Well, the World Open is over. I didnt win, or even play all that well! I had a good start of the tournament. Things pretty much collapsed about half way through. That gives me a lot of interesting things to talk about though, especially regarding chess psychology.
I really do wonder how I can improve at chess. I have a lot of ideas about what would be the best things to do, but many of them are conflicting.
Taking a break from chess, or at least tournament chess is somewhat top on the list. A big problem I had and have had over the past year or so has just been spacing out at the chess board. I somewhat doubt that reading chess books or doing tactics will have any impact on this at all.
At the same time, I wonder if maybe reading chess books and doing chess tactics more frequently will make playing chess less of a mental strain. If this is the case, taking a break would be the worst thing to do!
Haha, so in the end, I have a lot of data (ie, chess games, chess moves, and my thought process leading to those moves) but the analysis leads to one of two opposite conclusions.
Either I need to take a break or I need to study more! May as well add in the third option, I am doing everything fine right now and just need to keep on doing what I have been doing.
On the other hand, maybe I just needed to drink more coffee during the games.
I will be posting all my games, by the way, with some commentary. A lot of the commentary will probably be focused on my brain thinking rather than objective chess.
I am very interested in how to learn, and analyzing objective things like a chess game is one of the best ways to try and figure things out.
I ended up with 3 wins, 2 draws and 4 losses. That gives me 4 points out of 9, or a half point under even. There is nothing especially good about even, but it is nice to at least break even.
Like I said earlier, the start of the tournament went well. I drew my first game, and won my next two. I lost my fourth game, and then won my fifth game. Not an great start, but a very good start. I was pretty happy with where I was at, at that point.
Then I lost my sixth game, drew my seventh game, and lost my last two games. It should be noted, and you will see later, that I was pretty badly lost in my seventh game. Truth be told, I was probably lost in my first and third games too!
I think a turning point of sorts was my sixth game. Not just because I didnt win any games beyond that, but because I started failing at basic calculations. I mean real basic. I would miss things like, the Knight takes the Queen. Fortunately I have enough intuition etc. so I didnt drop my Queen in any of my games!
That gets to the heart of the problem. How do you solve problems like that? It is one thing to miss a tactic because it is hard to see, or screw up an endgame because you dont know how to play it right. It is another to leave something en prise.
Maybe it actually isnt different. It sure is frustrating though. As a beginner, it is pretty much the normal course of things to leave stuff en prise. For whatever reason, beginners dont see that something is under attack (that is what en prise means by the way).
As you get better at chess, though, you sort of stop looking for things that are undefended. Maybe as a positional concern, but usually you just let your brain spot this automatically. Obviously, my brains auto pilot failed me towards the end of this tournament.
That gives me a good, or at least common sense, idea of trying to figure things out. I must cut out the auto pilot.
I know some books focus on looking around the board and trying to find candidates moves, and finding all of those moves, and then going back and searching each one individually etc.
That is time consuming, and I never found the idea all that appealing. I actually dont know why I brought it up, because I am probably not going to do that.
Well, I guess I brought it up because it is a very systematic way of playing chess. Normally, I think systematic ways of playing are bad. They in effect are auto pilot, which is not going to lead to very good moves.
Maybe my lack of any sort of system is holding me back though. It is somewhat of a shame, because I did mention in one my earlier posts (or maybe a draft of a post to be published?) that it is a good idea to look over what pieces are en prise, what the pawn structure is like etc. especially on your opponent's time. Sadly, I forgot to do this!
That probably would have helped.
There is also the issue of whether or not I have sufficient passion for chess. It may be the case that I dont.
I can and still do get pretty upset about losing, but winning doesnt really excite me all that much. That is probably a problem. That is primarily where the break talk comes in. I figure I am just burned out a bit, and playing chess in this state would not be helpful at all. It would be bad for me too continue playing chess just because I played it so much in the past.
If something is over, it is over!
All my chess books sure would look silly though. So would this blog, I guess.
At the same time, I doubt anything that dire is what is needed. After all, I do tend to have extreme emotions, so if I had gotten 6 out of 9 I may be making a tired rambling recap about how I just need to study 5 days a week for 2 hours a day and then I will be well on my way to Grandmaster.
Two blunders would change the entire course of my life!
Thinking about it, I think the best solution is just to go over master level games over the board at a slow and in depth pace. After all this introspective talk and what not, the difference between 6 or 7 out of 9 and 4 out of 9 was really just a few calculating errors.
Rather than look for big picture solutions, I should just focus on correcting the small details. I dont know about you, but I know this is something I could do throughout my entire life to improve it. It sure is fun to think about the big picture stuff, but in the end you dont get a whole lot done with that. Plus, it is a lot easier just to focus on the details.
Despite this post being somewhat whiney/depressed, the World Open was actually pretty fun. I still dont like the Valley Forge location, but it wasnt nearly as bad this time. For one, I stayed at the Scanticon which is right above the chess tournament. In between games, I could just go upstairs and nap or watch TV or whatever. Avoiding those dreaded 4 hour breaks between morning and evening game made a huge difference as far as having fun. I didnt have to just kill time for 4 hours, which can really turn even a successful tournament into a bad experience.
I also had a fairly relaxed attitude throughout the tournament. I was pissed that I was losing, especially towards the end, but I was also fairly resigned to it. Part of this was that all of my games were interesting and more or less fun, including the games I lost. I didnt get ground down in a hopeless position at all. Or at least, when I did, it took a long time and I was able to put up a good fight!
Losing is a lot easier to deal with when the game was interesting and you had your chances.
