Returning to Tournament Chess - or, What Does It Mean to Be a Chess Player at a Time Like This?
This past summer I turned 30 years old. I still haven’t fully processed this number and how it applies to me. Alive, for three decades? Just yesterday I was a high school graduate figuring out college and jobs — and honestly, I don’t feel much different now from how I did then. The U.S is a mess, as is much of the world, and finding jobs and a path forward in general has been incredibly difficult. So naturally, I’m returning to chess.
I first learned how to play from my dad the summer I turned 14. In retrospect I realized he didn’t know all the rules, such as castling and pawn promotion. He kept beating me for the first several days, so I went online and tried to find any information I could about strategies for winning. Within a month I was beating him consistently and understandably he stopped playing me. I began playing on a few chess sites (chess.com, chesscube, and the free internet chess server — what a throwback!), and briefly tried out a chess club at the local library. During that first visit I easily beat the head of the club, so I never went back. Eventually my family and I moved to Charleston, SC, where I began playing at the Charleston Chess Club which had several Class A and Expert players that challenged me and quickly instilled a passion for chess in me. I felt the club had become a second home at a time I felt incredibly alone and depressed during my teen years. I travelled to tournaments with friends, had hours of sparring and analysis, friendly rivalries, lengthy discussions, and most of all a sense of deep camaraderie.
Within just a few years I made it to Expert level (2000+) and immediately plateaued. Why? Nothing seemed to be different. I still studied master games and openings (perhaps too much emphasis on the openings…), I played online (again, perhaps too much blitz…), I played tournaments whenever possible (though not often enough due to my location in the Southeastern U.S and lack of financial resources), but these had been the case previously as well, so why couldn’t I progress past 2000? It’s a question I’m still looking for an answer to. After a few years of wallowing around in the low 2000s and upper 1900s, I decided to put chess on the back burner and focus on other pursuits. I finished my undergraduate degree, got a masters degree, and began looking for big boy jobs while taking aim at PhD programs — without much success. The job search is excruciating and it seems there is nothing available. Student loans are an enormous weight, and doing more school seems almost impractical. What do I do?
A couple months ago my girlfriend suggested I try out chess coaching again — something I did for a couple years while trying to make chess a job before committing to school — as a way to possibly alleviate some of the financial stress I’m facing. After all, chess is something I’m decent at and have a love for, so it makes sense to try using it to my advantage. The problem is that I’ve told myself I’m done with chess. I tried, I failed, and now I have real-world problems to deal with and no time for figuring out checkmating problems. She persisted, and with a lack of options at my disposal, I acquiesced. Being an artist she created a flyer for me to advertise chess lessons, and I began distributing it around. An old friend from the Charleston scene saw my advertisement in the Savannah Chess Club discord channel (side note: I’m currently residing in Savannah), and immediately messaged me about a small rapid tournament he was planning in Beaufort on November 1st. At this point I still wasn’t sure about getting back into playing; I figured I would just try out coaching for some extra cash. But my girlfriend thought it would be a good idea, and I reasoned that a five round G15+10 rapid tournament with a $200 first place prize isn’t so bad. Plus Beaufort is relatively close to Savannah so I wouldn’t have to worry about travel expenses. Before long, I had renewed my USCF membership and registered for the tournament.
Before we look at my games from the tournament, there is something I should mention first. As you are likely well aware, a few weeks ago the chess world was shaken by the tragic passing of GM Daniel Naroditsky. Like many people, this news hit me hard as Danya was someone I looked up to in the chess world due to his brilliance and genuine kindness, as well as the fact that he passed away just shy of 30 years old — my age. During my own struggles with mental health and finding purpose in the world, there have been many times when I did not believe I could go on living; not at 16, various points of my twenties, and even now it remains in the back of my mind. Reflecting on what happened to Danya, I have to ask myself what this is all for. Why do we put so much of ourselves into this game? What makes it worth playing if at the end of it all is death? Can a life have purpose in a game? More concretely, what does it mean to dedicate oneself to chess at a time like this? The world on fire, economies in ruins, genocide, financial crises (personal and global), anger, despair, yet hope, love, softness, resilience, survival. Perhaps that is the key, and something I hold on to in light of Danya’s passing. We have to fight, every day, for ourselves and our loved ones. Survival is instinctual, and chess cultivates it.
