Never give up

"If I don't win this game, I'm giving up chess" I joked. At least, I hoped I was joking. Given that I was sitting near the bottom of the rankings, with only a half point (bye) to my name, and 0 for 2 in games I had actually played, it certainly might've sounded genuine. If true, an ostensible dead rubber had suddenly become very high stakes for me - although I should add: If I'm genuinely going to stake whether or not I continue with my hobby on ONE game, then I probably don't have the right mentality to be a serious chess player anyway. As opposed to the actual case, where I do have the mentality but not the competence to be a serious chess player. (It's been a weekend; I'm allowed the odd dig at myself).

But let's back up a bit: It was the week of the Scottish Chess Championships. I had elected to play in the Weekend Open, because I couldn't justify to myself the expense of driving back and forth to Dunfermline every day for a week, or putting myself up in a hotel. For similar reasons, I had taken a bye for Round 1 on the Friday evening, and was travelling back and forth from Stirling (about 45 minutes' drive) on the Saturday and Sunday. Two classical games per day at the generous time control of 110+10. Now, before I get right into the topic of today's post, let me briefly touch on some general tips for taking part in a tournament of this nature:

(a) Have an ambitious, but somewhat realistic, target

Ahead of time, look at the field if you can, and compare your standard (as perceived by you) to what, on average, you're going to be up against. This should give you an idea of what would be a decent return of points from the upcoming tournament. This will help you maintain focus regardless of the result of an individual match. If you won: great - but you still have more work to do. If you didn't, the target is still there; dust yourself down and go again. If you've set your target right, it's probably in the balance as to whether or not you've achieved it going into the final round. Unless you've completely dominated and are ahead of your target, in which case, congratulations - but it's on you to find out just how much you can exceed the target by. Or, if you lose the last round, the target gives you a bit of perspective to stop you being so despondent. What if you're having a bad time of it, and your target is out of reach by the last round? Well, we'll get to that. You might not have to set your target yourself. If you have a coach, they'll most likely have a good idea of what your target should be.

In this case, I had set myself a goal of three points (out of 5). This was mightily ambitious - especially because it was really out of a possible 4.5, as I was taking a bye in round 1. But here is how I decided upon that target: last year, I scored 3/5. Now, I was extremely disappointed with my performance last year. I won my first game, but that was after I had made a rookie mistake in the opening that went unpunished. I won the next one after that, but it was a game that only lasted an hour. My opponent dropped a piece to a tactic around Move 18, and immediately resigned. Still, I can only play what's in front of me, and I was happy with that one. Then came Round 4. That was a draw, which I could've taken on the chin had it not been for the fact I missed a forced win, and not a hard one. I was kicking myself. I then got crushed in the last game, leading me to ditch that particular opening and find something new. Given I was so disappointed with my performance, one might've thought trying to exceed that total this year would've made sense. HOWEVER, the field was a lot stronger this year. I was in an U1800 event last year; this was an open. And although I was near the top of the rating list, my FIDE Rating is (or was) in my opinion somewhat inflated. It sat at 1848 going into this tournament, which made no sense to me, given that I had never beaten anyone higher than 1700 in a FIDE rated game, and had lost to someone lower than that. I expect it to go down after this weekend, and that'll be deserved. Therefore, 3 out of 5 was a lofty (and probably unachievable) goal - but also a fair one to ask of myself.

(b) Your opening preparation needs to be on point

You CANNOT go into a tournament of this nature and expect to do well if you are not familiar with every opening you might possibly be involved in. That's not the same as "learn every opening" - you don't need to know the Sicilian/Caro Kann etc for White if you always open 1.d4. Knowing what you do, there will only be so many openings that you might end up playing - you need to know them. And if you're not already familiar with the advice: memorisation is damn near impossible. Understand the ideas and plans in the opening lines you're playing into; the memory will come. Now, this, I knew, would be a problem. Of course I had worked on my openings. But I had not had the time to do everything I wanted, AND I was using some relatively new material. The preparation for this was nowhere near what I would normally want it to be - I've won so many games just through out-preparing my opponent. That was unlikely to happen here. We can also refer this back to point (a) as another reason why 3/5 was such a difficult target.