Maybe my last game I didnt have chances. Well, this wasnt so bad though because I had to take the bus home. I was pretty happy to get out at about 6:30 or so. I got home at 9. If my game went to 9 o'clock instead of 6, I probably would have gotten home around midnight or later. On top of this, I dont especially like to walk around at late night, so I may have taken a cab, which would be kind of expensive. So, even though my last game was kind of a joke, it doesnt really bother me that much.
As far as expense goes, yeah I did kind of just waste a lot of money. Haha, it was the 4th of July though, and I am a patriot! Seriously, it wasnt actually that much. I split the hotel room with a friend, which is a huge money saver. Too bad we couldnt get 1 or 2 more people to split the room. Yeah, we all sleep on the floor but 25 dollars a night would be great!
The food was pretty terrible. Really terrible. I am somewhat spoiled, though, because I have a Greensgrow Farm share. That is all good food from local farms, so when I eat things like frozen processed Sweet Potato Fries or Papa Johns Pizza I am kind of like what did they do to my food? Haha, I cam home, boiled up some potatoes and was like, mmmmmm, these are good. I just really cant stand eating the processed food, I dont know why exactly. It just tastes so weird.
The coffee was even worse. Oh man. They did have starbucks, but 3.50 for a 16 oz. is pretty crazy. There were no convenient stores nearby. I dont know if you guys know this, but convenient stores for the most part actually have really good coffee these days. It is not like sludge from a gas station. So that would have been fine, but you cant really walk to any of those places from the Convention Center.
I got a 2 dollar refill of really really awful coffee down stairs by the chess tournament. Seriously, it is the kind of coffee that gas stations give away for free! Actually, people would probably be ashamed to give away coffee like this for free.
Along these lines, I thought it was pretty funny, though mildly rude, that everybody was clapping the last round when the tournament director said the tournament would be at the Sheraton in Philly next year. Yeah, Valley Forge sucks. Oh well.
In defense of Valley Forge, though, I think the Convention Center is designed to just be an open space where various businesses or wealthy people can do their thing. It is actually very well suited for this, as it would be a nice cheap spot to rent out a huge room. If you are, for instance, having a wedding you are going to be paying for a caterer anyway, so what do you care if the Starbucks costs 3.50! Similarly, you dont really need snacks from a convenience store.
So, it is a nice venue for things like businesses and what not where guests are going to get catered meals. It isnt suited very well for a chess tournament, where the players have to buy there own food and such day to day.
Well, that is pretty rambling, which is great. I have to go now. All in all, it was an ok tournament, that was disappointing in many ways. At the same time, though, it was pretty fun and interesting.
Showing posts with label Storytime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Storytime. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
World Open 2010, History
No, I havent decided that blogging about Chess is a terrible idea! I have discovered that it takes a lot of mental energy, though, at least to do a good job. This wasnt exactly a surprise, as I am not a Grandmaster so I knew going over Grandmaster games would be taxing. I have a few games that are near completion from the US Chess Championship, but it may take me some time to finish them up.
Moving along, then, the 2010 World Open is almost here, so I thought I would do a few posts detailing my experience with past World Opens and a few things I am doing to prepare for this World Open. Ideally, documenting my preparations help people get ideas for their own study plans.
My first World Open was in 2006, and this is actually the first USCF rated tournament I ever played in. I was in the u1400 section, and I got a 6 out of 9 score. This tournament was a lot of fun and got me hooked on tournament chess.
The first thing I noticed about tournament chess was how involved the players got with a position. I remember telling my friend after one of my early games that I felt like I had played a perfect game! I have that game and may post it sometime, I am sure it was not perfect. But compared to the internet chess that I had primarily been playing, or even 15 to 30 minute over the board games at the Chess Club, it sure did feel like I had played a perfect game. I had never analyzed so many variations, and thought so much about what my opponent might do.
For this tournament, I gained or discovered one of the best and most important skills in chess and even in life in general. I was able to concentrate. And not just for a little bit, but for the whole dang 6 hours. That in and of itself felt really good. It felt a lot like climbing a mountain, I suppose, though I have never actually climbed any really big mountains. In those early days, I would just sit at the board staring at it the whole 6 hours and concentrating and concentrating, calculating as many lines as I possibly could, going over the position over and over again, figuring out what I had missed, figuring out what the endgames could be like, figuring out where my pieces would best be placed, figuring out again what I had missed.
I even thought on my opponent's time! This was my main advantage in those early tournaments, and one of the reasons I was able to do so well. I probably wasnt all that much better than my opponents, though I may have been. But they wouldnt just sit there and think and think and think.
I was surprised that my opponent's wouldnt spend the entire time thinking. It seemed so strange for me to enter into a chess tournament and not go all out, if you will. Why even bother to do it? Now that I have been playing for about 4 years, I understand that side of it a lot more. That is actually another critical skill in chess and life that is very difficult to master, creating passion.
Some people may say that passion cannot be created, and that you just either have passion for something or you arent doing what you are passionate about. I disagree. I think that is a nice ideal, that people would always have passion for what they are passionate about, but I just dont think that is the reality. Even playing a game for fun, you still get tired. And you get really tired. And also a bit despondent, or just sad. "What is the point?" starts crossing your mind more and more.
Having passion, or striving when you are almost certain of failure, whichever you want to call it, is a very difficult skill to have indeed!
Thinking back, though, I do fairly well at this. I think most people do as well, though it isnt quite in the face of certain failure. Every chess player has in the back of their brain an anecdote about the guy who played the first 15 moves in 3 to 5 minutes, lost a piece, and then took 4 or 5 hours to finish up the game! It sure is annoying for the player who is up the piece, but I have had some pretty miraculous draws. I have at least one win in that type of position, though I wasnt down a piece, so much as in a terrible position. That is quite a bit different.
