Vulcan "Open" 2022: More Chess Woes

Hello everyone! It's time for another blog, this time recounting the OTB I played last Saturday (for people reading this now), or May 28, 2022, for those reading this at any time in the future. The competition was a four-round USCF Swiss tournament with a time control of 60/0 d5, meaning the game began with an initial sixty minutes on the clock and a five-second delay each turn. I was playing in the U1200 section once again, along with twenty-four other players. The word "Open" in the blog title is in quotations because this tournament is no longer an open. The highest section is 1700+. Further details regarding the prizes are below:

I tried to keep the prizes off my mind however, and didn't really have an expectation for my tournament performance. Anything could happen. All I know is that I was in for another 9.5 hour, exhausting chess event and I cleared my mind from anticipating too much. Except a win or two. And maybe positive rating gains. And mayybee some cash. 

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Introduction

As always in my OTB chess recaps, I'll summarize what I did before each round, annotate and analyze each of my individual games, highlighting where I went wrong, explain what I did after each round, then I'll tie it all together with a conclusion: what I've learned, what to do different next time, and just some general insights my readers can benefit from. However, I will be doing something a bit different in this blog. One, I'd like to share the three-step preparation process I took the week before the tournament; and two, I'll be sifting through the psychological pressures of OTB chess, which will be an important theme of this writing. I'll start with my prep before moving on to the actual content.

1: Take a Chess Break The Week Of

The title of this step is pretty self-explanatory. I've found that taking a break from all forms of speed chess (blitz, bullet, AND rapid) the week of my tournament, and especially the day before helps increase mental clarity and avoiding tilt will avoid frustration involving chess. You have enough to worry about with your impending tournament; it's best to just put speed chess out of the spectrum for a while.

2: Prepare With P.A.C.E.

P.AC.E. stands for puzzles, analysis, classical games, and endgames, and I think these four forms of study are critical for pre-tournament preparation. Even if you don't have a chess.com membership, you can head over to lichess.org or chesstempo.com for excellent chess tactics. I'd also advise playing at least one classical game a day, using a time control that most closely resembles that of the upcoming tournament. For me personally, I played a 30/0 game each night hypothesizing that if I was able to make myself comfortable with this time control, I'd be perfectly prepared to play chess with double the time on my clock OTB. Moreover, I would thoroughly analyze the game afterwards, ensuring that I was able to spot missed tactics and convert most winning positions. Endgames are crucial for OTB chess and being able to calculate these in a quick and efficient manner will be an asset for OTB.

3: Exercise

Finally, I believe that exercise the week before is a great way to boost your confidence and just mentally prepare yourself for the event. Exercise stimulates the brain, sharpening your calculation and dynamic play-making. Not much more to add for this section. 

So that's the gist of my preparation the week of OTB. Thanks for sticking around for my lengthy rant; now on to the actual games.

I arrived at the tournament and played a casual blitz match versus @B1ZMARK. I can't recall the exact position we reached but he played one of the Qg4 sidelines against my French Defense and followed it up with 0-0-0. Granted, he wasn't paying much attention to the board, but he got his queen trapped and I got excited about that, along with the open files against his king. Somehow, he counterattacked me and his queen escaped. I hung a minor piece and began to throw the game. Luckily for me, the TD announced the start of round 1 and I got saved by the clock. I'll just count that as a win. Totally didn't choke like usual. Anyway, the whole room was paired and situated when the TD again quiets us for an announcement. Turns out pairings were done wrong. Also turns out the pairings had to be redone several more times that day, nearly every round. Fortunately it didn't drain too much time and the games started at approximately 8:55, with five minutes to spare. I was to face an unrated player, and based on my history versus such players, I wasn't too optimistic.

Round 1: The French Strikes Again!

Insights:

The former name for this section of my OTB recap blogs was "What I Did Wrong." I realized during the multiple drafts of this writing that that name was a lot less inclusive and didn't include mistakes made by my opponent or valuable lessons I learned. So know this section has been updated to feature the previous criteria.

Mistakes:

• From me: Zero. I spent well over forty-five minutes precisely caluclating my moves, making sure I didn't slip up or throw. I finally got over my OTB anxiety and played at my normal standard of chess. I'm proud of this game because it's the first one where I actually played the board and not the player.
• From my opponent: Multiple opening inaccuracies in corollation with a hesitation to call my bluff on move 10 led to a swift downfall. He was also slow to generate counterplay.

Lessons

• Virtually every thing I learned from this game can be summed up in the first statement of "Mistakes." Again, this was a very clean game; no major blunders.

