Surpassing 1800 USCF!
Four tournaments, 111 points. In this blog, I will be discussing how I reached 1800 OTB USCF. As of writing, I have a USCF rating of 1856. Although those games are a blog for another time. I will actually be looking at some games after I reached 1800 just because I think those are quite instructive! Hopefully, you will be able to learn something from this blog, enjoy!
Game 1: A Sloppy Conversion
The lesson of this game is once you know you've gotten a winning position, you should reset and simply think about not allowing any counterplay. When you know you have lost position, you're always playing for counterplay. If your opponent is not allowing that counterplay, think about how hard it would be to win or draw.
Game 2: Lost, Drawn, Lost.
The game at the beginning was quite equal but black had an edge, although in the endgame I should've been more careful and considered all options to try and make a draw. Something that you can take away from this game is that you must be accurate in the endgame especially when you are trying to draw.
Game 3: Oh no, The Bishop Pair!
One thing that we can learn from this game is that material is not everything, and it's more about the activity of the pieces. If you've seen games of Tal, you'd know that activity is much more important than material. What's the point of being up in material if some of your pieces aren't even playing in the game.
Game 4: A Clean Win
A lesson you can learn from my opponent's mistake is that you should not be greedy. The bishop protected the crucial g2 pawn. If my opponent had kept the bishop there it would've made the job much easier. Make sure to have a sense of danger so you won't make the same mistake that my opponent did.
Hopefully, you all enjoyed this blog, I apologize for not posting for over 2 months. I have been busy during the summer although when school resumes I'll likely have lots of time to be able to work on the blog. I hope you have learned something from this blog. Thank you for reading, and until next time.
