I tried, but probably not my hardest
I played chess over thanksgiving because I'm a sweat. I gained five rating points - I don't think it represents the amount of effort I put in. But on the other hand, I'm glad I wasn't one of those who played the entire weekend... and lost points...
Let's go!
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Round 1: Mikhail Tal (literally) (FM)
He played the Rossolimo, sure, but then he starts chucking pieces at my king the same way an angry audience member chucked a crab at Hungrybox during a Melee tournament.
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Round 2: An awkward untangling
After a botched opening, I come out on the worse side of a najdorf-like structure, with my pieces all in awkward positions. My rooks aren't connected, my knight blocks my bishop, I am not controlling d5... but he gets too greedy and allows me to consolidate. Afterwards I use my legendary skill, play really fast while running my opponent's clock down in order to go into a pawn-up endgame.
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Round 3: Work for equality (IM)
After a Rossolimo, I go into complete damage control mode and accept a slightly passive but solid position without queens or castling rights. I play too fast because I thought the moves were automatic. Perhaps the most infuriating part about this round was that it's a classic example of how people turn their brains off in an endgame.
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Round 4: Playing "30 second buzzer chess" for 40 moves
I am playing a canadian 2218 CFC. I come out with an opening advantage, which is rare, but fret not for I drop down into equality immediately. Afterwards my opponent proceeds to outplay me as his time ticks down... and down...
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Round 5: YOLO King's Indian
I studied a strange line in the KID a couple months ago. Since I was playing a 2300, I decided to give it a spin. After all, if I'm going to lose, I might as well test out just how exploitable its flaws are.
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Round 6: I will never attempt the catalan again
It's official I hate trying to play the catalan. I'm going to play whatever crap I want after this and nobody's going to stop me. Every time I try to play normally I either lose, or begin to lose (round 4)
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Round 7: I didn't want to play anymore
The title is self explanatory.
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Side Stories
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Sung Ho Yim's method of studying chess
I asked for a postmortem. I didn't get the opportunity to do so against Chen-Chen, who looked depressed, or Rafael, who looked annoyed, or Mauricio Santana (the IM), who probably didn't feel like there was anything worth analyzing. But I took the opportunity this time.
We went over some stuff, mainly for the opening. We talked a lot. But at the end, getting ready to go away, I suddenly realized that I should ask him what he did to study chess. I wasn't looking for anything magical. But right now, my study consists of "MAYBE PLAY A RAPID GAME" and "DO ONE TACTIC IF I FEEL LIKE IT" and "READ A COUPLE PAGES OF A CHESS BOOK ON THE CAR", which obviously are not legitimate ways to study, and probably not called studying at all.
He mentioned that one thing he did was that he looked at grandmaster games. I have heard this a lot on the forums, but never understood how you went about doing so.
So I asked.
He replied that you just look up a GM whose style you admire, and what he does is he sets up the board, and then plays "Guess the move". Of course, discipline is required. You can't just give up and look the answer in five seconds. But it is an interesting take. I tried doing it that night, but I had no patience. Instead, I will be working through the pages of the woodpecker chapter in Axel Smith's Pump Up Your Rating. On the bus, every day. It took me three days (six hours) to get through 12 exercises. It will be a long, long week.
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Bryan Tillis from Chessable
After the seventh round, I walked to the elevators. I noticed that National Master Bryan Tillis was analyzing some games with weaker players. Before, I did not dare assume anyone was weaker than me, but... sometimes, you can just tell the difference between the scholastic/NC Open players and the Masters players. It would be dishonest of me to say that I did not feel like I was superior.
I thought about bringing my game. There was only one person in line, the guy getting his game analyzed. I realized that nah... I am trying to become a NM soon. What can he offer me? So I clicked the button on the elevator. But after ten seconds, I felt impatient. What was that attitude earlier? I am not a national master yet, but he is. If I was to play him, I would likely lose. So there must be more that he can offer me in analysis. So I resolutely went over and waited.