Game 1: Bethel - EN
1.e4 c5 2.c3 e6 3.d4 d5 4.exd5 exd5 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Be3 cxd4 7.cxd4 Nf6 8.Nbd2?!
After this move I felt confident in my chances to win the game. 8.Nbd2 is a sign that my opponent was unsure of where his pieces belonged. Such a passive move — developing the knight to a square in which it is dominated by my pawn on d5 — signals either a lack of confidence and willingness to play ultra-solidly, or a lack of opening knowledge, or both. Not long before this tournament I began reading Jonathan Rowson’s The Seven Deadly Chess Sins, and early on he writes “The ‘shape’ you give to the chess position is an external manifestation of what is going on inside you” (14). This idea, that the choices you make on the chessboard is largely guided by your emotional and mental state, got me thinking about my earlier question regarding my sudden and inescapable rating plateau. My style during that time was ultra-positional, solid, and often passive. I strove to create and exploit static weaknesses in my opponent’s position, much in the style of Anatoly Karpov or Ulf Andersson. I feared messy, complicated, tactical positions, and often missed strong tactical opportunities for myself and my opponents because of that fear. In retrospect, I lacked the confidence to challenge myself with difficult problems that put me in a vulnerable position. I wanted to remain closed, static, immovable, and never give my opponents the slightest chance to outplay me. Could this play-style have developed from my emotional and mental state of the time? Coming from an upbringing in which I was not taught emotional vulnerability and expressiveness? I had developed a passive, quiet, closed-off personality since childhood in which nobody could penetrate the layered fog even I could not understand. With this in mind going into the tournament, I made the conscious decision that I had to play with actively with confidence, even if I was unsure of the outcome.
8…Bd6 9.h3 0-0 10.Bd3 Re8 11.0-0 Ne4!
Knight to the outpost! Objectively this is not a difficult or game-changing move, and perhaps I would have played it in the past too, but to me in the moment it symbolized my desire to play confidently.
12.a3 [another unnecessary pawn move like 9.h3] …f5!? 13.Bxe4 fxe4 14.Nh2? Qc7?!
When I chose this move I saw a sequence that led to a trade of my h-pawn for his d-pawn, which I thought would be favorable for me and it is, but I had stronger with 14…Qh4! Rather than targeting the knight directly and going for a favorable positional transformation, Black should take this opportunity of White’s misplaced pieces and the initiative and go for a direct attack on the king. I saw this move during the game, but only looked at 15.Re1 Bxh3 16.gxh3 Qxh3 17.Ndf1 and I wasn’t sure if Black could break through. What I missed was the possibility of a rook lift with Re6-g6/h6 at the end of that sequence which is completely decisive. This was a case of stopping too soon during my calculation, but to be fair to myself it was a rapid game and I didn’t want to spend too much time weighing promising options.
15.Ng4 h5 16.Ne5 Nxe5 17.dxe5 Bxe5 18.Qxh5 Be6 19.Rac1 Qd6 20.b4 Bf7 21.Qg4 Re6 22.Rc2 Rae8 23.Rd1? Rg6 24.Qe2?? Qe6!
Over the last several moves White was on the backfoot trying to find good squares for their pieces and survive my initiative, but after two mistakes White is now lost due to a tactical trick. With 24…Qe6 Black sets up a double attack: one threat is Qxh3 due to the pin on White’s g-pawn, and the other threat is d5-d4-d3, forking White’s queen and rook. White can only prevent one of the threats, yet quickly collapses anyway.