So, with these general points in mind, on with the topic. Saturday did not go well. In Game 1 (Round 2), I played a Sicilian and soon found myself in unfamiliar territory - but not uncomfortable territory. I had some ideas and although I needed to invest a bit of time, the result of this game was neither the fault of my choice of opening or my ability to execute it. I haven't checked with the computer yet (which by the way is another piece of advice I might explore in more depth in another post: firstly analyse your game WITHOUT a computer, then run an engine analysis to see how well the computer's conclusions match with your own) - but I believe I hacked with the wrong pawn in my Kingside attack. Maybe I'll leave the details of that to another day. Nutshell version: I believe I missed one idea that might have made my "Sac and Attack" work.  Even then I thought I had chances; the critical moment coming when I made a move that, in the time I had left available to calculate, looked winning. Unfortunately my opponent was apparently a Gothamchess follower because he sacrificed... THE ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK! Try as I might, there was no way back after that. It's always disappointing to lose, but I was not disheartened (yet).

Round 3 was even worse. I was playing a kid who's legs didn't even reach the floor - and as any experienced adult competitor will tell you, when that's what you see sitting opposite you, be afraid. Be very afraid. OK, seriously, you probably can't find your A-game if you're quivering in fear - my point is that anyone who knows anything about tournament chess knows that you're in for a very hard time indeed. The Junior will be seriously underrated (because they are constantly improving while ratings are fixed for a year), so you might as well assume you're playing a GM. If you're not on the top of your game, expect to see this whippersnapper play you off the board and dispatch you like it's nothing. And if the fact I was clearly playing a prodigy was the only reason I lost the game, I could handle that. But unfortunately, it wasn't. I was playing White, and my opening preparation took me up to Move 7:

I could not remember Move 8. I tried to rely on the ideas, and developed my bishop to a square that would work well for an idea that I vaguely remembered - the only problem was, it wasn't that line. I spent most of the game trying to prove that having the bishop pair was worth the pawn I'd sacrificed, before trying to prove that sacrificing a second pawn was worth having the bishop pair AND an attack. Unfortunately, this ultimately depended on forcing my opponent's Queen to the opposite side of the board, and he wasn't having that. My attack was blunt and once the young gun at the other side of the board finally untangled his army, the game was only going one way. 0-1.

I retreated back to base (aka my In-Laws' house) to lick my wounds. There were other commitments in the evening, so there was little time to pick apart what went wrong. I grabbed my book on the opening that I'd used in Round 3, and looked up the relevant variation. Ah! Qc2 was the move I'd forgotten. What then? I read through that passage and hoped against hope I'd internalise the wisdom there written. I also looked up some other lines I knew I was struggling to remember. This was one reason I knew I wasn't where I wanted to be in respect of advice (b) above. I was on the last chapter of this book, but hadn't finished it. Some chapters I have read two or three times, but ideally, I'd have the whole of the book read multiple times before embarking on a competition like this.

"Was it worth going?" asked my Father In Law. I mean... there was hardly a case to be made for "yes". I had got nothing out of this. The first loss, while as gutting as any, I could take. But the second was an unmitigated disaster. I was on 0.5/3, and with two rounds to go, it was mathematically impossible to reach the hallowed 3 point mark. I'm not sure I had been doing this badly in a tournament since my very first one, when I was an ungraded and untrained Junior, having joined my first chess club 3 days previously. There are many in my position who would've considered withdrawing from the tournament at this point. I couldn't win the tournament, reach my target, or even play for a grading prize because of my inflated rating. Also, the Euro 2024 Final was on the TV that night, and I very much wanted to see that. A protracted struggle in Round 5 might jeopardise watching it live. Add this all up, throw in the despondency of my Saturday performance, and you could be forgiven for thinking I had no reason to return. However, in truth it didn't even cross my mind to withdraw. I was going back, even if it was for two dead rubbers (Were they? We shall see!), and I was, if anything, even more determined to win. I also want to throw in a quick two cents about the non-subjective reasons to stay in the fight: tournaments like these don't just happen. Chess Scotland has to organise a team of professionals and volunteers (I actually don't know if any of them are paid for the service they provide). They work very hard to make something like this run smoothly; it would be incredibly selfish of me to make their life harder just because I'd had a bad day at the office (and if I was going to do it, I should have done it immediately after Round 3). Leave them in the lurch? Have an opponent travel to the venue to be denied a game and sit around twiddling their thumbs? Not happening (not as a result of me, anyway).

