I played in an action tournament yesterday and the rust was quite evident.
Three of the stronger players there were people that I knew from the 1970s, and 1990s so it was a reunion of sorts. We are all looking a bit older.
Anyway this was an action tournament which is on a separate rating system from the regular CFC ratings. The theory was that I could have a little dip in the pool before the main event next week.
Mistakes I made before the tournament:
1. I didn't get enough sleep the night before (three and a half hours)
2. Drove up in the morning, slightly more than a three hour drive arriving just as the TD did.
3. Went to the wrong address. (There is an East and a West King Street?! in Kitchener) This may have done me some good as I had trouble finding parking so I was parked between the wrong address and the right address so I got a little unintended exercise which may have helped get my blood flowing.
4. I did very little opening preparation which was evident in every game.
Mistakes I made during the games:
1. This was action chess. You don't have time to take a long think or you will lose on time or be forced to hurry up and make bad moves.
2. My sense of danger was totally lacking. In four of the five games I voluntarily submitted to ferocious attacks and in three cases totally underestimated their dangers. This goes back to opening preparation.
I lost to two masters and an expert (regular CFC rating but an A player in action). There was no time to reflect on your mistakes between rounds as right away was another round. I lost two games on the white side of the Modern defense. I lost another game on the black side of the Giuoco Piano. I was on board one in my first and last game and those were the two masters.
While I got a bit behind in time in a couple of games I managed the clock okay - that is to say almost as well as my opponents.
In my first game I played a guy who I had played before. He was the top player by rating. I only remembered the loss in a Canadian Open in the 1990s but apparently he said that we were 500 now because of a couple of games in the 1970s that I had forgotten. I played with undue optimism in an equal position and then overlooked how strong his attack on the kingside would be and castled into it. If I had played slightly less agressive I would have had a reasonable game. 0-1
In my second game I was on the black side of an Evans Gambit. My opponent played a hyperaggressive line and I think I found the moves that saved my bacon and kept him from getting all of his pieces into the king hunt. He threatened to trap my queen but I found a move which blocked things up long enough for me to get all my pieces mobilized. Then in mild time trouble he blundered a piece though he was already worse because I had three extra pawns and was fully developed while he still had to find squares for three of his pieces.
In my third game it was another White side Modern Defence and again I got myself mated on the kingside. If I had had time to look up the opening after the first round this second debacle would not have occurred. Oh well.
In my fourth game I was black against a Reti/English opening and tried for a hedgehog type setup but early on I played a move which freed my game but gave him a slight edge and led to a series of exchanges which should have petered out into a draw. In the ending I was down a pawn but probably equal in a double rook ending. I probably could have hung on to the pawn if I had wanted a dead drawn ending but went for activity over material and achieved a position where I was a pawn down but had all the winning chances and was ahead on time. My opponent moved his rooks into position on the a-file to force the advance of his extra a-pawn but that left them passive and allowed me to switch my less active rook from defending f7 from f5 to cooperating with the active rook by attacking his king's fortress. He resigned when it was mate in one with his king trapped on the back rank around e8 and my rooks at a7 and h7 which was one of the mates in the appendix of Tisdall's "Improve Your Chess Now" book.
In the final game I was back on board one with a former rival from the 1970s and 1990s. I won our last game in the 1990s when he blundered in time pressure. He was a master and I was an A player at the time and I believe it was at the Canadian Open held in Windsor in 1992 though he thought it was 1991 but he said that he didn't remember the game probably because of the way he lost it. He erased it from his memory.
I played badly in the opening and lost a piece. At one point I had four pawns for the piece but his initiative was too much. The bad part was that I saw the right move but rejected it because I was seeing ghosts. The correct move would have led to a equal and drawish game after a series of exchanges. I knew that 12 years ago but somehow didn't remember yesterday.
Oh well.
I probably didn't lose any rating points and know where I went wrong but I have a lot of work to do before next weekend. I will probably post some of the games (losses) next week. Right now I have a lot of work to do.
On the other hand I got the sense that despite my rust I was not totally out of it. Despite the less than ideal circumstances I didn't feel especially tired and my play reminded me of how I played before my great improvement spurt in the 1990s. I still got the opportunities. My positional judgment hasn't totally deserted me.
Next week it is most likely that I will play four or five masters with potential of an IM or a GM as an opponent if I can play reasonably well in the early going. I will have to be sharper than I was last weekend. I am going to bite the bullet and pay for a hotel room the night before the tournament so I don't have to play the first day on three or four hours sleep because I have to get up so early to drive up.
Crash
My chess play stinks!
Linear Mode
