I couldnt afford to & decided that my only chance to make a game of it was to sacrifice a piece for some activity. Ultimately I made Mirko sweat a little, but it wasn't good enough. 3.5 is still a reasonable score, though obviously 4 would be better & 4.5 would have me half a point off the lead.
Today I play Tristan Stevens, who is a very dangerous player. He seems very tactical and aggressive, so I'm not exactly sure if I should go head on into a tactical battle, or try for something a little more quiet. I'll have a think about it & see how things go.
Poker has also been going reasonably well on this trip, with 2 decent winning sessions & 1 small losing session at the *huge* Jupiters poker pit (6 tables total, with weekdays mostly only having 2 tables up & running). I might try to get to Treasury in Brisbane at some stage, but that will require me to finish a game early ... which means either a crushing win, or a horrendous loss ... Ill see if I can make the former happen!