Anyway, that is a bit of a psychological tangent. Back to the 2006 World Open. I remember my first game, I was extremely nervous. I have vague memories of talking to my friends.
Oops, lets go back a second, because I remembered something else!
The reason I played in the World Open 2006 to begin with. I didnt intend to play in the tournament at all. I was actually unemployed at the time, and had been for about 2 or 3 months. I had a decent amount of money saved up, but I was starting to get worried. So I was going to go to Manpower, or whatever the Temp Agency is downtown and sign up with them.
The thing is, though, I went on July 1, which was a Saturday. Of course, they are closed on Saturday, so I had effectively gone down town for nothing! I knew the World Open was going on at the time, and I figured, well I am already down here, I will just play in the World Open. I am not exactly sure how I justified the expense, but the Unrated Fee was only 30 or 40 dollars. I had to become a USCF member, but I had wanted to do that for a while anyway.
So, I started my USCF Tournament Chess career. Those vague memories of talking to my friends must be false memories. No one knew I was in the chess tournament at all, because I hadnt planned on playing in it.
But, for that first game, I do remember thinking to myself, please dont be a kid! There is something about losing to children, especially at that time, that was embarrassing. Now, I dont feel nearly as bad about it, as children have a lot of advantages over adults. They arent tired, they are probably spending more time studying, and most of the kids you play are the ones who are the most talented. But at the time, I didnt think as much like this and was just really worried I would lose to a kid for my first Tournament game. It didnt help that the kid was looking at me with something like disdain. He probably thought it was funny that I was so nervous, and it actually was.
As it turned out, I won. He played the Baltic Attack, which is a gambit against the Queen's Gambit. I think I played some really strange moves in the early stages, I had no idea what to do against the Baltic Gambit, which worked well to my advantage. I remember he could have played Bb4+ at some point and really screwed up my position, or maybe it was Bxa3. He missed the tactic though, and his position collapsed fairly quickly. I think he resigned after about 17 or 20 moves. It was a good first game for me, though I was a little worried I should have played in the U1600 section.
I dont remember too many of those other games, and some of them all blend together. I know the perfect game I was talking about above was a Ruy Lopez Exchange. I won the game with a pretty simply tactic, forking some of his pieces by playing a Knight to c3 or b2.
In the end, I won a trophy for top __ unrated player, and it was pretty cool. I got 40s with some guy, and we drank in a park while I waited to see if I would win the trophy. It was rainy, and there were people out looking at the fireworks. I rode the train home carrying my trophy, and it was super packed. It was kind of funny.
The World Open in 2007, I didnt have nearly as much fun. In fact, it was pretty depressing. The 2007 World Open was in the Valley Forge Convention Center, and that pretty much sucked. The building is huge, and it is very very yellow. I dont know who designed that area, but why would you make such a huge building such an ugly yellow. I am not especially sensitive to these types of things, but even I thought the place was ugly.
I also stayed at a Hotel. I do not remember which one, but it wasnt one of the ones connected to the Convention Center. So, in order to get to and from the Chess tournament to my hotel, I had to wait and take a shuttle. Effectively, this meant that from the time I left my hotel room in the morning till the time I left the chess tournament at night, I just had to meander around the Convention Center. At the Sheraton, this isnt nearly so bad. I have some friends who work in Center City, and plus it is Center City. There are just places you can wander to. My favorite spot to wander to is the Subway on JFK and 17th Street. They have an upstairs which is so eerily quiet for center city, it is very relaxing, they have nice big tables where a chess board can be set up easily, they have unlimited sodas, and subs dont tire me out too much.
At Valley Forge, I didnt have that kind of place to go to.
The other problem was that I actually had to pay the entry fee this time, and on top of that, I had to stay at a hotel. I am actually pretty poor, so I felt like justifying these costs required me to win. That is very not conducive to having fun. This tournament actually helped me quite a bit, in that I never try and play to win money anymore. It is much better to relax when you look at the entry fee as the sunk cost it is.
Finally, I actually prepared quite a bit for the 2007 World Open. I dont think it helped all that much, though maybe it did. It is hard to say. My rating went way up shortly after, so maybe the preparation just needed a few months to kick in! My preparation was very intense, time and work wise, but not particularly intelligent or effective. I should note though, that I am probably suffering from tons of bias right now. It is easy to categorize things in your mind as successes or failures based on results, but that is really really not a good thing to do. A lot of life is just luck, perhaps most of life.
Plus, with all of this whining, the reader may be exasperated to know I 5 out of 9. Basically, the difference between 2006 and 2007 was one blunder, yet I look back on them so differently. I really cant even explain myself why I feel so down on the 2007 World Open as opposed to the 2006 World Open. Probably it is because I dont want to admit to myself what an idiot I am!
Bear with me, but I really did think I was going to win the 2007 World Open. It is pretty embarrassing now, because that is pretty bad hubris. This bad attitude probably actually cost me some games, as well.
My first game I won on a simple Knight fork tactic. I was pretty excited afterwards. The second game was a pretty huge disaster. My opponent gambited three pawns, and I took all three. The hubris really got to me! I dont really remember some of the other games. I knew I won one because my opponent blundered his e4 pawn. I also know I lost one where I had a decent position, but was in bad time trouble. I also suffered a brutal defeat, where I effectively had no counterplay for the entire game.
Maybe that is why I am so down on this tournament. My losses were more spectacular then my wins. I dont even really remember any of the wins, except the first one, but that was just a bad blunder my opponent. I am not sure if I actually won any game this tournament that was a good win. After this tournament, I actually switched from 1. d4 to 1. Nf3 because of that three gambit pawn. I dont tell anyone that I play 1. Nf3 to avoid the Budapest Gambit!
