Poor Performance On Board 1 -- Club's League Week 1

The Chess.com Club's League has officially begun! If you don't know what it is, it's an online league that Chess.com started, limited to chess clubs who meet in person (before COVID). It's a great opportunity to virtually connect with other members of the club, and play in a tournament on the same team rather than against each other!

So how did my games go? Poor  I was positionally dominated the first game and blundered the moment I got back in. I was not myself the second game, I got overly aggressive, which should have cost me. He made a fluke blunder, but I let the game get away in his time pressure, though at that point, the rapid portion of the match had been decided. Here I am to analyze these games, and I'm hoping the way I played will motivate me for future games and tournaments!

As I've mentioned before, I'm not using an engine to analyze these games. It is very likely I missed some lines. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but please be nice about it!

KEY LESSONS LEARNED:

• 6. Qe2 was a new move for me, so I should do some more studying of that line.

• 8... Bg4 was absolutely not called for, White was able to positionally dominate me since.

• I should have calculated one move further to conclude that 27... Qxe5 was not working. I had 4:30 to figure it out. Knight on c6 turns undefended, and I completely forgot about that!

As I mentioned, the second game was taken over by emotion, but I still needed to play better. I constantly had my eye on the scoreboard (we seemed to be letting the match slip, but we ended up coming back). In retrospect, I should put the game on focus mode, and not worry about the score. Maybe 1 or 2 score updates are OK during the game, but constantly looking at the score gave me multiple things to worry about during the game. Still, I should have found better moves

KEY LESSONS LEARNED:

• Don't play aggressively unless the position calls for it. 10. b4 was clearly called for in the position. 13. g4 was simply ... bad!

• I should work on my tactics, shows this game (36. Bh4), as well as my previous game's blunder

• If I need to play for a draw, I need to humble myself and accept it.

• Maybe I should not look at the scoreboard while playing in future matches!

I hope you enjoyed the games, and the series so far! Here is how my team did yesterday, Rapid and Blitz respectively:

We somehow played a strong rapid section (despite my play), then crumbled in the blitz!  The match is declared a tie, as both sides won one match each. I will keep you updated on how we did. Thank you for reading, and see you next time!