Check ALL the Ratings

One of the great advantages of playing daily chess tournaments is the ability to scout your opponents ahead of time. But I've learned hard lessons that this has to go beyond just looking at their daily rating and proceeding from there.

My most recent tournament put me in a group of 10 with 18 games going at once. I was by far the highest rated, with my next closest challenger almost 350 points below me.

Thinking I would have a relatively easy time of it, I made some opening decisions that I never would have made had I done a little more homework.

For example, playing Black against the aforementioned second highest rated opponent, I went straight into a Stafford Gambit. I play this reasonably well, and have studied the various refutations, so I was confident I could work an advantage.

It became obvious by move 11 and this position that my opponent knew exactly what he was doing, and I was in trouble.

Only then did I go to his profile and discover to my horror that his rapid rating was 2117, his blitz rating was 2078, and he had a FIDE rating of 1984. Why he had such a low daily rating was a complete mystery.

But once in a blue moon you can win with just pure dumb luck. The good players always say that if you gambit, you have to keep up the pressure or you're definitely lost in the endgame. So after I played Rh3 and he played Bxg4, I played a move that I hoped would just muddy the picture enough to get me to a drawn position, but it actually turned the tide.

This led to a series of mostly forced exchanges that put me up a rook for a pawn. He resigned on move 27.

He easily beat me as Black in a 52-move game in which I never had an advantage.

Another opponent in the group was rated 600 points below me, but I went through a similar experience. He turned out to be rated 2058 in rapid and 1949 in blitz. He beat me handily in one game, and forced a draw in the second even though I had an advantage. He ended up winning the group over me in a tie break.

Finally, a third opponent was rated 800 in daily. I didn't know he was close to my rating in rapid. I beat him easily as White, but he had me dead to rights in the second game after I made a bad blunder. Look at this position:

Engine analysis later showed White is +9.9 here. Fortunately my opponent made some poor choices in trying to close the deal and I was able to get my second rook and knight involved. I managed a win in 63 moves.

Lesson learned. If you have the benefit of gathering some intel on your opponents ahead of time, do it. You don't have to go so far as to study their openings or recent games, but if you just check all the various time controls they play — and don't forget puzzle ratings! — you'll be so much better prepared and you won't get nasty shocks like I did.