Moving along, the 2008 World Open went a bit better. Chess wise, it actually went pretty well. The problem was, walking home after my third game I got robbed at gun point! I have never really seen a gun before, or had crimes committed against me, so it had a pretty bad effect on me. It wasnt too terrible, but I was just stressed out and my mind would wander a lot during the games. I am actually pretty happy in a way that I was in a chess tournament when it happened.
Well, going back to the beginning, this was the first chess tournament where I did the 7 day schedule. This was part of the playing for fun thing. I really like the longer games, and the entry fee is all the same, so I want to get as much chess for my buck as possible. I had a nice win in a very nearly equal endgame. That always feels good, to outplay your opponent in the endgame.
I won my next two games as well, and things were going pretty well. Then, as I said above, I got robbed. I didnt win a game after that! I was actually thinking about dropping out of the tournament, because I kind of knew I wouldnt be able to play that well, but figured I would just stick it out. It builds character! I actually played pretty well all things considered. I got a really nice draw in the 4th game. My opening was pretty poor as I was settling in, and I got into a bad position. But I got some nice counterplay, and was able to use piece activity to get a draw. I think I was down some material.
After that, I got 2 more draws and 3 losses. It is kind of a shame that I was playing so well and some outside force ruins that for me. The guy that robbed me only got 11 dollars off of me anyway! He didnt take my chess stuff though. Also, I still played pretty well, even though my score doesnt show it. I got some nice active draws with Black. I did get crushed by another gambit with White, but I at least put up a better fight!
But that is the way things go, I suppose. I take taxis home from tournaments now when it is late at night. It is a lot more expensive than SEPTA, but I dont want my 400 dollar entry wasted because something like this happens again. For 2008, I got a 4.5 out of 9. I wasnt upset, at least with myself, though, even though that was one of my worst scores at a tournament. I remember reading a story at some point, about a Master or IM player who got hit on the head when a sign fell down on him. He had to withdraw from the tournament. Really, what can you do? Dont walk around late at night, and dont walk underneath signs!
Another thing is that my girlfriend really helped me out during this time, and that is always a big help. It is good to get a little perspective sometimes on what is important in life.
The 2009 World Open, I can thankfully say, went great. I was doing pretty flexible work at the time, and actually thought that I was going to have some free time. I was wrong! I had already entered into the 7 day schedule, when I found out that I was going to need to do quite a bit of work over the week.
It may seem strange, but I really believe this actually helped me. It gave me a bit of toughness in my games, and a bit of passion as well. Dealing with the psychological weakness of myself in the 2007 World Open, and then the unexpected adversity in the 2008 World Open, this little bit of difficulty was no problem at all. I was going to make sure it wouldnt be a problem. I got back to concentrating like I did before, because I knew my brain was tired. I knew that if I didnt spend the entire time thinking during the game, I was probably going to lose to a better rested opponent. I did lose a few games, though.
I actually lost the first game I played. I had forgotten that. I think I lost pretty badly, as well. I didnt take it all that hard though, and I didnt lose another game that tournament! I did get a lot of draws though, but ended up with a score of 6 out of 9.
My last game of that tournament really deserves a mention. I was playing pretty poorly at the beginning of the game, and was just basically dead tired. I also knew I was out of the money, so it was hard to get that motivation. But, after a while, I was in a terrible position and made a great decision. I sacrificed my center pawn so that I could get at least some counterattacking possibilities. I knew it wasnt a sound sacrifice, but my position was bad anyway. In the end, I was able to outplay my opponent and get a nice win.
Afterwards, I noticed that I had gained like 50 or so rating points from this tournament. What a nice consolation prize! It put me above 1900 for the first time in maybe a year and a half. The first time I got over 1900 it felt like a fluke. I had gone on a somewhat lucky streak, winning a handful of games from worse positions because of foolish blunders by my opponents. After this tournament, though, I felt like I belonged above 1900.
I just played against strong competition, in what is usually the strongest tournament of the year. People always play much better than their ratings at the World Open, because so much money is on the line. A lot of people prepare for the tournament, and refrain from playing in other tournaments for a few months before. They want to keep their ratings below certain thresholds. And as far as the concentration levels go, people just dont flub around like they sometimes do at Quads, or other smaller tournaments. Everyone is usually very focused. Towards the later rounds, you can get a few easy games if you are out of the money, but a lot of times people who are doing poorly just withdraw.
Well, that about wraps up my World Opens story. I have most or all of the games from those tournaments, so I might try and post them with some light annotations. One thing that surprises me is when I look over those old games is the amount of good ideas I had in those games. Another thing that surprises, though, is the amount of terrible ideas I had!
I will make some more World Open posts related to preparations, both planned and completed.
Moving along, then, the 2010 World Open is almost here, so I thought I would do a few posts detailing my experience with past World Opens and a few things I am doing to prepare for this World Open. Ideally, documenting my preparations help people get ideas for their own study plans.
My first World Open was in 2006, and this is actually the first USCF rated tournament I ever played in. I was in the u1400 section, and I got a 6 out of 9 score. This tournament was a lot of fun and got me hooked on tournament chess.
The first thing I noticed about tournament chess was how involved the players got with a position. I remember telling my friend after one of my early games that I felt like I had played a perfect game! I have that game and may post it sometime, I am sure it was not perfect. But compared to the internet chess that I had primarily been playing, or even 15 to 30 minute over the board games at the Chess Club, it sure did feel like I had played a perfect game. I had never analyzed so many variations, and thought so much about what my opponent might do.
