good games
My chess tournament- Part 7
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Your games are really strange...Can't say I agree with the way you play openings.
Excellent games and annotations thankyou for sharing! :-)
Well done again, Abhishek!
How do you usually train/study before a tournament? What do you think is good to do and what do you think is not good to do?
Great. I really enjoyed to go through the games!
@SJFG Thanks! Everyone has different aspects of improvement they need. Lately I've been looking at how to not move so slowly, and I'm practicing games, where I try to implement it. It's hard! I'm also working on tactics, too.
Good to see you got crushed against the french. I like it.
@Randomemory that's ALL you say? :D
Anyway note that I missed Bb5+ and my opponent put up a crappy defense in the last game, I just failed to realize the weakness of the isolated d4 pawn.
great games abhishek!!! as usual :)
I like watching your chess tournament series. They're quite interesting and educational.
Also your openings are kind of awkward but also interesting. Good games!
I Think J Wahl could win after 41...re3! Because of his passed pawns
Jun 25, 2013
0
#20
Game 1) Couple issues with opening play.. I think things started going a little downhill with the start of a6 (unnecessary), followed by b5 and Rd8 and b4. Don't forget the basics of opening play (how to find a ...#2)!
Game 2) Don't play Bf2, it'll come back to haunt you. The bishop simply doesn't belong there. Always play Qe2, because after he takes your bishop with his knight, your queen happily ends up on e3. I know what you're thinking (what if he doesn't take my bishop!). The answer is..so? Keep playing the opening the way Morphy has taught us to :)
Bh5? gross. The king is on b8.. why place pieces on weird squares? I agree with Fritz's assessment on getting your bishop to g3.
Bxg6 is not good. Don't help your opponents attack you! Understand piece value... your bishop and knight are far more valuable than your opponent's useless rook on h8. Throws away the advantage and likely the game.
Rf7 was a beautiful Morphy-like opportunity. Still doing those daily tactics? ;)
Game 3) Nbd7 "now i try to recollect my pawn" -- yes, but as long as you remember the reason you're going for d5 isn't for the sake of material, but to be left with an even better center (e5 pawn vs d3) and a well-placed knight.
Game 4) Bd3 is correct. castling queenside is worse. kingside is the obviousl choice and gives white a very powerful position. Be5 isn't too hard to find.. if you avoid thinking materialistically!
Overall, White played this game way too safe. White missed many opportunities..a second rate move followed by a second rate move is better than a first rate move followed by a first rate move! help your opponents to make mistakes! these are the lessons to never forget. Poor game by Black for missing a simple win like Qa2. A lot of improvement can be made on both sides.
Also, why Bh6 and Bxf8? Bishops are better than knights in all but blocked pawn positions. White should simply win this endgame (yes, it might say equal by Fritz, but some positions are more equal than others!) Something like Bd2-Bc3 is interesting, or simply Be3 first to put pressure on c5. Fight to win the game and ending up losing is better than taking a draw, even if the position is equal! If you feel like that's unreasonable and you don't agree... then think about this... the position is equal on move 1...so why not agree on a draw then?!
Game 5) Nh7 is very bad. stop thinking and coming up with ideas! sounds unreasonable but you're not supposed to be coming up with ideas which cause you to make bad moves like Nh7. evaluate the position, follow the good principles of chess, and follow Morphy style. many of these games show that how to find a ... #2 is being violated! look at the games again and see! how to find a ...#2 is one of hardest and most important lessons to learn and follow.
"That proves that sometimes you have to buckle down and defend!"
True, but this is not at all the case. Black should better evaluate the position. Black should have fought to win this game, not play Queen checks and try to defend. Fritz might say White's winning...but that's because Fritz thinks materialistically. Black's definitely doing fine throughout the game after move 35..and if I had to pick, I'd rather be Black than White in that position.
Game 6) Bb5+ is easy to see if you always look at the most aggressive available move! Why is Qh3 still lost? I still like White's position a lot.. There's a threat of mate.. and white's pieces are all developed (best game of the tournament so far in my opinion! So what if you lost the d4 pawn? Fight and win! Even after black's f5, White is STILL doing better. White has all pieces developed and rooks connected, while black hasn't! you're thinking way too materialistically! Nef3 is unnecessary... you should be going forward, attacking, and winning! I would definitely take white over black in that position, and you should want to too!
Tournament's are tough..very very competitive, stressful, exciting, and that's why i'm glad you're competing at this level! Very great for improving and it's very nice to see that in your games.
A few pieces of advice --
1) You're facing time pressure because you're trying to force things that happen in a position where it just can't happen. Remember, you pick the most aggressive move, look at it 3 half moves + 2 more for evaluating the position. if at any time, you find that your opponent gets a better position as a result, you completely disregard that move and look at something else. DON'T KEEP THINKING about it and trying to make that move work. Move on! I know it's easy to say and difficult to do, but it's something that you need to practice. If you practice the rules in how to find a ... and 30 rules of chess, you won't face time pressure. That style of thinking just won't let you get into time pressure. I recommend shorter time controls like G/45 to get used to it.
2) Since when was chess about winning money? I'd rather play great chess games and lose (by playing in an upper section for example) than play bad chess and win first place. and that's the honest truth. cash prizes are the worst thing that was ever introduced to competitive chess.
3) Tactics, tactics, tactics. I'm glad to see you recognize the importance of it in your commentary! There were far too many tactical mistakes and opportunities missed. Keep working through tactics... you said it yourself, the better tactician always wins! :)
4) I agree with deepchessbase regarding your openings. moves like Nh7 for example. Review Morphy!