Round 2: OTB Blitz

A lot of times, I'll exaggerate the duration of my chess games. I think most of us do, in order to try to make our achievements sound more impressive. "I beat this CM in a simul in under fifteen minutes. He stood no chance against my speed." Speedy decision-making is a trait often attributed with talented chess players, like GM Hikaru Nakamura, GM Andrew Tang, and even World Champion, Magnus Carlsen. However, I kid you not when I say this game was over in ten minutes. Literally. And since this was round 2, there was a forty-five minute lunch break following my game. Add all the time up and I would be waiting for my next game for over 2 1/2 hours. I was ecstatic about my win of course, but I was also dreading all of that waiting.

Speaking of the win however, this was the first time in my OTB career where I entered my lunch undefeated, with a solid 2/2. I was now the guarenteed second seed, set to play either the #1 or #3 player, depending on the results of their respective games. To say I was elated is a vast understatement. I went to grab some Jack's and barely even registered what I was eating. To be honest, I can't even remember what my chicken sandwich tasted like. What could go wrong, I pondered. I imagined all of the good possibilities for me. Maybe a showdown with the top seed in round 3, resulting in a glittering gem of a win? Could I go undefeated? I even checked my USCF calculator and was set to recieve 40 rating points. Unfortunately for me, overconfidence is just as lethal of a mentality as intense anxiety. While I had finally conquered the latter, I was set to play my first OTB game with an inflated ego. As you can guess from this monologue, the rest of the tournament went downhill from here. 

Insights:

Mistakes

• From me: Thankfully, again, not many. I converted cleanly and I was able to likewise play free stress-free.
• From my opponent: 14. Nh5. That’s it. In future games, he should watch ALL of his pieces, clarifying that each square he moves to is safe and won’t have deadly repercussions. One-move blunders hurt; trust me, I know.

Lessons

• Probably the most valuable takeaway from this game was the confidence boost. I proved to myself that I was able to win games, and that I was fully capable of winning such tournaments.

Round 3: Battling With My Namesake

There we go. My hopes were superficial afterall; I knew I would lose at some point. It's just frustrating that I lost in such a humiliating way; to a basic tactic I would have instantaneously spotted online. This game reminded me of the popular chess anecdote, coined by Richard Teichmann: "Chess is 99% tactics." Many scoff at this assertion, finding this number too much of a wild exaggeration than an accurate number. Take this excerpt from the Woodpecker Method for example:

These are the percentages of decisive games ended by tactics from 1800-super GM level. Adding all the percentages up, we can see that the number of games ending with tactics in this rating range surpasses 50%. Imagine the rates from 1500 down! Personally, I've played 16 OTB games. 14/16 have featured at least one tactic (87.5%), with 7/8 of my wins having a game-winning tactic in them (87.5% again). Maybe this guess wasn't as far off as we would think.

Mistakes

• From me: 9. Nxd4 was a massive error that I wouldn't recover from. I should have calculated my opponent's shady gambit before plunging into those lines.
• From my opponent: Allowing 24. b6. It was a long shot for me, but for humans, finding an exit route for that knight is extremely tricky so props to my opponent for parrying all of mmy threats and playing a near-perfect game.

Lessons

• One: I should study tactics more thoroughly and be wise with my decision-making. Chances are, my opponent ISN'T hanging a free pawn.
• Two: Having overconfidence is just as deadly as an overwhelming emotion of anxiety.

P.S. I forgot to mention that at the end of this game, I resigned, and my opponent lept forward and literally shouted, "Good game, man." The entire tourney hall faced our board and @Lightning made a confused facial expression. Maybe my opponent couldn't hear himself since he had earbuds in?  I don't know, just wanted to include some comic relief where I could.

Round 4: Never Stood A Chance

Fun fact: this was the same opponent I played the Scotch against in round 4 of Tom Nard, which I covered in this blog. Apparently he found a line I wasn't prepared against. I left this game unannotated since I barely even tried to win. I blundered two pawns, a tactic, one rook, then another. Honestly, I was too demoralized after my round 3 loss to suck it up and focus on this game. And that's been a past struggle for me; getting over a loss. Sad because I could've aimed for 3/4 and minimized rating loss. Now I'll be tumbling down to 1013.

Conclusion:

This was quite the ambivalent tournament. The first half is a great memory for me, whereas the second half is one of my worst OTB moments. While I had a sad rounds 3 & 4, I still enjoyed the tournament overall, and had fun playing my favorite game. It also motivated me to work harder, to continue to study and improve, to brsuh up on my openings, and to overcome this mentality of not being able to get over a loss. Next time I'll be prepared. Heck, I may even play up a section, as several people suggested, and try to gain some rating. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed. Leave me a comment if you'd like. 

Until next time, -Nimzo.