A good week; and prizes!?!?!

The Sudbury River Fall Tournament (nee Northeast Chess Fall Getaway) was a good time, though it arguably should have been better. Turnout was lower than anticipated, and the U1300 section turned into a 5 player round robin, which was actually good, as it was nice to play a section where everyone played everyone else. I went 2-2, but should have probably been 3-1. In game 2 I played the black side of a two knight's defense where white played 8 Ba4 instead of the more typical 8 Be2 or 8 Qf3. After 8 ... h6 9. Nf3 e4 10. Ne5? (Qe2) 11. Qd4 Bxc6+ 12. Nxc6 Qc5 (trapping the knight) 13. Nxa7 Rxa7 I have a piece for 3 pawns and a pretty good position. Somehow I couldn't figure out how to press the attack, faltered, and started dropping pieces. Bummer. Going 2-2 was good enough to tie for 3 place (behind two people at 2.5) in the section, and I won $75.

In other news, the October Thursday Night Swiss at the BCC concluded this week. I played Greg Hager, who is unfortunately homebound, and defeated him with black in a KGA miniature. I kept the win/lose alternation streak alive and finished 2-2 in this tournament as well. This was good enough to tie me for the U1700 prize, so I took $30 home last night.

I never expected to win anything, and I don't play for the prizes, but it was a nice encouragement. Chess prizes are a little weird. Winning them at my level is a function of being better than my rating for the time being. Once I improve I'll move into the bottom of the next section and prizes will be a thing of the past :) Sadly, the game I blew in the second round of the Sudbury tournament cost me around $200 dollars, as 3 points would have put me in first place, or at least in a tie for it.

Speaking of rating, those two events will bring me up to somewhere near 1120. 1200 is in sight!

No chess this coming week, as I'm shifting to the MetroWest club, which plays on Tuesdays, and this coming Tuesday is not yet November. Saturday the 11th is the BU open, which was a lot of fun last year and I'm looking forward to going again, though I'm a little tempted by the NH Amateur Championship, since there's an U1300 section there and BU only has U1600, but BU is closer to home, it was fun last year, and I'm not afraid of the slightly stronger competition.

I'm still having a lot of problems seeing tactics that are coming at me, and I think the only thing that'll help that is more games, more tactical puzzles, and a greater focus on asking myself what the opponent's last move accomplished and what his threats are. All in all, I'm happy with my performance. The October Swiss tournament brings me up to 25 USCF games, so the BU tournament will finally let me pull that (P) off of my rating, for what that's worth. It's definitely time to stop playing at the BCC for now though...the four games I played there this month were all blowouts, and while I learned more from the losses than the wins, I didn't learn a whole lot. MetroWest, here I come. I hope to begin terrorizing the lower section in Natick on election day :)

Finally, if you want to take a look at the games from either tournament, you can find them at
http://www.njord.org/~steve/mychess/sudbury.htm
http://www.njord.org/~steve/mychess/otns.htm

Game 20

Sitting on an even score in a 14 player swiss section that ranges from the 800's to the 2000's is bad for the guy with the 800. Last night I played Ruben Portugues, whose rating of 1819 is just a little higher than mine. I lost, but it wasn't as awful as it could have been. I'll post the game tonight if I have time.

In brief: I had the black side of a two knights' defense, defended against 8. Qf3 for the first time (played 8 ... Bb7, which is not good, instead of the main line moves of 8 ... h6 or 8 ... Rb8), made some questionable moves, dropped a piece to a removal of the guard tactic, played on because my attack was looking strongish and his pieces were uncoordinated, had my attack fizzle, and resigned after I dropped a rook to a knight fork.

So, two bad tactical errors, one much worse than the other, but the rest of my play was mostly ok. After going over the game with me, Ruben pointed to my rating and asked if I had just started playing, because he thought I played better than 800. I said that, after September's tournament my rating actually went up to 1036. He chuckled and said that I had played a good deal better than 1036 as well, which is nice to hear, if not actually helpful for winning games or getting better.

On the bright side, I'm over 1000 for the first time, and I think I'm playing fairly well, for me. Still having a hard time seeing tactics that are coming at me, but I think that some of that has to do with my thought process.

Sudbury tournament starts tomorrow ( the 2 day section, anyway) and I'll have two G/55's and one G/155. I've gotten used to the 40/90 G/25 at the club, so I'm a little worried about the G/55 games, but I think I'll be ok. I'm looking forward to potentially tearing up the U1300 section, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. I think I'd be satisfied with a + score, which would be a first. I'm going to set my goals low though, and say that I want to at least win 1 game out of the 3 I have tomorrow. I went 0-3 on the first day of the Eastern Chess Congress back in March, and that was a little depressing (though it put me in a position to get some very weak opponents for rounds 4 and 5).

Any advice out there for the best food to take with you for a long day of playing?

