USATS: My journey

I'll need to talk to the rest of the team as a whole before I can give more than the thumbnail description that I gave in the earlier post. One additional point I can make is that every single half-point we scored mattered. Without any of them we wouldn't have won.

As for me, this tournament was a mixed bag, results-wise, but quite promising in terms of how I played. In the first round, I played up over 400 points. A loss was the expected result, and I did lose. Fast. I believe my game finished some 30 or 40 minutes before the next game finished. I played the losing move after my opponent's eleventh move, though I played on until move 23. (I had black.)

[NOTE: What follows is a long piece, for a blog post, about my games. I wrote it mostly for myself, but if you want to see it, click for more.]



I was upset after the game, not because I had been beat (again, that's practically fore-ordained with that rating gap), but because I didn't really play chess. I sat down at the board, I pressed the clock, moved pieces, and recorded moves, but I didn't play the game. I shuffled pieces around aimlessly. Oh well, time to go back to the room and eat some pizza.

Here I should add that I hadn't played a tournament in almost seven years, and hadn't played with a time control this slow (game in two hours with a five second delay) in twelve years. So rust was expected. But the first round just stunk. I'm not going to give that game because there would be no point.

In the second round, I was paired against a fellow 1700 player. In this one I had White, and it went very smoothly for me. My opponent started action on the king-side with insufficient forces, and it went badly for him. Eventually, I won in an endgame. But not, as you will see, without mistakes. But at the time, I felt much better about my game. This time I had sat, and thought, and moved with purpose. I'll post the game notes in a separate post.

In the third round, I again had Black. My opponent was a 1600 player. We played an unconventional (according to theory) French Defense. Eventually it felt to me like my opponent was starting to drift. Eventually he managed to lose a pawn, and I felt like I was going to cruise to a win. But at the crucial moment, I tried to crack the position open with a pawn break before I had re-coordinated my pieces. My opponent had a desperation sac, which I saw, but I didn't realize how dangerous it was. Another mistake on my part, and a winning game was dead lost. I tried to swindle a half-point, but to no avail. After this game I was just furious with myself. I'll also post the notes to this game.

The next morning, in round four, I had White against an 1800 player. He made an early mistake in the opening and I mauled him. Analysis shows that my play wasn't as precise as it should have been, but it was still a good effort by me, and it may be my second favorite tournament game ever. What was so pleasing was that I took the time to understand what was going on in the earliest stages of the game, and played with purpose & effect. This game left me feeling great, and you can bet I will be posting my game notes. (Which includes analysis of my own mistakes, of course.)

Which gets us to the last round. This one featured lackadaisical play in the opening by both players. (I had Black in an exchange French.) The middle game was a little bit of a muddle for me, but I eventually managed to get to a rook & pawn ending that I felt fairly sure I could hold. And for quite a stretch I did. But I let myself start to move as quickly as my opponent, and eventually managed to turn a dead draw into a bad loss with one bad move. Looking at the game later, signs of fatigue were evident from both players, especially the old man. (That would be me.) I felt bad particularly bad about this one, for if I had held we would have won the match, and out three match points would have guaranteed the team win. As it was, we won the U1800 section on tie-breaks - a lucky break for me! I may present the ending to that one, as it has its interesting points, but I'm not done with it yet.

I managed to pick up 15 ELO points for my efforts. If I had managed to win the third round and draw the last round, I would have picked up 97. Ouch, that hurts! Still, results aside, I felt quite good about the way I played in four of the games. (Well, three and a half of them.) It seemed that I had a deeper grasp of the positional aspects of the positions than I have in the past. (The last seven years haven't been completely devoid of chess for me.) Analysis of the moves reveals weaknesses, thinking about the play of the games reveals others. I see at least some of the things I need to improve, and believe I can come up with training methods to correct, or at least alleviate, the worst of my weaknesses. More importantly, I'm starting to understand my strengths as a player, and can see how to work on improving those.

I'm back, baby!