First OTB tournament, first win?

Hosworth High Flyers - FIDE rated

As with any new experience, its’s quite scary walking into a place you’ve never been before with 30 strangers and face the possibility of embarrassing yourself – and that’s just with my chess play. As it happened, the SA club was extremely welcoming to the point where I’d almost describe the tournament as wholesome. If you’ve been thinking about attending a chess event or your local club, my advice is to do it.

The attendees were the usual mix of young kids with helicopter parents hovering nearby, university students, general enthusiasts and old geezers who probably have six degrees of separation from Bobby Fisher. The tournament was FIDE rated at a 60 minute time plus 30 second increment per move, nine games across three days.

I had three goals for the tournament: 1) simply attend and enjoy, hopefully including some proper games where I don’t fall into an early trap and lose in a few moves; (2) avoid getting whitewashed; and (3) maybe, just maybe…get a win.

I have outlined the games below across the days. Not going to lie, I learnt chess annotation at the event! So, I can’t annotate every game but I’ll do so in future blogs. 

Day 1: Game 1 – White

A teenage guy wearing a Liverpool shirt (my rival team), I was at least happy to get white first game up and have a solid start in the London system. There was a point where I had a knight and bishop outpost and felt all the winning chances were with me. However, I couldn’t convert and in the end he managed to trade down and we agreed a draw. I was more than happy to get off the mark to be honest so we could talk about football.

Game 2 - Black

The Scandinavian gets a lot of criticism but I always find it solid and that was the case in all the games I played with it at the tournament. I was following theory until mid-game and felt I was at least equal. In the end, I could only get a draw as we liquidated down to an agreed half point each.

Game 3 – White

A young overseas player who was so fast he actually finished the match with more time than he started! I had a passed pawn and was putting him under pressure in the mid to end game. I saw a move that improved but also came with a little trap where I could fork his king and take the rook. Thinking he may just move immediately, I went for it. Lo and behold, he picked up my bishop and froze, realising his mistake. He seemed to stop and be asking me if he could take the move back. I was honest in saying that I don’t know the rules on that, to which he grumbled that it was touch-takes rules. I gave my best "rules are rules" shrug and he immediately reassigned. He was pretty filthy about it and I felt bad, but reasoned that if he was moving so fast and not using his time then that was on him. I clarified the situation with the arbiter afterwards who said it was all above board; rules are indeed rules. So, I had my first win! This game also highlights the psychological aspect of OTB and reading your opponent, which is something you can't do online.

I finished the first day absolutely flying as I had managed to complete all my stated goals for the tournament on day one! Undefeated and with a win. It was all a bonus from here on out…

Day 2: Game 4 - Black

My young opponent was clearly a good player and she managed to craft a minor piece for rook advantage over me. I was pretty chuffed to play on and avoid trading anything off (sticking to a core principle when material down, to try complicate and get back in the game). I actually fought back to have a knight advantage in the end game. The game was extremely long at over two hours, the last of the round to finish with a crowd gathered around and both of us going down to less than a minute. My opponent stopped annotating the moves as time dwindled (I did too but to a lesser extent) and the arbiter stopped us to say we had to do so – as she did not respond, the onus seemed to be on me to recollect the moves and update both our cards. In retrospect, I think this was unfair because I lost my focus as I recounted the moves with the arbiter, while she could just analyse the position. Unsurprisingly, I blundered almost immediately and lost the winning end game. Frustrating, but ultimately I think this is the game I’m most proud of from the whole tournament as I fought back from a losing position with black and was actually winning in the end.

Game 5 – White

 A very hard fought draw with a tight, tactical end game in a closed position as we manoeuvred our kings around, trying to probe the weakness in a closed position. It was funny because we both offered and declined two draws before eventually shaking hands. I felt he may potentially have been able to grind down and win the passed pawn race at the end, so I was happy to eventually get the draw seeing he also had a bishop vs knight.

Game 6 - Black

Another Scandi as my opponent’s father watched on from across the room. Again, I got a solid position and was actually winning in the mid game. She tried to offer some counter play and I was faced with a choice: either to easily meet them, trade down and play with two pawns up, or try and go for the knockout punch. I want to play aggressively and get wins rather than draws because I feel it’s more informative if I want to progress and learn rather than play dead draws. I had the king on the run but she played very accurately under pressure and managed to escape before delivering her own checkmate, so fair play to her. Hindsight is 20/20 but I should have just played safe, trade off and try to convert the end game with a material advantage, especially as black. Lesson learnt!

Her dad came over and shook my hand afterwards which was a classy touch.

The day was tough in terms of points, just ½ from 3, but in reality I played very well with black and fought back to actually be winning by the end game on both occasions. I knew if I could improve my end gameplay then I could convert these games in the future, so I wasn’t too disappointed.

Day 3.

Game 7 - White

A young boy who the event photographer warned me was the “blitz king”. I was actually winning but again blundered a winning advantage in the rook endgame. As we were packing up he commented “I thought I was going to lose”. Yeah, thanks for the salt in the wound buddy!

Game 8 - Black

I played the Dutch defence and immediately fell into trouble as I am not really too familiar with it. I played on and tried to complicate but she never let go of her advantage and managed to make the most of my exposed king. I had already asked for a bye in the final round and was mentally checked out by this point, so I played an all-or-nothing counter that very much ended up being the latter before resigning. This game definitely highlighted that I need to learn a strong Black opening against 1.d4.

Lessons learnt and areas to improve:

1. A huge amount of chess material is about openings and tactics, but in reality, most games between evenly matched players come down to rook endings and tight endings where one side may only have a single pawn advantage (or be equal material). I lost games I was objectively winning in this way, so I know where I have to improve.
2. It may sound obvious but having white is a huge advantage and you should be playing for a win every time (Ground-breaking, I know! You know what I mean...). My usual London system is solid but a little too passive, invariably ending in those equal end games I mentioned above. I think I need to have a more aggressive opening as white to create imbalance and winning opportunities, so I’ll be looking into what that may be. Also, I find the King's Indian defence counters the London well so I need to look into combatting that defence.
3. Whenever I read that chess players are physically exhausted I always wondered how that’s possible for a game where you’re literally sedentary for hours. However, chess games and tournaments are indeed marathons and quite tiring, so preparing things outside of the game like transport, food and such is actually a big aspect of the day that perhaps I underestimated.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the tournament and felt it was a success. I had 1 win, 2 draws and 1 loss against rated opponents (ironically, I played worse against unrated players), which gives me a FIDE rating of 1056. Most importantly, I had fun and learnt a lot. I’m looking forward to playing in the Australian Chess Championship in January as the next Fide event, which is being held here in Adelaide.  I'll be sure to blog it!

Thanks for reading and until next time. Good luck with your chess in 2024.