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Road to 2000: Another disaster?

Road to 2000: Another disaster?

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Fayez58
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Hello everyone and welcome back to another blog about my OTB experience. As I said in my last blog, I played another Fide-rated tournament on 3 and 4 February.

This time, I did not need to travel to another city. It was held in my own town, Rajshahi. I have a very good record in this tournament. In the previous two editions, I gained 134 rating points!! In fact, I almost won the tournament in the last edition.

Therefore, I had a big expectation to do well in this tournament and gain a lot of rating points. At the same time, I was in very bad form. So let's see what actually happened.

Before that, here are some beautiful pictures of Rajshahi:

Day 1

Round 1:

In the first round, I got paired against a 1423-rated player. However, I was not fooled by the rating as I knew he was a very good player. However, he was more or less out of play for a very long time. So, only a win is a good result here...

This felt very bad when I analyzed this game. I potentially missed one of the best wins of my life because I messed up the move order. sad Chess is surely a hard game.

Round 2:

After a disappointing start in the first round, I was ready to bounce back. I was paired against a 1566-rated player. So, I have to win to not lose rating points. (That's why I hate to play against lower-rated players).

That was very very frustrating. I was extremely frustrated and my bad memories from the previous event came to my mind. In fact, I was feeling so bad that I felt if I do not go down to 1700, that would be a good result !! (I was 1735 at the start of the tournament).

Round 3:

I was paired against a 1631-rated player which means he was also struggling in that tournament. (He, like me, was only 0.5/2). I was determined to win the game at any cost. Let's see what happened:

I was very happy to finally get a win. Of course, I was partly lucky to win the game. But a win is a win, right? I was also relieved that it was the last game of that day meaning I would get some rest.

Day 2:

Round 4:

I had a pretty bad day 1. But after a win in the last round and a pretty good sleep, I was confident to win again. I was rated against a 1647-rated player meaning I will again need to win. (It sucks to be the higher-rated player.)

Wow! Two wins in a row! My opponent played a really interesting opening and I had to be very careful not to lose right in the opening. But I was very happy with my games and was looking forward to winning the rest!

Round 5:

In this round, I was paired against the highest-rated player in the tournament! He was rated 1886. Finally, a game where I could play without the fear of losing because I was the underdog here happy.

Just wow! I knew he was struggling in this tournament. But defeating him and winning three games in a row was a great great feeling. I was extremely happy and very proud of the rook sacrifice I spotted.

Round 6:

I was 3.5 out of 5!! That means another win would guarantee me a spot in the top 10! Who would imagine I would play such wonderful chess after beginning the tournament with 1 draw and 1 loss? I was paired against an 1851-rated player, but I was full of confidence. I just defeated the highest-rated player, right?

Just a disaster. How can I miss such a simple rook infiltration? One mistake after another, and I completely gave away the slightly better position. Still, I could not be very sad because of the 3 win streak.

Conclusion:

I finished the tournament with 3.5 out of 6. But more importantly, I did not lose any rating points and gained a +0.8 rating which meant my rating after the tournament was 1736! I also won the best student award and overall it was a great experience. It served as a great warm-up tournament for the national tournament I played on 27 and 28 February. Hopefully, they will organize more tournaments like this in my hometown!

And thanks for reading the blog!