The Most Epic Redemption Arc Ever

Introduction

Welcome new and old readers of the Daily Rat! You may have read one of my latest posts, in which I recapped my games from a catastrophic classical tournament a year ago. I got 1.5/7 and lost 72 rating points from it, and I was put off chess for a while. However, a year later, I am finally bouncing back with my first classical tournament since. Read on to see how I did! But first, let me write a bit about some terrible pre-tournament preparation I did...

The Grand Cram

Five days before the tournament, I realized that I had no idea what I was going to play against 1. d4 as Black. I had been winging it in online blitz, playing whatever I felt like. I realized that wouldn't fly in a classical tournament, where all my opponents would be really well-prepared (spoiler alert: they weren't!). So I was left in a disastrous situation where I needed to learn an opening really well in a really short time.

I used the book Nimzo and Bogo Indian by Christof Sielecki, which had been collecting dust on my shelf. It's a 440 page book, and with only five days, learning everything was going to be really challenging. I found myself daydreaming opening lines, babbling nonsense variations, and sleepwalking to my chessboard to play out some important theory. (I'm just kidding, luckily)

It's definitely not good to cram opening preparation for the last minute, but I had no choice. Anyways, on to my tournament performance!

The Tournament

A bit of background information for the tournament - I went into the tournament rated 1161 CFC in the U1600 section. It was a very weak section though - I was the 8th highest rated player even though I was 450 points below the ceiling. Luckily, most of my opponents were higher rated than me.

Also, I would like to thank the Tournament Director for having a box of sugary snacks nearby for the players to eat. I needed that sugar rush to play through some slippery game situations! Whenever I got into a losing position, I gobbled as many Starbursts as I could before I got odd looks. This strategy has served me well for years!

Alright, let's finally have a look at the games I played:

Game One: Scrub Stomping

In game one, I played against a 557-rated CFC player and I went into the game still scarred from my many losses against U1000 players. I calculated beforehand how much elo I'd lose if I lost the game. Needless to say that didn't help my mentality going into it. My opponent made it pretty easy for me, as you can see in the below game:

I realized after the game that I forgot to write down my opponent's name, so his identity will forever remain a Mr. E. To try and break down what I learned from this game, I'll split it into four categories and briefly talk about it:

Opening: I played the Alekhine. My only real opening inaccuracy was 5... Qd8. However, I explained my reasoning behind it, and I would have played 5... Be6 against a stronger player.

Endgame: There wasn't really much of an endgame battle seeing that I was dead won before the endgame even started. There's nothing important here.

Tactics: My opponent miscalculated on 11. Bxe6?? so there's really no tactics I had to see. However, I 'sacrificed' the knight with the moves 24... Rc8 and 25... Ra2, so I guess that counts.

Strategy: No deep planning here, so nothing to write about.

Game Two: Oh No, an Owen!

An 1100 rated noob always gets lucky.

— Jose Raul Capablanca

 I went into the second round and got paired with a 50-year old Turkish gentleman. He was one of the few people at the FIDE-rated tournament who actually had a FIDE rating. I knew that if I won or drew, I would get a nice boost to my FIDE. My current rating is 1051, which means I'm teetering on the edge of dropping below 1000 and being banished to the shadow realm. Let's see how I did:

I did well (except for the part where I was dead lost) and beat a 1400! Let's have a look at my general play in the game with the four categories of Opening, Endgame, Tactics and Strategy.

Opening: My opponent got me out of theory on move one with 1... b6!?, so there's nothing much to be learned from my opening here.

Endgame: I did reasonably well converting the endgame in which I had a queen for a rook.

Tactics: I made huge tactical blunders with 12. Qa3?? and 14. hxg4??. I miscalculated when I captured the sacrificed knight and completely missed 15... Bxg2!.

Strategy: I explained in the game annotations why 12. Qa3?? was also a strategical blunder.

Game Three: Unleashing the Prep!

I went into Game Three with 2/2 and feeling pretty good. My opponent played d4, and I got excited (the first time I've ever been happy seeing 1. d4)! The game entered a Nimzo-Indian, my Grand Cram opening. Things were looking pretty good to me - but you'll have to read on to see the full opening situation.

