My First OTB Tournament This Month! | April 18th & 19th

I didn't really write a blog for yesterday. Being completely honest, I was very tilted: I only played seven games that day (compared to probably twenty games as usual), and I only managed to win one. Today it wasn't really any different: I was still losing blitz games, and I've officially lost 118 elo in five days. It's not really fun if I keep talking about how I absolutely suck at blitz, am a moron, and reiterating everything that I've already known in the past and just reminding myself of the advices I obviously know, but I don't acknowledge, and therefore I go back to my own mistakes.

Either way, today was my first OTB tournament this month! I usually go to one or two rapid chess tournaments every month, and this one is definitely no exception. I don't play FIDE-rated tournaments, only casual, so it makes sense that almost all of it is usually hosted at a coffee shop or a school, in this case, a high school's caferia with the venue being the gymnasium.

Last month, I managed to win my first tournament ever (I didn't really count it, because it was a 5-round Swiss tournament full of beginners and I was just smurfing), but this time, I went dangerously close into getting a medal. My friend (and arch nemesis) was also participating, and so a lot of the times we were just chatting and revising openings.

Since it is a rapid tournament (15+10, but then later changed to 10+5 due to time constraints), no pen and paper were given, so I couldn't exactly give you all the games. I did, however, remembered a game that I lost in 24 moves, which when I relooked at it, literally made me die a little bit inside. It probably isn't really a problem of the gameplay, it's more of a mentality problem, and I'll show you the game.

So what exactly went wrong with this game? Sure, I played like an absolute idiot, but my opponent also missed a lot of tactics. But I think the main problem here is that, my mind has already resigned. I saw the immense threat of Qa4+ picking the bishop, and I was so worried about that threat and losing my bishop that I was unable to find good moves. Even though I was applying CCA, calculation processes, making plans (just to blunder Nc6??), when I saw that I was playing terribly, unbeknownst to me I've already resigned, just not physically. I didn't want to fight in this state, and eventually even though I tried desperately to look for all ways to defend (missing the absolutely simple Nd7 retreating), because I've already resigned, it doesn't matter anymore.

As for the tournament itself, I finished at a (in my opinion, decent but mediocre) score of 4.5/7, losing two games and drawing one, and ended up finishing 6th overall. As for the draw, I took it immediately because I was very tilted, and even though I have spoken against organized draws, I, like a surprisingly lot of people at the higher boards, decided to draw after a couple moves. Call me a hypocrite, to be fair I wouldn't have won anyways, and I didn't really win.

However, at the last game, this was the situation. I got paired up with my friend, and we were both at 4.5/6. If either of us won, we would guarantee a medal (I thought if I win I'd get bronze, while if he wins he will get silver because of Buccholz, but turns out chess-results was malfunctioning, and unbeknownst to us, tiebreaks were used instead of tiebreakers). I couldn't exactly remember the game, but I remember the game ending relatively quick after I blundered probably one of the stupidest games ever, and even though I tried fighting until the endgame, I succumbed.

So on top of the nine-game losing streak that finished a tilt worth three-digits of lost elo, I also had a lowly, average tournament. It's been a considerable amount of time since I've last played a tournament, but it's still not really the results I was expecting. Maybe I'm too perfectionisitc, or maybe I'm just setting up way too high expectations of myself (if those terms are synonyms, I probably repeated the same idea twice). I could probably deduct some reasons as to why I played so badly:

Disregarding opening theory

Remember my little guide on How To Lose At Chess? Well, one of the methods I showed was to disregard opening theory. You can see that in the first game I lost, I did not study for this particular line of the Portuguese, thinking it wasn't that good and probably being a little bit cocky in the process, which is the key to losing. I lost the second game playing an opening I barely had experience with (Leningrad Bird), and the only game I drew, was because of an atypical, albeit common way to play d4 (probably aiming for the Pseudo-Catalan ngl), that I decided not to mess around (we played a bit of friendlies right after and I beat him everytime, so it was kind of a dumb decision).

Time management (again)

I'm not really spending enough time. I mean, it is a 15+10 game, and with so much time in my hands, I blitz out my openings, calculating a little bit deeper, but no where close near the amount of time I was offered. I don't know how to play slower time controls, which is a bit evident when you only play non-increment time controls faster than 10 minutes. The first game that I lost, I did spend quite a bit of time, but all on nonsensical calculation. The second game that I lost, my carelessness going into a terrible pawnbreak lead me to miss out on a medal (again).

Tilted

Tilt is not only in the results, it is also in the state of mind. Prior to the tournament I had a 5-game losing streak, then I played a couple blitz games during the break time to freshen up my brain too, but I still end up losing, and this probably messed me up heavily in the head. In my first game, my mind was already inches away from resignation (I'm resigned mentally), and I took a shameful and unnecessary draw three moves into the opening. I didn't play the tournament at my best form, which in no way is it an excuse: even if I did, I probably wouldn't even win anyways and would probably get even worse results.

I think from now on I'm ditching blitz. Blitz makes me feel burnt out, and I probably need to force myself to get to studying, because my theory is really insufficient right now. If getting to the best peak of my life isn't enough to make me quit, surely the worst tilt of my life should be able to. I'm still figuring out my goals and a study plan, so let's see how I move on frmo this. For now, I'm a little bit burnt out from chess, suffering a little bit from fatigue, and therefore I probably won't be playing as much games as I should be.

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