Winning with f4 and more (or less): Seafair Open Round 1
1. I jokingly told RookSacrifice that I'd make my Round 1 game a single blog. But I think I can come up with enough filler to make a long enough article.
2. If your opponent is lower rated,
He can be underestimated.
Simply play 1.f4
he won't show up and you will score.
3. "More distractions, less focus". I mean "less distactions, more focus". That was the advice posted on my wall by an NM. However, I didn't listen to it. The former was what hapenned.
These were all reasonable beginnings, intended to grab your attention. Since neither were sufficent on their own, I figured if I put them together you would be triple excited!
Now to the event. The Seafair is the largest tournament in the Seattle Chess Club. It got so many people that they needed another room to hold the participants. Because it was too hot in the playing room I left the playing room after many of my moves.
In fact, I realized that without knowing the number of entrants. As I came down the elevator, I expected to be greated with dozens of chess players fawning over me. Instead, when I went in the skittles room, there were no tables, but there were a few kids. Before I could even settle down, I was greeted by a tackle from the very young James Frasca. He was so excited to see me, and even though his parents didn't approve of his behavior, he didn't care. When I sat down he tried to push my chair, and I was being chased, not the other way around. Even when I said "RAR", he wasn't scared since he realized I wasn't going to hurt him. His sister Anne proved to be of no help, as she thought it was pretty funny to watch. And this happenned throughout the whole event.
Now maybe to my preparation for the event? Honestly, I didn't have much. Before the event I thought maybe I could try to settle down on my openings, but then I came up with a new idea. Have no theory at all, and see how well I could play. So I decided I would play different openings every round.
Well, in the first round my opponent didn't show up. I was really happy, I played 1.f4 and waited about an hour. 2 boards away the exact same thing happenned! It was a pretty good start for me. However, I didn't realize it at that time, but I would not win any more games in the event.
Between rounds I wasn't too concerned about my next game, and did no preperation. I probably did my best to hurt my score. Fortunately I didn't have any water fights, so I won't have to get criticized by everybody (In the tournament or in my blogs). Other than being chased by James Frasca, I was teased by nearly everybody, and did activites that hurt my performance. I played some bughouse, NEVER good for your chess. In order to not starve, I decided to eat Ramen Noodles, and luckily the SCC has boiled water.
The next round I expected that I would play a master, and sure enough I was right. To my surprise, he tied for first place! It wasn't very tense for me, because I figured I would collapse and lose quickly, but maybe the reader will be excited to see what happenned, if they hadn't looked up the result already.
What will happen? Did I get steamrolled? Did I manage to scare the quarter point? See in my next blog, Playing the Masters, what happenned.
(By the way, sorry that this is so bad, but there's only so much that you can do with an iPhone, and you can't post games)
