From Absolutely Winning to Totally Lost at the Osaka Chess Championship
The winner is the one who makes the next-to-last mistake.
– Savielly Tartakower
Welcome everybody, to another excruciating edition of the Osaka Papers.
Spring has arrived here in Japan, and consequently so has qualifying season. Across Japan, almost a dozen tournaments are being held as qualifiers for the All-Japan Chess Championship. The Osaka Chess Championship 2026 was held on February 28th and March 1st and serves as the qualifying vehicle for our great city. The tournament was a 5-round affair, nationally rated, with games having a time control of 35 minutes | 30 second's bonus.
To qualify, I would need to finish somewhere near the top six. The fact that certain participants have already qualified through different means makes the actual requirements somewhat opaque. Nevertheless, I was quite pessimistic about my chances, since in the preceding weeks I had been doing everything other than studying and practicing chess.
Nonetheless, I showed up to the tournament hall committed to doing my best, playing solid chess, and limiting my blunders and mistakes...none of that happened...absolutely none of it...O_o...
The how and why of it, is a long torrid tale which I have condensed for this blog...
But before we get to all that, how about a few pics to prove that any of this actually happened.
Taking Your Time
In the first round, I was up against a strong, yet unrated player, always an unenviable task. Despite being a strong player, I assume my opponent has not played many over-the-board games, as I noticed something strange.
As the game went on he would frequently forget to punch his clock, allowing his time to run out, at first I didn't notice as the game was very intense, but as my position got worse, there came a moment when he played a move then got up from the table without punching his clock, which I noticed right away...
At such times, surely there is a temptation to simply let your opponent's time run out and claim the win...but what kind of victory would that be? When he came back, I looked at him and pointed to the clock, he thanked me and punch the clock...then went on to beat me...
I did however have an opportunity to turn things around, in the following position, there is a question of time, is it best to capture right away or do I have time to take?
Repeat Offender
There was no time to dwell on my first round lost, as I had less than an hour before the 2nd round started. I was paired with Mizumoto-san, who I had played only a few months ago at the Kobe Winter Rapid.
Playing tournament chess has taught me one thing, your prep is useless, no-one ever plays the special pet line you have prepared, and you are better off studying tactics and endgame rather than openings.
But every so often the stars align, and someone actually plays into your prep.
What follows is my best game in quite some time...Stockfish, of course, thinks I played terribly, but let's ignore his positronic brain, because I'm proud of this game.
Safety First
After such a nice win in the 2nd round, perhaps I can be forgiven for being confident going into the 3rd round. I was paired with Mr. Diba, who I have played on several occasions, and despite our games usually being closely fought, I have always managed to pull-out the win...
But not this time, after fighting back from a suboptimal opening, I found a nice tactic winning a piece, yet I forget rule number one of winning positions...Safety First.
Hopefully you can find the initial tactic easily enough, the hard part is the continuation, what is the best way to shut down Black's counter-play?
The Most Winning Position in the World
Round four was on the following day, so I had all night to think about my blunder in round three. I promised myself I would play better and do my best to concentrate and focus on not blundering, moreover, if I made a mistake, I would take a deep breath and settle down before making my next move. In chess, many times it's the second mistake that kills you.
Well, this game was even worse than Round 3...
I played a beautiful game, and held an absolutely crushing position, a resignable position, the most winning position in the world...
But I just couldn't find mate, so I decided to trade down to a winning endgame, BIG MISTAKE. A winning endgame is not a won game.
White has winning-move after winning-move, but can you find the best move? The move that ends the game no matter what.
Game on Tilt
With one of the most devastating losses of my chess career just one game behind, I can confidently say that I was completely on Tilt for round 5. For those who don't know, being on Tilt is the state of mental frustration that arises after a loss. Rather than playing better, players on Tilt make even more irrational moves and subsequently lose even more games...
In the fifth round I played against Kanehara-san, a player I have played against several times, I played against him in my first over-the-board tournament. On all of these occasions I was able to secure the win.
So, as I was playing this game, making move after move, without thinking and playing like a mad man, I was convinced that I was doing well...after the game Stockfish disabused me of this notion. Far from playing well, I was making mistake after mistake and only got into an advantage position after my opponent blundered.
My pieces are hanging, under attack or both, What's the best way to turn things around?
The Champions
The Little Champion
Finishing with a perfect 5/5 score, having only recently turned 11 years old, Toma Niori is crowned champion of Osaka chess. I can't help but be reminded of a similar picture taken of Anish Giri, who won the Sapporo Chess Championship at just 10 years of age. With such talent coming up the pipelines the future of Japanese chess looks bright, Congratulations, Toma.
Postmortem
It is one thing to lose a game of chess, and quite another to go from completely winning to totally lost. There is no pain so acute, it still haunts me to this day. Yet I cannot dwell on such horrors, it is only more fuel for the fire that drives me. Although, I'm not as obsessed with qualifying for the Japan Chess Championship as I have been in previous years, qualifying is still a great goal to have, and an achievement worth attaining, but my goal for the next two tournaments is to improve my overall play, regardless of if I qualify or not.
As always, thanks for reading, and feel free to share these games with your friends down at the Library or Bar.
Cheers, SheldonOfOsaka.
P.S. Snick into the "Click Button's" house and replace his chess set with a checkers set, if you'd like to wear a Tal Shirt to your next tourney.
