How Do Kids Move So Fast? - Reflections from the Northern Virginia Open
Game 1
Opening theory matters - Even though I’ve been playing the Caro-Kann for a few months now, my understanding of the opening is still shaky. I need to do a better job studying the major variations, but clearly even the lesser played lines. In this tournament, I saw a knight on c3 in the first few moves in the Exchange Variation in two different games, which at the top level and most of the courses or videos on the opening, you just don’t see at all. At the club level, I need to be ready to exploit these mistakes.
Positional Understanding - I get nervous about taking a pinned knight when attacked by a side pawn because I don’t want to give a queen or bishop a developing move. In the Exchange, h3 invites a trade on f3 (Bxf3 Qxf3), which I passed on in both games. This is a positional misunderstanding because my focus is on the d5 pawn camped out a dark square. I now get to develop my knight to c6 with tempo forcing White to defend. Bh5-g6 gets me into trouble if they trade off the bishop or the knight in the case of the 2nd game.
Wait for tactics - My focus in this first game was to get my pieces on the right squares and wait for an opportunity to strike. When my opponent began to pay too much attention to my queenside attack, he stopped making any progress himself. I was able to momentarily sacrifice my knight by capturing the pawn on a3, which then led to a queen trade and winning back the knight with my rook in a dominant position. This came from patience until the moment to pounce arose.
Game 2
This kid was fast, but he made mistakes - Clock management was an issue for me in the longest time control format that I’ve played in thus far in my career (90/40 + SD 30 + 30 second increment from move 1). Even though I agonized over multiple moves throughout the game, my 8 or 9 year old opponent made moves within minutes. By the end of the game, I was down to minutes on my 2nd time control, while he had over an hour left. Though during the game I was impressed, while reviewing, I noticed multiple mistakes that he made that I failed to take advantage of.
Stop seeing ghosts - When he attacked my bishop on f4, I was nervous about doubled pawns and brought my other knight to e2 to support. This tempo was just enough time he needed to take the coveted a-file, which was an essential part of my plan, but convinced myself that the threat of doubled pawns was worse. Upon analysis, the doubled pawns were not nearly as much of a weakness as not having the a file, and I would have been able to eliminate many of my other weaknesses later on the game.
Harrwitz Attack will continue - 4. Bf4 has been my main weapon in the Queen’s Gambit, and even though in two chances I didn’t win (one loss and one draw), my plan is to continue to keep the opening as a primary part of my opening repertoire. One I don’t have enough experience to definitively determine that it doesn’t work, and two there is a lot more that I need to learn about the opening to really use it effectively. It is an attacking opening, which is the style that I want to play, and also is not one of the main lines that most of my opponents will have a lot of experience playing against.