Good luck! I'm really happy with these games, and I hope you find this analysis useful. Keep working at it! Excited to see you play more and more awesome chess games in the near future.
Hey everyone! I recently attended the North American Open in Las Vegas, NV. I participated in the U2000 section; having a rating of 1998 I promised myself that I would try my best to win money, and to not underestimate any of my opponents. Despite the hot weather, and the excessiveness of air conditioner in the playing hall, I think I did pretty well. But I had one main enemy...time pressure! I would spend around 20 to 30 minutes on just one move, and as a punishment I had to live off the increment for the final moves before time control (40 moves in 90 minutes, game in 30 with a 30 second increment after every move). I started off strong, but naturally time pressure, fatigue, and sleep got the better of me, and it really showed with my painful loss in the last round.
I had to leave school quite early, around noon, to drive to Las Vegas. With all the luggage and the cooler for drinks, it was certainly cramped in the car. The car drives take a long time, so I ended up sleeping for most of the ride there. Luckily we didn't run into any traffic jams and reached the hotel at night.
The next day I had to rush to the playing hall as I looked up the pairings for round 1. I was playing someone in the lower half of my section (an 1878 from Washington) ; being the top seed in my group I was on board 1. The game started off well, until my king was a bit exposed, but my opponent was on severe time pressure, and that's what cost him the win (especially the final move). So I ended up getting really lucky by snatching the win by making moves to confuse him. Here's the game:
Got pretty lucky there. In the next round in the same day I played a 1793 (provisional) from Mexico. It actually dropped 100 points in his last tournament so his published rating was like 1890. He played very badly but when I failed to capitalize on my dominating position I was all of a sudden in a lost position. But then the miracle of miracles happened. He hung a piece! Then that blunder followed another string of blunders, until he was so disappointed with himself that he started cussing lol. Here's the interesting game:
As you can see from the number of deep variations and the messy positions with pieces hanging everywhere, it's up to the better tactician to win the game. The game was constantly changing from white having the advantage to black having the advantage, then back to white again, then white fails to seize the winning opportunity, then black messes up, then black messes up even more, and it got downhill from there. This game reminded me that I have to work on my tactical skill and calculation to outsmart my opponent in these type of messy positions. I ended up getting very lucky in this game, to be able to run away with the full point. I promised myself that this will not happen again!
The next morning the weather was super hot, at around 112 degrees! It was baking hot in the car and the metal of the seatbelts could actually burn you! But I always made sure to bring a warm jacket into the tournament hall because the room had way too much conditioning, the people who wore shorts were shivering!
I played a 1917 who didn't travel much, since he is right from Nevada. He played very passively and declined my completely unsound piece sac, and lost rather quickly in 19 moves. Here's the game:
So except for the unsound bishop sac which basically threw away the game I did pretty well, I capitalized on my opponent's passive retreat and defense and was able to mate. That evening I was faced with a much harder opponent who managed to confuse me in the opening! I played a 1932 from Minnesota. He played well, finding all the good moves, but he played really quickly, it was hard to make him actually sit down at the board and THINK. He messed up right in the end but unfortunately I missed this hard move- I got the idea but I just couldn't seem to make it work under time pressure. Yep, so once again time pressure has a big impact on my play. Luckily I simplified into a drawn rook ending, and a draw was agreed on move 41. Here's the interesting game:
Overall, a pretty good game, but it was sad that I missed the Be5! followed by Rh6! shot. Now I started to go downhill. I did really badly the next day.
In round 5 I played an 1897 from my home state CA. He played really well, despite being 75+ years old! I had to struggle to draw after he did nothing for almost 20 moves and a draw was agreed on move 72. Here's the game:
That proves that sometimes you have to buckle down and defend! I got lucky that my opponent decided to do nothing and failed to find a winning plan.
Time for the last round! Unfortunately this time I wasn't so lucky. Before the round they announced the winners of the "Freddie Award", the person with the best game who is under 14 will get a trophy and 200 dollars. Unfortunately I didn't produce any brilliancies this year so I just got a medal for submitting a game, which was the same as last year
, but the medal still looks cool. They also decided to give away all the sets, so if black wins the game or draws then they get to keep the set. Tough luck, I was white 
. I played a 1936 from TX. I had one chance to gain an advantage but I blew it and instead blundered, then I got under time pressure and started blundering more and more until I couldn't take it anymore. It was a heartbreaking loss but I learned a lot from it. You have to be careful and just one move may be enough to lose the game (only if your opponent plays phenonomenally well, which happened in my case). Here's the game:
I completely messed up, I deserved to lose that. I blame it on the fatigue of the tournament. Luckily my opponent was nice and agreed to analyze the game to see where I went wrong and played some blitz with me, then I had to leave.
I won $40, which is not bad, considering I was not expecting to win any money. I'm jealous- my opponent got $770, which is really good. But congratulations to the unexpected winner of over $3,600, Willie Grandberry Jr., rated only 1737 (from Chicago), who played up! He performed exceptionally well, and it's not surprising that his rating jumped to 1931! He beat a 1913, a 1911, a 1991, a 2036 (!), and drew with a 1962!
In conclusion, this tournament was a great learning experience. My rating increased to 2008, which is not bad! (Mostly because of the increased K factor so ratings are inflated). My opponents provided strong competition which is typical of this tournament. Till next time!