Mysterious Rook Moves

Sometimes you lose ugly. I’m still working out some of the typical things that you have to watch out for in the opening I’ve started using as black. Apparently, one of those things is the bishop sacrifice on f7. I ended up on the ropes back in round 4 of the October tournament after such a sacrifice. I was able to draw that game after a long struggle.

This time around I was busted on move 11 and resigned on move 15.

Continue reading MCC November Swiss Round 3: Loss

Round 2 of the November Swiss tournament at the MCC saw me paired against Walt Champion. Walt is in his 60’s and plays very solid chess. I’ve seen him around the club a fair bit (frequently holding off other good players) but didn’t have a chance to play him until now. I had white in a Closed Sicilian, and managed to get a winning position, but was distracted by paper tigers, couldn’t see a clear path to victory, and took a draw. This is two out of the last 3 games at the MCC now where I’ve taken draws in winning positions against equal or higher rated competition. I must be getting soft in my old age.

Continue reading MCC November Swiss Round 2: Draw

Two months in a row I’ve had the same opponent in the first round. This isn’t too surprising given how pairings are made. Most chess tournaments use what is known as the “swiss” pairing system. Basically, starting with the people with the best scores so far, you take each group of people with the same score, sort by rating, split into a top half and bottom half, and pair across. Player 1 plays player n/2+1, and so forth. There are some additional rules for dealing with odd numbers of players, evening out the color distribution, and making sure you don’t play the same people twice.

At any rate, since the pool of players stays somewhat constant over the months, and the ratings don’t change THAT fast, it’s no surprise that things shook out the same way again. This time I had black, though, so I got to trot out my new black defense one more time. It’s still very rough around the edges, but at least I wasn’t busted by move 6 like I was last week.

This game is a bit sloppy on both sides. I gave white too much space at the start, then gave back the pawn he let me win, and more, and then had a hard time finding a win in a fairly level endgame until my opponent offered a queen trade that turned out to be winning for me.

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Unexpected but nice moment: when I arrived to sign up for this month’s tournament, I was informed that my tie for second place last month won me 30 dollars, which is a net of 10 after paying for the registration. It’s not much, but if I can win even a small amount of money playing this game I can’t be doing it all wrong.

This week figures to involve more chess than usual for me, as the Boston University open, which happens every November, is taking place this Saturday. It’s a four round tournament, G/60 (players get 60 minutes to make all their moves) so you can get it done in a day. It’s always a good time, and I’m looking forward to it.

In the fourth and final round I had black against Alex Jones, who is right around the same level that I am. I’m still trying to learn a new opening as black, and got myself into serious trouble right at the start of this one. Fortunately I was able to hang on, inflict some positional weaknesses in my opponents position, and work it back to a draw.

I probably should have had better….

From the final position in the game, with fresh eyes it now looks to me like I should have been able to win. My opponent offered the draw and my thought process was more or less as follows:
1. I’m lucky not to have lost this game
2. My chess has been pretty awful at times tonight
3. In this position, I’m certainly not worse, and maybe am slightly better, but I don’t see a clear path to victory
4. I’ve been playing chess for nearly 4 hours, I’m tired, I’m likely to blow this if I continue

So I took the draw. In hindsight, I think the thought process should have been:
1. The position is more or less safe, and by playing a few more moves I’m unlikely to be any worse off and maybe I’ll be able to see further or a plan will become clear
2. The top board in the section had already finished with a draw, so the leader of the section already had 3.5 points and I needed a win in this game to tie, so I should have pressed for a win even if it cost me and I ended up losing
3. I’ll never improve my endgame play without actually playing the endgames I reach, so I should probably play in general and only take a draw in a clearly drawn position. Why be afraid to lose?

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So, 3/4 points on two wins with white and two draws with black in my new opening….both of which easily could or should have been losses. Overall, a good tournament, and it pushed my rating back over 1500, which isn’t super important to me, but it’s nice anyway.

Metrowest Chess Club’s Thanksgiving Swiss starts this Tuesday night!

Round 3 was played last night and for the first time in a couple of months I was paired against someone rated over 200 points higher than I am. A detailed discussion of the USCF rating system (and my issues with it) is coming later, but for those of you who aren’t familiar with ELO systems, but for now just know that this implies that if the ratings system is well calibrated, this opponent should beat me about 76% of the time.

I had white, though, and that tends to be quite an advantage for me. I ended up winning the game, and I’m very happy about that, but this was one of those games where you win, go home and look over the game, and realize you ought to have lost. I never know what to make of that. Should I feel satisfied about the win? Should I be upset that I willingly played into lines that were completely losing without even knowing it? I’m really not sure how I feel about this. Many of the games I have won have contained a position where my opponent could have beaten me with reasonable play.

I guess this is just the nature of the chess beast, and I’m always going to make mistakes….as is often said of chess, and low level chess especially: the winner is usually the one who makes the second to last major mistake.

This game was no exception.

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So, 3 out of 4 rounds are in the bank and I’m sitting on 2.5 points. Next week I’m provisionally paired against another player with 2.5 points who is rated 1600. I’m scheduled to have white again, which will help. There’s 1 player with 3/3 and he’s paired against another player with 2.5, so if I win and the 3/3 draws or loses, I can tie for first in the group, which would be nice. I haven’t come in first in a tournament at the MCC since December of 2006 when I was beating up on 10 year olds in the under 1400 section…