Chess.com 2024, 2nd round, E01 - Getting started
I'm a casual player at about 2000 daily, and this is my 6th year at the annual daily tournament.
I write this blog in a form of a diary. During the tournament I capture my thought processes and then put them in this blog as they are.
After the games are over, I also add engine analysis for these decisions, and include it in this blog as a running commentary. Those post-game analysis and observations are set in italics and a paragraph apart, like this:
This is a post-game commentary.
To be 100% clear, all the engine analyses in these comments happen after the game and the entire stage are done.
The goals are:
- Retrospect on my decisions and continuously improve.
- Give some pointers to 1500-1800 players.
- Capture my journey through this tournament for posterity.
Also, my 2023 blog in a similar format can be found here: https://www.chess.com/blog/romank66/chess-com-2023-2nd-round-s01e01-first-steps.
So, let's go back in time! Today is the 15th of March 2024, and it's been just over two months since I sailed through stage 1.
15th of March 2024
8 PM newsflash: Round 2 has started!
I’m in group 92, which is a step up from 125 last round. Most of the players are European, and it's an international bunch. I make my white moves in all the games, just in case someone is induced to time out. Vedant makes a couple of quick moves, but otherwise I expect action when there’s daylight in Europe.
11-30 PM: The games against oioki are moving fast. In the white game I'm taken to the Traxler counterattack which is an annoying opening for white. Of course in daily I can take it safe, which is exactly what I've done with 5.Bxf7+ below:
He is clearly using an opening book, which is fine. I don't have any particular prep in Traxler, so I'll have to do the same. The black game is moving down the main line of the Tarrasch in French.
The engine is quite enthusiastic about Nxf7, evaluating it at +1.5, as compared to Bxf7, which is at +0.9. However, I stand by my decision – Nxf7 is something you play in a must win, do-or-die, situation: not at the start of the tournament, when you’re playing a lower-rated player.
I've been here many times, so I'll move this one faster than the Traxler game.
16th of March 2024
8-15 AM - First morning of round 2:
I'm now playing against two Traxlers: both oioki and the player from India. I'll try and move them together to optimize my thinking time. Four players are yet to move: fabiop and players 9-11 in the table. Let's hope they stay quiet and save me 8 games.
The black oioki game is running along the mainline of the French Tarrasch. We're on move 11, and the archive shows I've been here already 30 times. Very much familiar territory.
Now I have time to think about the Traxlers. Firstly, I want to use Vedant as my guinea pig, as he's more likely to "forgive” missteps than the other player. This is the critical position in both the games:
Black is threatening Bxf2+, so I've got two choices: 0-0 and Nf3. I'll play 0-0, since the knight on g5 is doing fine for now, and I want black to pay the price of a tempo with h7-h6 if he wants the knight to go back home.
The engine agrees, but also suggests Bxc6 as an equal option. I didn’t even consider it during the game; why exchange one of the two active pieces I have, and give up a tempo to get Bc8 into the game?
A move later, I have another tough choice to make – c2-c3 or h2-h3?
All the resources assume c2-c3 to be the only move, but I don't like where Bc8-g4 leads me. h2-h3 was actually played quite a bit here, and with better results. I'll go for that.
Stockfish approves, though he (or she?) considers both options equal, while still proposing the illogical Bxc6. h3 is certainly the safer option. If I were to play against Traxler again, daily or blitz, I’d still follow this route.
Going back to the black game against oioki, the Tarrasch path led us here:
There’s a ton of choice here, but I already need to be careful, since there are lines leading directly to a draw:
I should slow this game down. h7-h6 seems to be safer, so I’ll go slow after playing that.
14-50: No changes in the table (naturally). Unfortunately, the faster moving players are in very different time zones, and the one US guy who moves fast (MissionaryKyle) is also the one whom I want to keep for last. So, no major shifts since my morning games. Two more players made their moves, including the second seed, so now only two players are yet to play. So much for the hope of timeouts. Last year, a few timeouts came in the first week, so maybe things will improve.
So as not to waste time, I’ll come back to the oioki black game.
After a long think, I decide on h7-h6, as planned earlier today. It keeps more options open and is more in the spirit of the position. The downside is that it will allow my opponent to ride the opening book for longer, as it’s the mainline.
Again, a correct choice from the tournament perspective. The engine prefers Qb6, but it indeed can easily lead to a draw, along the lines above. I could of course take the bishop on f6 with a pawn, but that gives a very double-edge position; something I wanted to avoid. Rae8 was another good option.
Tautzies is another fast-moving player, so I’ll probably “release” him once I get better clarity in my early games.
22-10: The two players who silently intended to time out, did so:
All this brings me to the Traxler game against Vedant.
The last black move was unexpected. Bc8 is usually a menace in these variations, and now I get a golden chance to exchange it. The other option is Nb1-c3. Everything else seems to give up a pawn. (BTW, this is the first game that’s fully out of the opening book).
Bxe6 is by far the leading candidate.
Yep, this was certainly a positional mistake by black, which made my life a whole lot easier. The engine likes Nc3 too and improves on my lines with all kinds of temporary pawn sacrifices in the center. The eval is already at +1.5.
Time to play 8.h3 in the other Traxler game. Oioki is a stronger player, and he’s unlikely to go for 9…Be6, but at least there’s nothing to discourage me from that line based on the limited analysis above.