I remember watching a lecture by Eric Rosen, where he talked about a tournament where he wasn't doing well - but he didn't withdraw. He went into more detail why, but his main advice was: "if you're having a bad tournament, don't withdraw. If you do, you'll have finished on a low. Play on, try and get a win under your belt, give yourself a chance to boost your confidence and finish on a high". That's a paraphrase, but that's the gist of his point. Had I never seen that lecture, I'd still have been returning on Sunday - but it's nice to know an IM agrees with me. I still had a shot at finishing on 50%, or +/-0, or whatever you want to call it. But even if I didn't, I wanted that elusive win. Or two. As I prepared to leave, I made that quip about quitting.

Standing in my way: the only player on the tournament with less points than me. If you thought this was cause for optimism, think again. They had managed to pair me with perhaps the one player in the entire field who would want a win more than I did. As I previously alluded to, there were no weak players (and no easy games) in this tournament. I did speak to one player who had won his opening game in 9 moves, but that's an exception. Certainly, every player there had it in them to finish above zero points - which meant that my opponent was a force to be reckoned with. I expected him to pick up something sooner or later - my job was to make sure it was later; i.e. after he played me. I went into this game fully expecting that if I wanted the win, I'd have to work hard for it, and that's what I got. There was a good start:

In truth, at the time, I wasn't 100% sure about 4...Qb6. I was familiar with the idea, but wasn't sure if I was supposed to play Nf6 first. I spent a minute thinking about it, and eventually came to the right conclusion - Qb6 is the right move. I didn't have to think about the next move, as my opponent played 5.Qb3, and this is why point (b) is so important: you have to understand your openings. My opponent exchanged Queens, reasoning that my doubled pawns had to be good for him. But as any player who plays this line against the London knows: This is an inaccuracy. In the analysis, chess.com doesn't call it as such, but the issue is that in this particular line, my doubled pawn should be an asset, as I will use it to stablise the otherwise-overextended c4 pawn, and take advantage of the semi-open a file. There will be tactics on the b4 square. My opponent, to his credit, did understand this Queenside attack was coming, and countered on the Kingside. Thus followed about 18 moves in which each player thought they were the one slightly ahead (the computer tells me I was right; I had 6 inaccuracies and 2 mistakes, but never relinquished my edge). After White's 24th move, which brought us to a RRBB v RRNN endgame (I had the bishop pair, and two pawn islands v three), I felt my slight edge had become a definite one. I still had a couple of issues to resolve, but was confident that, with careful play, I would be able to put an entire point on the board. My opponent resigned after my 32nd move, when my definite edge had become a clearly winning advantage.

What had this done? I had a point on the board, avoided the dreaded whitewash (albeit with a twinge of guilt at nudging my unfortunate opponent closer to 0 out of 5, but he didn't finish with 0), got a little bit of a confidence boost and some practical experience of an opening which I had studied in some detail (even given lessons on), but not had too much OTB experience with. As we're about to see, that makes a difference.

On to Round 5. Well, I wasn't in danger of quitting chess any more, but I still wanted the win. There were some suggestions in the air that not everybody did. Even the arbiter announced: "There are no Sofia rules in place; if you want to agree a draw after 4 moves, so you can get home and watch the football, you can!" I got talking to the defending Scottish Champion, who said "I'll play for the win if you play for the win!" Since I was going for it anyway, there was no harm in agreeing to that (and I'm pretty sure he felt the same!) Light-hearted conversations aside, there was another (proper) reason: my opponent was in the running for a grading prize. I had nothing other than pride to play for; he did. Some might say "not my problem", but I felt differently. For sporting integrity/courtesy reasons, I owed it to the players still in the running for that prize to give it my best shot. How would I feel if I was up against someone for a prize, wasn't paired against them in the final round, and learned that their opponent had chucked the match just because THEY had nothing to play for? This guy was good; trying my best might not be enough - but I was going to expend every ounce of mental energy I had. And wouldn't you know it, what was the position after 7 moves?