A win is a win, I guess

Round 2 of the October Thursday Swiss tournament came and went last night. I went home early again, but this time it was me who delivered the smashing. Actually, looking at the game again, and seeing that I made at least one move that I should have been punished for, it doesn't look like a smashing. Sadly, I don't think this game taught me much more than the smashing I received last week. I felt comfortable for the entire game and definitely felt like I had the initiative for most of it. You can see this game and my first round game at http://www.njord.org/~steve/mychess/otns.htm I'm certainly happy to be on the winning side again, and it was nice to play a game where the computer says I was better from wire to wire. One moment of hesitation: I've been working from Emms' "Attack with 1 e4" book, and I know that after 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Nc3 Bc5 he suggests 4. Qg4 with some trappy, crazy looking stuff coming after that, but I haven't learned it yet and chickened out and went for the much safer looking 4. d3. Blue Devil (if you're reading this) I know you play the BO...have you ventured into the 4. Qg4 lines at all? In other news, I've recently crested 800 tries at CTS. My accuracy continues to plummet (around 78.8% now) and my rating continues to hover. I'm just not very fast when it comes to digesting positions, and most of the 1450+ problems take me forever to solve, when I manage to solve them. Also annoying are the problems that, even after I look at the solution, don't seem to result in any tactical gain. Hmm. Finally, I'm very much looking forward to the two larger tournaments I'm going to be playing in the next couple of weeks. I think I'm quite a bit better than my rating at the moment and hope to do very well in the U1300 section at the Sudbury River Fall Classic (formerly the Fall NorthEast Chess Getaway) next weekend, and perhaps slightly less well in the U1600 section at the BU Open in 4 weeks.

Captain Obvious

Happy Columbus Day. Sadly, the New York Stock Exchange is open today, so I have to be at work. That's ok, I got free donuts in the bargain... In other news, I determined last night that I'm really awful at chess when I'm tired. Like, tremendously bad. I couldn't sleep, so I logged on to FICS and played some blitz. Wow. I hung pieces left and right, I missed my opponents doing the same, I generally didn't fare well at all. I'd say that being tired effectively drops my FICS blitz rating by 100 to 200 points. This shouldn't be that surprising, but it's an important revelation to me: sometimes, I just shouldn't play chess, and as a corollary, all that stuff about getting a good night's sleep the night before should probably be paid some heed when I go to all day tournaments. Maybe I'll do better tonight.

Smashed

Well, I got the expected face smashing in round one of the October TNIS at the BCC this week. When you get 12 people and the ratings range from 871 to 2200+, well, something's got to give. My first round opponent was Joshua Haunstrup, who is a very nice guy and spent quite a while talking to me about various things after he demolished me. One of the things he mentioned is that the monthly tournaments at the MetroWest club out in Natick get a much higher turnout, allowing for sections rather than a single open section. I think, when November rolls around, that I'm going to give MetroWest a shot. I think Blunderprone and SteveLearnsChess play out there, so maybe I'll meet some of these other chess bloggers in person. In other news, I'm stagnating at CTS. I'm up to almost 700 tries, but my success rate has dropped from 80+ to just over 79. I feel like I can't get any problems right anymore, and the ones I do get right take me forever. I think I crossed some threshold where the problems I'm getting are suddenly much harder. A few weeks ago I did a lot of problems and very quickly shot up to 1350, but ever since I've been getting hammered and have drifted back down to 1319. I know that solving the problems is good for me, even if I'm not that fast, but it really irks me to get a problem right and lose points since it took me 30 seconds. Finally, I got to play my first Legal sacrifice in a game today on FICS, only to find out later I'd screwed it up, and if the guy didn't take the queen bait I'd have been fish bait. It worked out, and I am still somewhat happy about recalling the themes and how it works, but next time I'll remember that it doesn't actually work with a knight on c6....

La Revenge!

My fourth (and final) round game of the September Thursday Night Swiss tournament at the BCC was against young Timothy Lung. I knew there was a chance he'd be my opponent, and I was happy to see his name across from mine on the pairings list. I lost to Timothy in the 2005 BU open in a game that I should have won. (The game is covered in White Belt #153, Mig Greengard's novice level newsletter that you can subscribe to at chessninja.com). He's my first repeat OTB opponent, and I'm happy to be able to state that I've never lost to the same player twice. I was pretty sure that I was capable of beating him, but knew it wouldn't be easy either. This game was just as tense as I expected it to be. Once again, if you believe the chess engine, I probably should have lost. It occurs to me that, until I'm better than crafty, I'll probably make at least one move that it considers "game losing" in every game I play. This makes me wonder how to get my mind around that. I think I played an ok game, and came out on top against an opponent that pushed and pushed, but the computer says I was lucky to win. How do the rest of you deal with this, mentally? Can I take satisfaction in this game? In any game? Are games of chess at my level always going to be lost, rather than won? Angst aside, I'm pretty happy with this game and the tournament as a whole. I scored 2 points against a field of (roughly) 1250,1550,1920,1390 for a performance near 1500. I'll probably bring my embarrassing 871 up to a more respectable 1000 or so, if you believe the calculator on the USCF site. I've also pretty much answered my question about the general worth of participating in this tournament: I can complete with these people, or enough of them to put up a reasonable score. So anyway, here is the round four game. My Qh3 move is cover-your-eyes awful, but I didn't give up, even when I was certain he was about to smash me. A friend of mine (who is a much stronger player) looked over my games from this tournament and after telling me a lot of the things I did wrong said that I have "much better nerves" than some of the players I faced. My two victories definitely contained positions and moments where I was on the edge: but is it a strength or weakness to be able to play your plan in the face of a strong attack by your opponent? I guess if it works out in your favor then it's a strength. This Thursday I get to start all over again in the October Thursday Night Swiss tournament. I think I'll be a while before I'm coming out with plus scores, but at least maybe I have a chance of putting up an even zero again.