My opponent this round was a very, very slow player. He had below an hour on move ten! On the other hand, I'm a very ooga-booga, bullet-grinding, goldfish-attention-span kind of player, so I found myself walking around the playing hall a lot. My opponent had eight seconds at the end of the game, and I had well over an hour.

Anyways, here's the game:

That was a decent performance by me (except for that one blunder)!

Opening: Awful! I did all that prep and got hit with a sideline that I hadn't really studied. Then I played the dodgy move 6... Nc6. Then, I hung my bishop with 8... Ne7??.

Endgame: I didn't do all that bad in the endgame, but that's just because I had a huge advantage in it. Still, I didn't hang any queens, so that's a great performance for my standards.

Tactics: Of course, hanging a full piece on move 8 doesn't seem too good. But overall, I had to calculate at various points during the game. The move 12... b5 eventually led to the skewer 16... Ba6 which I had to see beforehand. Before playing 21... Rc8 I had to make sure I didn't lose to 22. Bxd5. And in the endgame 30.... Rxe3 required a little bit of calculation.

Strategy: Most of my game strategy revolved around the weak a2- and a3-pawns. I played the move 12... b5 to open up the a-file, and later set up a battery with my queen and rook towards the a2-pawn. Overall, not bad.

So I finished off my third and final game of the day with a win and tied for first (for now). I went home and slept like log. The next afternoon I returned to the tournament hall fresh and ready for...

Game Four: Smooth Sailing

I played this round against an 8-year old with a higher rating than me - ouch. At this point, the tournament situation made it a pretty interesting matchup. We were both 3/3, which means the winner of our game would have a shot at winning the whole tournament! However, the game itself was decided very early on by some odd opening play and a miscalculation. The next twenty moves were smooth sailing towards victory. (spoiler alert!)

Opening: My opponent completely fumbled right into the opening!
Everything Else: Meh. The game was a pretty bland conversion, there was really no battle. It's good to get an extra point on the scoreboard, but it's not good if you want an interesting game to analyze.

Game Five: "dont lose aaaaaaaah"

The decisive game is here! Whoever won this game would win the whole tournament! Of course, I was on 4/4 and my opponent was on 3.5/4, so a win or draw would give me #1, while a loss would put my opponent in the coveted top spot.

Unfortunately, I went into the game with the cowardly mindset of wanting a draw. I deviated from my normal opening repertoire and prepared to play either the Classical Petroff or the Four Knights Scotch, two of the most boring openings out there. Luckily, my opponent chose the drawish opening for me - instead of playing 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 like I expected, he went for the London (yuck)!

The thumbnail definitely didn't spoil the tournament result, right? Play through the game, you will definitely be shocked by the shocking result!

My opponent definitely had his chances to get a very powerful position right out of the opening! However, even in the endgame, moves like h3! would have kept the kingside open for my opponent. Using the principle of two weaknesses, he could have won the game with that strategy. It's still a draw according to the engine, but my defences would definitely crack under strong pressure by my opponent. Luckily, the kingside got shut down and we shuffled some pieces around and made a draw.

Here's a breakdown of some of the key aspects of the game:

Opening: I mentioned that I had no clue what to do against 1. d4 before the tournament started. I booked up on the Nimzo-Indian, but I didn't learn anything against system openings like the Colle, Stonewall, and the dreaded London. I will definitely make it a point to learn something against the London to get rid of the chink in my armor.

Endgame: The endgame was a dead draw, nothing much to see there.

Tactics: 23. Rhb8? was an awful tactical mistake. It didn't lose heaps of material, but missing a simple en passant is just embarrassing. The rest of this game, however, was tactically as dry as a chess player's girlfriend.

Strategy: My strategy throughout the game was to just trade off pieces, and it actually worked.

With a draw, I finished off the tournament with 4.5/5. My opponent was the runner-up with 4/5.

Result and Conclusion

The thumbnail definitely spoiled it - I got #1 Place and won prize money - a grand sum of $200. However, more importantly for me, I gained 175 national rating from those games alone, taking me from 1161 to 1336! My FIDE hasn't updated since the tournament, but I hope I went over 1100 there. I'll update it when it's done!

^ my highly original gif choice!

Well, that's pretty much everything. I hope you enjoyed reading my tournament blog. This was a nice contrast to me losing five games in the previous blog! Until I hang my queen in the next tournament, thanks for reading the Daily Rat!