Look familiar? I blitzed out 8.Qc2! and my opponent went into the tank for the first time of many. You see, unfortunately, if you can't follow advice point (b) very well, there's one thing that can save your bacon: natural talent. This guy had the best of both worlds. He did know his openings, and had even found my chess.com profile to research what I played. Fortunately, I hadn't played this line as much as some others online, so he wasn't fully expecting it. Once he was out of "book", he simply took the time he needed to think, and found what I personally felt was the best move. For example, here, he played 8...0-0. It didn't take me long to play 9.Rd1. I hadn't memorised it, but I knew the idea. 10.Bf4 was coming next. OR, it would have done, but Black played 9...Ng6. I decided I wanted to ask a question of his dark-squared bishop and played 10.a3. It turns out this is not a thing. If Black wants to take it, let him do so - and decide which way you want to take back. Otherwise, you can just leave the bishop there. Eventually, if he doesn't take, he'll miss his chance, because the knight is going to move somewhere once the plan is decided. My opponent responded 10...Be7, which again, I thought was the best move. I now decided 11.Be3 was a sensible move - almost exactly 24 hours prior, Be3 was a mistake. Today it was the right move - and I knew that because I understood the idea - or at least, I could see it was the only sensible square to move it to. From there, I tried to argue that I had superior development and a spatial control, while Black's claim to an edge was that he was a pawn up and his army couldn't be hampered forever. By Move 20, Black was probably winning the argument - he had developed his bishop and managed to create some threats against my King, while my Queen was on f1. I was not out of ideas however, and came up with an uncomfortable 21.g3. This was not the engine's top choice, although it had been a few moves previously (the engine also didn't like 18.Qf1 when at the time I thought it was a great idea). So the computer didn't hate it, but I'd made a concession. However, not all was lost: yes, my opponent did not appear to have put a foot wrong so far, but it had come at a cost: he was running out of time. That ended up being telling in more ways than one. He blundered a knight, proving the old adage that a game of chess is not lost by the player who makes the most mistakes, but the player who makes the final one.

Game over? Not quite! What did I JUST say? Make the final mistake, you lose. I wasn't a clean knight up because I had gambited a pawn. Black still had more than enough firepower to do me damage, and my King was more exposed than Black's. I was into allegro time as well, but still had enough on my clock to take any time needed to consider. It was my opponent's turn to demonstrate the "never give up" theme. He played on, tried to be solid, and maintain a menace. Fortunately, I was having none of it.

White to move? It's not really a puzzle - that's the point; there's no clear forced win - but feel free to consider what your plan would be as to how you'd go about converting this advantage as White. I'm not going to showcase it here, partly because the computer doesn't think I did it accurately (although I'm happy with my conversion), but mainly because it's outside of the scope of the topic for this post. We only played 5 more moves before Black's flag fell.

Conclusion: I was much happier driving back on the Sunday night. I'd worked my way up to bang average, but I'd also impacted the prizes AND got some practical experience of some opening lines. It's not that I am altogether happy with my opening play in Round 5 - I still got some ideas wrong. It was a marked improvement to Round 3 however, and there were even some ideas and plans that I thought about OTB, not remembering they were in the book (but enjoying the confirmation that yes, I'd been thinking along the right lines). If I read that book a hundred times, I won't memorise everything that's written in it - but I might just remember the hour or so spent in the heat of battle over those positions. Reading about it is not the same as playing through it. These were tangible, worthwhile, useful successes - none of which would've been possible if I'd thrown in the towel after Round 3.

Bonus point: If you read the title and are wondering where I stand on the "never resign below 1600" mantra - I think there is some merit to it, but not as a hard-and-fast thing. Personally, if I'm on the winning side, I don't care whether my opponent resigns or not - I'm happy to play through to Checkmate. I only care if they're trying to "dirty flag" me. But I also think there's no point in playing positions that are dead lost. The reason for the mantra is it is a quick way of imparting something that's a bit more nuanced. The thing is, below 1600 you're less apt to actually tell if a position is dead lost or not. You might have counterplay you haven't seen. Conversely, opponents below 1600 are very capable of chucking winning positions. I mean, I'm above that and I've thrown my fair share! You can resign A game, but never give up THE game.