When it came to my turn, I asked if he was still analyzing games - and he looked at my scoresheet and said yes, and then looked me in the eye and said with good humor, because it's a game in the Masters.
"I have looked at too many... low level games today. This will be a nice change of pace." We both laughed a bit. He did offer many pointers, but since the game was so short there was not much else he could say that I did not figure out myself. In the end, like I did with Sungho Yim, I asked him what he thought would be important to the road to getting master.
He looked up, all thoughtful-like, and then said that you know, it is probably - you know, after looking at all the games in the masters, played by people much stronger than me, he said, he said that I think the biggest difference is the willingness to play, and to push forward and keep playing. The will to play. Something like that. This lined up with what I currently thought. If I did not keep pushing for the win against Chen-Chen and Rafael - maybe if I offered a draw or accepted Chen-Chen's draw offer - maybe my tournament would not have gone as well as it did.
On the elevator ride up, I looked at my 17-move scoresheet against William Wu, with "1:17" written on the last move by black before the draw, and didn't move until the doors opened again.
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William Wu
I do not have a good record against William Wu. The first time we played was back when I was recovering from a horrid tournament I had just played in... North Carolina! I had just dropped to around 1660 from 1680. In the Birmingham tournament, though, I played two 1800s, a 1900, and NM Mitch Fishbein (2180), who is the son(?) of GM Alex Fishbein. Both of them were present at the US Masters.
I won one game, but could have made it two and a draw (the draw against Mitch). In any case I did gain ten points. But one of the games was against William:
Later, a whole year later, we would meet once again, in Nashville, for one of the first regional tournaments that were, get this: FIDE rated!
So I lost that game, and since we were both unrated, he got a 2000 rating and I recieved a 1700 rating. Which may have had something to do with my five losses in the Chicago open.
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Richard Francisco's thing about being stupid
In our postmortem, which we did while standing up in the common area, we talked about a lot of things, and not necessarily chess. College, his kids, money... they all came up. But a recurring theme is that he would say that he is now "Old and stupid".
"I used to play whatever I wanted, but then I went to college and became stupid. Now I am old."
Of course he was just saying in jest, but I couldn't help but think that if he is stupid, what does that make me, who lost to his stupid play?
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Chen-Chen Ye's runny nose
My second round opponent, Chen-Chen Ye, had a runny nose. At the beginning of the game he had to go to the restroom and get himself some tissue which he would hold in front of his nose. Presumably he did not want to be a distraction.
Anyways, when he came back with the tissues, one of the TD's came over with a box of tissues and let him pick some out. Which was nice and proactive, unlike TD's. In fact the TD's this tournament were very helpful, often walking around with scoresheets and giving them to you if they saw you might need a second scoresheet. Since we were usually low on time, it was very much appreciated.
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Rafael Adam's twenty seconds
But when it came to our game, I got up and ran to get a scoresheet. Not ran, necessarily, but close enough. Rafael was thinking. When I was coming back he made his move and got up to get a scoresheet. The TD had just arrived and was going to give him one but he was a bit far away. The TD tried calling him but since there were still other people playing he didn't dare get too loud. In the end I quickly made my move like the time player I am, and watched gleefully as he lost twenty seconds.
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The coughing
This was something I did not notice until Saturday, when my opponent, Nicholas Matta, showed up with a mask on and asked to touch elbows instead of shaking hands, because he said he was sick. This was evident, as he was coughing a lot. He had a mask on, but I put my own mask on as well.
The sickness did not seem to impair his thinking enough for him to lose against me.
In any case, @Thrillerfan was much more perceptive:
"I can tell you that the coughing was minimal Wednesday night, but each day it rose rapidly."
Every time Nicholas coughed, it seemed that his coughing incited others to do the same, and a coughing spree would be heard across the room before everything settled down again. Until someone inevitably coughed...
I kept the mask on for Saturday.
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How later on saturday night, I ended up going into debt: https://www.chess.com/blog/B1ZMARK/i-owe-the-charlotte-chess-center-91-cents
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