For this tournament, I gained or discovered one of the best and most important skills in chess and even in life in general. I was able to concentrate. And not just for a little bit, but for the whole dang 6 hours. That in and of itself felt really good. It felt a lot like climbing a mountain, I suppose, though I have never actually climbed any really big mountains. In those early days, I would just sit at the board staring at it the whole 6 hours and concentrating and concentrating, calculating as many lines as I possibly could, going over the position over and over again, figuring out what I had missed, figuring out what the endgames could be like, figuring out where my pieces would best be placed, figuring out again what I had missed.
I even thought on my opponent's time! This was my main advantage in those early tournaments, and one of the reasons I was able to do so well. I probably wasnt all that much better than my opponents, though I may have been. But they wouldnt just sit there and think and think and think.
I was surprised that my opponent's wouldnt spend the entire time thinking. It seemed so strange for me to enter into a chess tournament and not go all out, if you will. Why even bother to do it? Now that I have been playing for about 4 years, I understand that side of it a lot more. That is actually another critical skill in chess and life that is very difficult to master, creating passion.
Some people may say that passion cannot be created, and that you just either have passion for something or you arent doing what you are passionate about. I disagree. I think that is a nice ideal, that people would always have passion for what they are passionate about, but I just dont think that is the reality. Even playing a game for fun, you still get tired. And you get really tired. And also a bit despondent, or just sad. "What is the point?" starts crossing your mind more and more.
Having passion, or striving when you are almost certain of failure, whichever you want to call it, is a very difficult skill to have indeed!
Thinking back, though, I do fairly well at this. I think most people do as well, though it isnt quite in the face of certain failure. Every chess player has in the back of their brain an anecdote about the guy who played the first 15 moves in 3 to 5 minutes, lost a piece, and then took 4 or 5 hours to finish up the game! It sure is annoying for the player who is up the piece, but I have had some pretty miraculous draws. I have at least one win in that type of position, though I wasnt down a piece, so much as in a terrible position. That is quite a bit different.
Anyway, that is a bit of a psychological tangent. Back to the 2006 World Open. I remember my first game, I was extremely nervous. I have vague memories of talking to my friends.
Oops, lets go back a second, because I remembered something else!
The reason I played in the World Open 2006 to begin with. I didnt intend to play in the tournament at all. I was actually unemployed at the time, and had been for about 2 or 3 months. I had a decent amount of money saved up, but I was starting to get worried. So I was going to go to Manpower, or whatever the Temp Agency is downtown and sign up with them.
The thing is, though, I went on July 1, which was a Saturday. Of course, they are closed on Saturday, so I had effectively gone down town for nothing! I knew the World Open was going on at the time, and I figured, well I am already down here, I will just play in the World Open. I am not exactly sure how I justified the expense, but the Unrated Fee was only 30 or 40 dollars. I had to become a USCF member, but I had wanted to do that for a while anyway.
So, I started my USCF Tournament Chess career. Those vague memories of talking to my friends must be false memories. No one knew I was in the chess tournament at all, because I hadnt planned on playing in it.
But, for that first game, I do remember thinking to myself, please dont be a kid! There is something about losing to children, especially at that time, that was embarrassing. Now, I dont feel nearly as bad about it, as children have a lot of advantages over adults. They arent tired, they are probably spending more time studying, and most of the kids you play are the ones who are the most talented. But at the time, I didnt think as much like this and was just really worried I would lose to a kid for my first Tournament game. It didnt help that the kid was looking at me with something like disdain. He probably thought it was funny that I was so nervous, and it actually was.
As it turned out, I won. He played the Baltic Attack, which is a gambit against the Queen's Gambit. I think I played some really strange moves in the early stages, I had no idea what to do against the Baltic Gambit, which worked well to my advantage. I remember he could have played Bb4+ at some point and really screwed up my position, or maybe it was Bxa3. He missed the tactic though, and his position collapsed fairly quickly. I think he resigned after about 17 or 20 moves. It was a good first game for me, though I was a little worried I should have played in the U1600 section.
I dont remember too many of those other games, and some of them all blend together. I know the perfect game I was talking about above was a Ruy Lopez Exchange. I won the game with a pretty simply tactic, forking some of his pieces by playing a Knight to c3 or b2.
In the end, I won a trophy for top __ unrated player, and it was pretty cool. I got 40s with some guy, and we drank in a park while I waited to see if I would win the trophy. It was rainy, and there were people out looking at the fireworks. I rode the train home carrying my trophy, and it was super packed. It was kind of funny.
The World Open in 2007, I didnt have nearly as much fun. In fact, it was pretty depressing. The 2007 World Open was in the Valley Forge Convention Center, and that pretty much sucked. The building is huge, and it is very very yellow. I dont know who designed that area, but why would you make such a huge building such an ugly yellow. I am not especially sensitive to these types of things, but even I thought the place was ugly.
I also stayed at a Hotel. I do not remember which one, but it wasnt one of the ones connected to the Convention Center. So, in order to get to and from the Chess tournament to my hotel, I had to wait and take a shuttle. Effectively, this meant that from the time I left my hotel room in the morning till the time I left the chess tournament at night, I just had to meander around the Convention Center. At the Sheraton, this isnt nearly so bad. I have some friends who work in Center City, and plus it is Center City. There are just places you can wander to. My favorite spot to wander to is the Subway on JFK and 17th Street. They have an upstairs which is so eerily quiet for center city, it is very relaxing, they have nice big tables where a chess board can be set up easily, they have unlimited sodas, and subs dont tire me out too much.
At Valley Forge, I didnt have that kind of place to go to.
