Northern Virginia Open

Another lackluster tournament is in the books! On November 20th-21st, I played in a tournament called the Northern VA Open. The thing you need to know about the Northern VA Open is that there are no separate sections like U1600 and U2000. It's just one big section with players ranging from 100s to International masters. I finished with 3.5/5. Now you may be thinking, "That's not so bad". But trust me, when you see my games, you'll see why I called my performance lackluster.

Game 1: I was paired against an 8 year old girl rated 937. While I was pretty sure I would win this game easily, I didn't want to take any chances and gave the game my full focus and concentration.

Game 2: In game 2, I was paired against an unrated opponent. Unrated players are super unpredictable because you can never know what their skill level is until you play them. In addition, my opponent had 1 point so I was pretty nervous going into this game. However, when I saw that my opponent got his one point from a bye, I was pretty relieved.

Game 3: In this round, I was paired against an extremely strong kid rated 2022. These are games that you absolutely must win if you want to gain points in tournaments like these. If you lose, you will be stuck playing lower rated players in the next 2 rounds and you can say bye to your chances of gaining rating points from the tournament. As a result, I was under quite a bit of pressure.

Game 4: After my loss in game 3, I was paired with the black pieces against a 1521 rated player. It was one of the worst conversions in any chess game I've played. That's all that needs to be said about this game.

Game 5: The final round of the tournament! In this game I was paired against a 1641 who actually happens to be the brother of the girl I played last round.

Aftermath: I ended up dropping from 1832 to 1823 after the tournament. My openings were fine for the most part and I got pretty good positions in the early middle-game in all my games. Endgames as well were pretty decent as shown in game 5. It is my middle-game that needs  a lot of work.  In game 3, I failed to assess the weaknesses that came with some of the moves I played and failed to create a constructive plan. Game 4 was an absolute disaster in which I wasn't able to find a way to convert a completely crushing position. Part of the problem is that while I'm very focused at the beginning of games, I can't maintain that same focus through the whole game. In addition, my chess study plan is undisciplined and lacks consistency.  For example, on some days, I study 4 hours while I only do 30 minutes on others. Because of this, I'm under-prepared for tournaments and hence play badly. In the week leading up to the National Grade Championship, I plan on keeping a much more disciplined, regimented, and consistent study schedule.

Thanks so much for reading!