The Champion Pawn Classic - and My Return To Classical Over-The-Board Chess

Hello everyone and welcome to my first OTB recap blog. Between 25-27 October I have participated in a Classical OTB Tournament named, The Champion Pawn. This was my first OTB Classical Tournament in almost half a year, so I was eager to get some good results. Last time when I played classical, I won more then 100 Elo in one tournament, and I was hoping to do the same this time too.

So, I signed up for the tournament. The format was 7 rounds with 2 games on Friday and Sunday and three games on Saturday. The time control was 1 hour for both sides with 30-second increment per move. When I saw the final list of participants I was surprised to see that I was the 6th seed with my classical Elo of 1626. At first I was happy to be amongst the favourites to win the tournament, but then I realized that if I don't go with a score that is close to perfect, I won't be able to gain so much Elo.

I started off the weeks before the tournament as I typically do, by revising my opening repertoire and doing tactics. As I was playing a lot of rapid, I had little trouble in the opening, but I felt like my tactics weren't sharp enough. This was a bit annoying, but nothing too serious. Not asking for a bye in round 1 was a risky decision by me. Friday I was having classes until 2 PM and the tournament started at 2:10 PM. My only chance to get to the playing hall was by bike. So after I finished school, I jumped to my bike and I was moving with max speed in order not to be late. Luckily I arrived just in time and saw, that I'm going to play one of my students...

 Round One

During the summer my chess improved a lot and I was asked to give some lessons to some groups in the chess club in my town. I was very happy because this was a big step in my chess career. Playing your pupil in a tournament is always a bad feeling, but I had to deal with it. Let's see how our game went.

Not a bad start, but it was to be expected. I knew that the best way to play her was to play an opening that she didn't know. She didn't play badly, but I was the favourite here, so there is no reason to be sad. I'm quite motivated to start learning the Dutch Defence in detail, because every time I've played it so far I've won, even against some higher rated players than me.

Round Two

As there were no real upsets in round 1, I was expecting to play a higher ranked player, but I didn't expect to play the #1 seeded player in the tournament, who is a Candidate Master! I've played him twice before in rapid, drawing once and losing once. That loss was very painful because I blew an equal endgame. At least this time I was playing with white. I knew my opponent very well, so I was sure that he would either play the Dutch or the QGA. Let's start the game.

Well, this match was crazy and as always when I play classical, my match is the last one in the hall. I was extremely tired, but luckily it was the last game of the day. Despite the rollercoaster moments, I think it was a great game, one of the best I played in this tournament. Here are my takeaways from the game:

• Opening preparation is the key to success: I have the upper hand from the opening and I'm really happy with my preparation because it worked in both matches so far. I feel like I can surprise anyone in a tournament with my preparation and that is a very nice skill to have.
• Double check before moves: Both 17. Ncxb5 and 28. f3 happened because I didn't pay enough attention to the details. That's definitely something I need to work on.
• Tunnel vision: Not just in this game but in many games I have experienced tunnel vision. This is exactly what happened when I missed 24. b4. My coach suggested to me to eat some chocolate when I feel tired during a classical game. That's another thing I need to work on.
• Time trouble is my friend: I'm not going to say that I play better with less time, but it's a fact that if I can get both myself and my opponent into time trouble, then I have the upper hand. I don't know exactly why, but I have excellent results in the games where I get into time trouble.

Round Three

In the third round I played against a very unbalanced person. He had beaten a 1900 player in the last round, but lost in 9 moves in round 6, for example. I knew he was going to play e4 and I knew I was going to answer with the Sicilian Defence, but I was not prepared for something. Let me show you the game.

I was very angry after that match because I knew I had the draw at certain moments but I couldn't figure out how. Anyway, I took it as a great learning experience. The main takeaway from the game was that I should learn how to play practical endgames, and that I should always look for active moves first, because passive defence leads nowhere, as you can see from this game.

Round Four

In this round I was playing the 2nd seed in the tournament. When I looked at his games I saw that he was a big fan of the Albin Countergambit. I revised my lines and entered the game.

It was a complete rollercoaster. We both had chances to win the game, but I made the last mistake and lost. Another game where I completely out-prepared my opponent but couldn't find the final shot. The main takeaway from this game was that in games like this I shouldn't hold on to my pawn, but rather trade it for activity.

Round Five

After my heartbreaking loss in round four, I was happy to see that I was playing the worst player in the tournament. He had one point out of four and that was because of a bye. I was 1.5/4, which is not great either, but if I want to finish in the top five, I have to win every match now. Let's move on to the last match of Saturday.

What move did I play here?

It was a pretty easy match and for the first time my match didn't end last. I was able to go home early and get a good night's sleep for tomorrow. At this point, I was in 8th place, but with two wins tomorrow, I could even finish in the top 3.

Round Six

This round, I was playing an unrated kid I had never seen before. You know the feeling, right? I was afraid that I would be destroyed by him. I saw that he played very principled chess and his only weakness was experience, as he had just started playing in tournaments. Let's see if I can beat him.

It was quite a competitive game and for someone who is very new to competitive chess this was a very good game and a learning experience. Levente, if you are reading this, I suggest you keep learning and playing chess, because you might have a nice future in chess. My opening preparation worked and I got 3.5/6, which is still not the best, but not too bad either.

Round Seven

When I saw who my opponent was in round 7, I had mixed feelings. I wanted to take revenge on him, as I had played him once and had a pawn in plus in the endgame, but I was short on time and instead of repeating I played for the win and went into a mating net. On the other hand, he was 5/6 and still fighting for first place. It was clear that he was in great form. The only thing I knew about him was that he was bad in endgames. I had planned to play the Berlin Defence, but decided to play the opening I knew best.

I won! But... All the results on the other boards happened in such a way that there would be a huge tie between 3rd and 6th place. I was extremely unlucky and although I drew the winner of the tournament, I had the worst tiebreak of all and finished 6th. The top 5 players received prizes, but I missed out.

My Performance

I ended up with 4.5/7 points, which would be a good performance overall, but as you can see it's a bit disappointing that I only finished 6th, as I had chances to finish much higher. I ended up gaining 15 Elo points, which is not that much, but at least I am not in minus.

Overall, I'm not too happy with my play. It wasn't bad, but I could have played better. I think it was an okay tournament with a lot of learning experiences. One aspect I improved was my time management. In my last tournament I had a lot of problems with time pressure and lost winning positions. This time, although I had time problems in some games, it was not as critical as before. I am happy about that.

I think my lack of experience is one of the reasons why I made mistakes in some games. In addition, I played about 12-14 hours of classical chess in three days, which is extremely tiring. I'm somehow happy that I lost some games because I took them as learning experiences and that's exactly what I need to improve my game.

The only thing I still have to work on is replacing subjectivity with objective decisions, and I should never play something because I don't think it's right. I need to change my mentality in order to improve, because that could lead to better results. The biggest problems were in positions where I was defending all game and suddenly I could have taken the initiative, but my mentality didn't allow me to. Another thing that should come with experience. To improve this, I have introduced meditation before games as it helps me to concentrate a lot better.

Conclusion

And we have entered the "Wow, did you really make it to the end?" part of the blog. I hope you all enjoyed reading the blog and going through seven interesting games with my own comments. I think it is always interesting to read what someone was thinking during a game.

This will be the end of this blog, thank you for reading, if you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments below! See you next time!