25.Kf1 d4 26.Nc4 d3 27.Rxd3 exd3 28.Qxd3 Bf6 29.Na5 Rd8 30.Qb5 Qe4 31.Rc7 Qb1+ 32.Ke2 Qd1#
I was relieved to start off the tournament with a solid win. I felt in control, and most importantly I felt confident in the first time in a long time. I went into the tournament consciously telling myself to try playing confidently, but now I didn’t have to try. I was confident.
Game 2: EN - Partyka
1.Nf3 Nc6 2.d4 d5 3.Bf4 Bf5 4.e3 Nf6 5.c4 e6 6.Nc3
Here we have a kind of Chigorin Queen’s Gambit position where Black lacks the kind of active play typically sought after in that opening. I have faced 1…Nc6 in response to 1.Nf3 many times in online games, and always enjoyed the positions I would get after a subsequent Bf4. White has the e5-square under control, and gains the usual pressure with the c4 pawn break and play along the c-file. In this game I failed to fully exploit a blunder by my opponent involving the c-file, but regardless, I’m happy with how I handled a later initiative my opponent gained against my king.
6…Be7 7.h3 0-0 8.Rc1 a6 9.a3 Ne4 10.Be2 Na5?? 11.Nxe4? [11.cxd5! exd5 12.Nxe4 Bxe4 13.Bxc7] dxe4 12.Nd2 c5? 13.dxc5 Nc6 14.b4 Bf6 15.Bd6 Re8 16.Qc2 Be5 17.Bxe5 Nxe5 18.0-0? Qg5? 19.Kh2
By this point both sides have made mistakes and missed chances to equalize or gain the advantage. Black is gathering forces near the White king, looking for tricks while Black’s pawn on e4 prevents the White pieces moving to the kingside to help defend. I could not see a clear way for Black to break through, and came up with a plan to drive his pieces away. It is not fully engine-approved, but that is beside the point. Again, it’s a rapid game and I know I’m rusty, so perfect chess isn’t exactly on the radar for me. Rather, my goal is to play confidently and maintain pressure on my opponents.
19…Qh4 20.Qc3 Rad8 21.Rcd1 f6 22.f4!?
[technically this is a mistake, but the refutation is something only a strong grandmaster or engine would find: 22…Bxh3!! 23.gxh3 Rd3!! 24.Bxd3 Ng4+ 25.Kg2 Nxe3+ 26.Kh2 Ng4+ with a perpetual check] …exf4? 23.Nxf3 Qe4 24.Nxe5 fxe5 25.Bf3 Rd3 26.Rxd3?! Qxd3 27.Qxd3?! Bxd3 28.Rc1
I have successfully neutralized Black’s attack, and after a couple inaccuracies on my part, we have reached this position where I still have a clear if not winning advantage. Although I have allowed Black to play e5-e4 to shut out my bishop, it won’t be too long before I penetrate into his position.
28…e4 29.Bg4 g6 30.h4 h5 31.Bh3 Kf7 32.Kg3 Kf6 33.a4 e5? 34.Bd7! Rd8 35.c6 bxc6 36.Bxc6 Ke7 37.b5
On move 33 Black allowed my bishop to reach the queenside and aide my pawn majority forward, so at this point it wasn’t too difficult to win the game since I just need to push my pawns and make sure I don’t blunder anything. I’ll stop the game here as the rest isn’t very interesting.
Two games down, this one featuring a scary attack on my king that I successfully fought off which boosted my confidence even more. It’s always difficult to defend an attack, especially short on time. Historically I’ve often collapsed under such pressure, but this game helped me believe that such trends don’t have to define me and I can break free of them.
For the sake of this article not turning into a book, I’ll give a link the games in a Lichess study here without annotation. They are each interesting in their own right, and feature similar mistakes and triumphs as the first two games.
P.S
This event was held on November 1, 2025, which means it was two and a half months ago already and I’m rather late in posting this article! Since I began writing it, I’ve played in three classical tournaments all with positive scores and a growing desire to continue this journey. I intend to keep making these posts and share my journey as well as reflections and thoughts about other aspects of the chess world. Please stay tuned and subscribe below to be notified of future posts!
