Turkey Open 2023 - From Miracles To Meltdowns

This year's Turkey Open was a stark reminder of how bittersweet chess can be. On the sweet side, I enjoyed a phenomenal opportunity to play grandmaster Varuzhan Akobian during a simul on Friday evening, and I put together two games during the tournament that flowed nicely and had some intriguing moments. On the bitter side, I made unthinkable blunders in two other games by failing to gauge the risks at hand, so I suffered two embarrassing losses that will make my rating drop like a stone. Indeed, I'd be surprised if my rating stays above 1800 at this point. It's back to the bush leagues for me.

I'm not worried about these downsides, though. For one, I have been and always will be a chess amateur, which means I have no training and play for the sheer love of the game. For another, I've been through the wringer on and off the board so many times in my life that these setbacks don't faze me anymore. Perhaps most important, I'm proud of all the young players who are working so hard and doing so well, even if it's occasionally at my expense. Sooner or later, the old need to make way for the young.

I will share my simul game and my two tournament wins. My two losses were so atrocious that I see no need to share them. What I will say is that they are a monument to the importance of accurately visualizing the board after each and every move, which I failed to do in a big way.

The simul was tough, not only because a world-class player was giving it, but also because there was very little time for analysis. Just about everyone else had resigned when it came down to me and John Julian. Akobian had an extra pawn in our endgame, which is all he needed to make me resign. John Julian pulled off the upset, which is quite an achievement. 

In the first round of the tournament I played Kevin Korsmo, who was visiting from Washington and has organized tournaments that I've competed in over there. I decided to dust off an opening I haven't used in a while, the Stonewall, and it worked like a charm.

Even though I lost in the second round, I still took the third-round bye because I already had accepted an invitation to a party with some of our neighbors. Although I wanted to play to make up for the loss, I don't go back on my word, so I enjoyed the evening and woke up fresh and early on Sunday to plunge into the fourth round. Across from me was another player from Washington, who knew Kevin Korsmo and had heard of me. He mentioned that a lot of people were rooting for me to lose. I guess that goes with the territory when you have a higher rating, and although I didn't oblige my antagonists in this round, I gave them something to cheer about when I crashed and burned in the fifth.