The other problem was that I actually had to pay the entry fee this time, and on top of that, I had to stay at a hotel. I am actually pretty poor, so I felt like justifying these costs required me to win. That is very not conducive to having fun. This tournament actually helped me quite a bit, in that I never try and play to win money anymore. It is much better to relax when you look at the entry fee as the sunk cost it is.
Finally, I actually prepared quite a bit for the 2007 World Open. I dont think it helped all that much, though maybe it did. It is hard to say. My rating went way up shortly after, so maybe the preparation just needed a few months to kick in! My preparation was very intense, time and work wise, but not particularly intelligent or effective. I should note though, that I am probably suffering from tons of bias right now. It is easy to categorize things in your mind as successes or failures based on results, but that is really really not a good thing to do. A lot of life is just luck, perhaps most of life.
Plus, with all of this whining, the reader may be exasperated to know I 5 out of 9. Basically, the difference between 2006 and 2007 was one blunder, yet I look back on them so differently. I really cant even explain myself why I feel so down on the 2007 World Open as opposed to the 2006 World Open. Probably it is because I dont want to admit to myself what an idiot I am!
Bear with me, but I really did think I was going to win the 2007 World Open. It is pretty embarrassing now, because that is pretty bad hubris. This bad attitude probably actually cost me some games, as well.
My first game I won on a simple Knight fork tactic. I was pretty excited afterwards. The second game was a pretty huge disaster. My opponent gambited three pawns, and I took all three. The hubris really got to me! I dont really remember some of the other games. I knew I won one because my opponent blundered his e4 pawn. I also know I lost one where I had a decent position, but was in bad time trouble. I also suffered a brutal defeat, where I effectively had no counterplay for the entire game.
Maybe that is why I am so down on this tournament. My losses were more spectacular then my wins. I dont even really remember any of the wins, except the first one, but that was just a bad blunder my opponent. I am not sure if I actually won any game this tournament that was a good win. After this tournament, I actually switched from 1. d4 to 1. Nf3 because of that three gambit pawn. I dont tell anyone that I play 1. Nf3 to avoid the Budapest Gambit!
Moving along, the 2008 World Open went a bit better. Chess wise, it actually went pretty well. The problem was, walking home after my third game I got robbed at gun point! I have never really seen a gun before, or had crimes committed against me, so it had a pretty bad effect on me. It wasnt too terrible, but I was just stressed out and my mind would wander a lot during the games. I am actually pretty happy in a way that I was in a chess tournament when it happened.
Well, going back to the beginning, this was the first chess tournament where I did the 7 day schedule. This was part of the playing for fun thing. I really like the longer games, and the entry fee is all the same, so I want to get as much chess for my buck as possible. I had a nice win in a very nearly equal endgame. That always feels good, to outplay your opponent in the endgame.
I won my next two games as well, and things were going pretty well. Then, as I said above, I got robbed. I didnt win a game after that! I was actually thinking about dropping out of the tournament, because I kind of knew I wouldnt be able to play that well, but figured I would just stick it out. It builds character! I actually played pretty well all things considered. I got a really nice draw in the 4th game. My opening was pretty poor as I was settling in, and I got into a bad position. But I got some nice counterplay, and was able to use piece activity to get a draw. I think I was down some material.
After that, I got 2 more draws and 3 losses. It is kind of a shame that I was playing so well and some outside force ruins that for me. The guy that robbed me only got 11 dollars off of me anyway! He didnt take my chess stuff though. Also, I still played pretty well, even though my score doesnt show it. I got some nice active draws with Black. I did get crushed by another gambit with White, but I at least put up a better fight!
But that is the way things go, I suppose. I take taxis home from tournaments now when it is late at night. It is a lot more expensive than SEPTA, but I dont want my 400 dollar entry wasted because something like this happens again. For 2008, I got a 4.5 out of 9. I wasnt upset, at least with myself, though, even though that was one of my worst scores at a tournament. I remember reading a story at some point, about a Master or IM player who got hit on the head when a sign fell down on him. He had to withdraw from the tournament. Really, what can you do? Dont walk around late at night, and dont walk underneath signs!
Another thing is that my girlfriend really helped me out during this time, and that is always a big help. It is good to get a little perspective sometimes on what is important in life.
The 2009 World Open, I can thankfully say, went great. I was doing pretty flexible work at the time, and actually thought that I was going to have some free time. I was wrong! I had already entered into the 7 day schedule, when I found out that I was going to need to do quite a bit of work over the week.
It may seem strange, but I really believe this actually helped me. It gave me a bit of toughness in my games, and a bit of passion as well. Dealing with the psychological weakness of myself in the 2007 World Open, and then the unexpected adversity in the 2008 World Open, this little bit of difficulty was no problem at all. I was going to make sure it wouldnt be a problem. I got back to concentrating like I did before, because I knew my brain was tired. I knew that if I didnt spend the entire time thinking during the game, I was probably going to lose to a better rested opponent. I did lose a few games, though.
I actually lost the first game I played. I had forgotten that. I think I lost pretty badly, as well. I didnt take it all that hard though, and I didnt lose another game that tournament! I did get a lot of draws though, but ended up with a score of 6 out of 9.
My last game of that tournament really deserves a mention. I was playing pretty poorly at the beginning of the game, and was just basically dead tired. I also knew I was out of the money, so it was hard to get that motivation. But, after a while, I was in a terrible position and made a great decision. I sacrificed my center pawn so that I could get at least some counterattacking possibilities. I knew it wasnt a sound sacrifice, but my position was bad anyway. In the end, I was able to outplay my opponent and get a nice win.
Afterwards, I noticed that I had gained like 50 or so rating points from this tournament. What a nice consolation prize! It put me above 1900 for the first time in maybe a year and a half. The first time I got over 1900 it felt like a fluke. I had gone on a somewhat lucky streak, winning a handful of games from worse positions because of foolish blunders by my opponents. After this tournament, though, I felt like I belonged above 1900.
I just played against strong competition, in what is usually the strongest tournament of the year. People always play much better than their ratings at the World Open, because so much money is on the line. A lot of people prepare for the tournament, and refrain from playing in other tournaments for a few months before. They want to keep their ratings below certain thresholds. And as far as the concentration levels go, people just dont flub around like they sometimes do at Quads, or other smaller tournaments. Everyone is usually very focused. Towards the later rounds, you can get a few easy games if you are out of the money, but a lot of times people who are doing poorly just withdraw.
Well, that about wraps up my World Opens story. I have most or all of the games from those tournaments, so I might try and post them with some light annotations. One thing that surprises me is when I look over those old games is the amount of good ideas I had in those games. Another thing that surprises, though, is the amount of terrible ideas I had!
I will make some more World Open posts related to preparations, both planned and completed.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
U.S. Chess Championship 2010, Introduction
Well, I have a 1. Nf3 post in the making, but my computer broke so it is difficult for me to make posts with pictures etc. I dont think listing off a bunch of 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 etc. etc. will be that helpful or interesting to read, so I am going to change gears for a bit. I do want to make posts that explore my openings more in depth though, so I will finish it at soon as possible. Hopefully my computer will be repaired in about 2 weeks or so.
Instead, I am going to do a series of posts about the U.S. Chess Championships. These posts will largely be me looking over the games, usually without computer analysis, and seeing what I can come up with. It will not be so much in depth and accurate analysis, as it will be exploring what a Class A player can come up with in his brain. Perhaps after a run through without computer analysis, I might double check whatever I come up with, we will have to see.
The other idea behind these posts is to help promote the US Chess Championships, as one of my goals of this blog is to promote chess in the US.
I will leave this post largely as an Introduction sort of Post, and the other posts in this hopefully long and interesting series will be titled "U.S. Chess Championship: ______ v. ______"
Unfortunately, as I said earlier, my computer broke so I am unable to make posts with pictures. Instead, I will be linking to chessgames.com for the games, and will assume that anyone reading my post has the game opened up on that page and can easily go through the various moves. Hopefully, that is not too clunky or inconvenient.
[Edit: A lot of this is moot now, but I will leave it up as a testament to my ability to improve!]
Instead, I am going to do a series of posts about the U.S. Chess Championships. These posts will largely be me looking over the games, usually without computer analysis, and seeing what I can come up with. It will not be so much in depth and accurate analysis, as it will be exploring what a Class A player can come up with in his brain. Perhaps after a run through without computer analysis, I might double check whatever I come up with, we will have to see.
The other idea behind these posts is to help promote the US Chess Championships, as one of my goals of this blog is to promote chess in the US.
I will leave this post largely as an Introduction sort of Post, and the other posts in this hopefully long and interesting series will be titled "U.S. Chess Championship: ______ v. ______"
Unfortunately, as I said earlier, my computer broke so I am unable to make posts with pictures. Instead, I will be linking to chessgames.com for the games, and will assume that anyone reading my post has the game opened up on that page and can easily go through the various moves. Hopefully, that is not too clunky or inconvenient.
[Edit: A lot of this is moot now, but I will leave it up as a testament to my ability to improve!]
Friday, April 30, 2010
Introduction, Exploring My Openings
Hello everybody!
This blog's goal is to provide in depth chess analysis of exceptional games as well as broader overviews of tournaments, players and eras of chess. That is pretty lofty, so we will have to just see how it all ends up.
My favorite players are Tal, Kramnik, Kasparov, Smyslov, Lasker, Chigorin, Morphy, as well as many many more. My preferred openings are 1. Nf3 for White, and the Sicilian Dragon and the Chigorin as Black. This blog will have somewhat of a personal feel to it, mostly because I seriously that many people are going to read it. However, if anyone is ever reading it and has some suggestions, questions, requests etc. about some chess analysis, just leave a comment.
Also, I am fairly sure it will take a while for me to get good with lay outs and such, if i ever do. As it is chess pictures of boards etc. would be very helpful, wouldnt they? so I will have to figure out how to do that stuff. Maybe even a fancy java board or something could be in the works.
Just to get things started, with some very basics, the primary openings are 1. e4 and 1. d4. If you have a chess board, feel free to play these moves and look at the board. The central pawn moves forward two squares, and with 1. e4 White now has the ability to develop four pieces (two knights, Light squared Bishop and the Queen). With 1. d4 White has the ability to develop 4 pieces as well, (two Knights, dark squared bishop and Queen), but the Queen generally cant develop to a worthwhile square. [1. d4 ... 2. Qd3 seems like it could be fun though!]
I, as notes above dont play either of these moves with White. Lets look at some of Black's possible responses to e4 and d4. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 leads to the Petroff. Boy oh Boy is the Petroff boring. Actually, for , oh by the way, I am Class A USCF which is very good but not really what you would call high level. Maybe something like a highly skilled hobbyist would be a good way to think about it, not even close to the Pros, but knows what is going on. Back to what I was saying earlier, the Petroff is not all that boring at the lower levels. But the idea of Nf6 is somewhat instructive, as Black is given the ability to quickly attack White's center.
Moving along, 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 is the Ruy Lopez. White's center is not under so much pressure at the moment, but it also costs him a good deal of time with his bishop. Development of his other pieces will probably get a little clunky. (or give up the bishop pair).
1. e4 c5 The Sicilian. This is actually what I prefer to play against when I play 1. e4. The center is not so much under attack, as Black is taking his own center square and preparing for an attack on the Queen side. Though I like playing against this the most, it is also very sharp and losses are easy to come by.
1. e4 c6 Caro Kann. Not down with this one all that much, as black pretty much just sits back. His position is very solid.
1. e4 e6 French. Black will get a very nice attack against White's center.
1. d4, and there are basically two families as I like to see it.
The first is the Indian Defenses, in which black plays something like Nf6, e6, g6, b6 Bg7, Bb7, Bb4, and so on until he decides to counter with d5, c5 or e5 depending on the situation.
The second is the ?? well the d5 Defenses. White plays d4 and c4 and Black plays any of e6, c6, Nf6, Be7, Nbd7, so on and so forth.
The d5 defenses are tough to crack, but there is really no way to avoid them, except by playing e4. The Indian defense can be pretty annoying. I hate playing against the Queen's indian, and I hate playing against the Nimzo Indian. Black has way too much play and I get all frustrated and end up over extending my position etc.
That is why I play 1. Nf3, it is easy to avoid these Indian defenses.
The Sicilian Dragon and The Chigorin are pretty much self explanatory as they as awesome.
This seems like a pretty good, though rambling, start.
This is more or less how I hope the blog turns out, with a little more analysis, and a little less fluff, but still focusing a decent amount on strategy, or putting into writing tactical ideas (ie forks, etc. etc.). For some people this may be a waste of time, but I think it helps learn the chess stuff better if you put it into words. For some people, that might be a great way to learn it.
Well, thanks for stopping by, I hope to post regularly, but honestly, I probably wont :(
It was pretty fun writing all this up though, and chess is pretty fun too, so I should be back pretty soon ;)
This blog's goal is to provide in depth chess analysis of exceptional games as well as broader overviews of tournaments, players and eras of chess. That is pretty lofty, so we will have to just see how it all ends up.
My favorite players are Tal, Kramnik, Kasparov, Smyslov, Lasker, Chigorin, Morphy, as well as many many more. My preferred openings are 1. Nf3 for White, and the Sicilian Dragon and the Chigorin as Black. This blog will have somewhat of a personal feel to it, mostly because I seriously that many people are going to read it. However, if anyone is ever reading it and has some suggestions, questions, requests etc. about some chess analysis, just leave a comment.
Also, I am fairly sure it will take a while for me to get good with lay outs and such, if i ever do. As it is chess pictures of boards etc. would be very helpful, wouldnt they? so I will have to figure out how to do that stuff. Maybe even a fancy java board or something could be in the works.
Just to get things started, with some very basics, the primary openings are 1. e4 and 1. d4. If you have a chess board, feel free to play these moves and look at the board. The central pawn moves forward two squares, and with 1. e4 White now has the ability to develop four pieces (two knights, Light squared Bishop and the Queen). With 1. d4 White has the ability to develop 4 pieces as well, (two Knights, dark squared bishop and Queen), but the Queen generally cant develop to a worthwhile square. [1. d4 ... 2. Qd3 seems like it could be fun though!]
I, as notes above dont play either of these moves with White. Lets look at some of Black's possible responses to e4 and d4. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 leads to the Petroff. Boy oh Boy is the Petroff boring. Actually, for , oh by the way, I am Class A USCF which is very good but not really what you would call high level. Maybe something like a highly skilled hobbyist would be a good way to think about it, not even close to the Pros, but knows what is going on. Back to what I was saying earlier, the Petroff is not all that boring at the lower levels. But the idea of Nf6 is somewhat instructive, as Black is given the ability to quickly attack White's center.
Moving along, 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 is the Ruy Lopez. White's center is not under so much pressure at the moment, but it also costs him a good deal of time with his bishop. Development of his other pieces will probably get a little clunky. (or give up the bishop pair).
1. e4 c5 The Sicilian. This is actually what I prefer to play against when I play 1. e4. The center is not so much under attack, as Black is taking his own center square and preparing for an attack on the Queen side. Though I like playing against this the most, it is also very sharp and losses are easy to come by.
1. e4 c6 Caro Kann. Not down with this one all that much, as black pretty much just sits back. His position is very solid.
1. e4 e6 French. Black will get a very nice attack against White's center.
1. d4, and there are basically two families as I like to see it.
The first is the Indian Defenses, in which black plays something like Nf6, e6, g6, b6 Bg7, Bb7, Bb4, and so on until he decides to counter with d5, c5 or e5 depending on the situation.
The second is the ?? well the d5 Defenses. White plays d4 and c4 and Black plays any of e6, c6, Nf6, Be7, Nbd7, so on and so forth.
The d5 defenses are tough to crack, but there is really no way to avoid them, except by playing e4. The Indian defense can be pretty annoying. I hate playing against the Queen's indian, and I hate playing against the Nimzo Indian. Black has way too much play and I get all frustrated and end up over extending my position etc.
That is why I play 1. Nf3, it is easy to avoid these Indian defenses.
The Sicilian Dragon and The Chigorin are pretty much self explanatory as they as awesome.
This seems like a pretty good, though rambling, start.
This is more or less how I hope the blog turns out, with a little more analysis, and a little less fluff, but still focusing a decent amount on strategy, or putting into writing tactical ideas (ie forks, etc. etc.). For some people this may be a waste of time, but I think it helps learn the chess stuff better if you put it into words. For some people, that might be a great way to learn it.
Well, thanks for stopping by, I hope to post regularly, but honestly, I probably wont :(
It was pretty fun writing all this up though, and chess is pretty fun too, so I should be back pretty soon ;)
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