Wow well done
Dramatic turn of tides in the middle of an online tournament
Sort:
Wellllllll doneeeeeeee!!!
Thank you UmarBadeko and dmankch!
It happened close to a year ago on 5 June 2020, but I still remember this moment even today. Of all the Chess.com tournaments which I have joined, this one specific 2|1 Swiss Bullet tournament stands out to me from the rest.
It happened just like any other day, in a year where I played mainly 1|0 and 2|1 games. I have had my fair share of wins and losses thus far, and was not expecting any special occurrences this time round. This tournament had 10 participants at the start (courtesy of the splitting amongst the open category and the >1500 / 1200-1499 / <1200 categories), and as a result, there was only a maximum of five Swiss games for the entire tournament. Of course, I lost the first game fairly easily. There went my hopes of winning a trophy.
It went normally for me who hung a piece in a bad position with only 6 seconds to go. Oh well, I might as well continue the remaining four rounds. The second round was a little better for me, with me not following standard chess principles and bailing out somehow (against my three seconds remaining) after my opponent made some errors.
Now, that is an example of poor quality play by White. But it did not matter to me at the time, since I was playing just to enjoy the nature of the game. The person whom I lost to in the first round held the first place comfortably with a win in the second round. In the third round, I won the game somehow after my opponent sacrificed a knight late in the game even though I did not think that my passed pawn would be that dangerous. Again, I had a matter of seconds in my final few moves. Increments do matter after all!
With the win in round three, I moved up to 2/3, on par with another player (who was in third place due to tie breaks, I think) and just half a point behind my conqueror in the first round and the player whom I would face in the fourth round. Now, of course the earlier rounds went without incident, as you would expect. But I didn't expect what would eventually happen. The fourth game went ahead as usual in the first few moves, and I gained slight advantage (+2.20).
I erred in playing 21. g4? at this point, but I still managed to hold a tiny edge (+0.74) for the time being. Suddenly, two moves later, in the following position, I made a mistake with 23. Qg3?, handing over the advantage to my opponent.
The damage has been done. Now, White became the player to fight for the draw with an evaluation of -0.25 at this point of time. To make things worse, I only had 25 seconds against my opponent's 62 seconds. After my opponent's 23...f5. his pawn on g4 suddenly became very dangerous. Somehow, I managed to get to the following position after 32...Qf7, knowing that my opponent was controlling my moves.
Now, the evaluation of the position became a perfect round 0.00, but the same could not be said about the time remaining. I had a mere 8.4 seconds left to make my move, against my opponent's 30 seconds. I fought to prevent myself from entering a lost position, but my living off the increment was a telling sign that I was collapsing.
Finally, with 2.6 seconds left on the board, I sealed my fate with 39. Qxh7+ Kxh7. That was it. I could not survive with three seconds left. My opponent successfully traded queens and held the advantage. My quest for a third place trophy was officially over. But in any case, it did not hurt to continue a lost game at all, knowing that a loss would be considered as a loss regardless of the mechanism of loss. I simply played my position to avoid losing on time which would certainly be a guaranteed loss. My opponent's knight made way into my territory somehow, and and this point of time I had 1.9 seconds left as my opponent's advantage significantly. Yes, 1.9 seconds and my opponent suddenly became completely winning.
Finally, I could not hold it any longer, and I played 51. Nc3?? leading to the almost automatic 51...Ne4+. But my position was lost anyway. My fate has been sealed. And I only had 1.1 seconds left here.
I automatically moved my king because time was obviously not on my side, but so does my opponent's king.
At this point of time, I realised that there was almost no practical chance of winning at all, but I realised in that split second, if I dragged out the game further by moving my king, I would just prolong the misery by defending fully and get defeated in a slow but brutal manner. As a last fling, I pushed a random pawn forward to acknowledge my defeat.
The resign button was just a short distance away. I would just probably get defeated in a quick and silent manner. But suddenly, within the split second, I realised something. This pawn push appeared somewhat familiar. Where did it come about? Or was I hallucinating? Wait a minute...why did it appear like I had one more pawn within that upper left region than my opponent? And I suddenly noticed that my opponent, who actually had a considerable time advantage, was suddenly fighting for time as well, with only 7.4 seconds left. Finally, he played 54...cxd5 in the above position. With little time left, I just gave up my pawns, but in that instant, I sensed a glimmer of hope. From a 0% chance of winning, I suddenly felt that 5% chance out of nowhere, and I picked myself up again and played 55. b5, placing my bet on my pawns remaining.
Nevertheless, I was prepared to accept my destined loss at this position, which was evaluated as -10.7. With a loss in this game, I would go into the fifth and final round with a poor mood and I would lose the fifth game as well, sealing my fate of not receiving a third place trophy. But the moment I generated a passed pawn out of nowhere in the following position, my mind went from "I should resign" to "I should not resign at all", even though I came into the tournament with the aim of playing only for leisure after all.
That being said, the position was still losing for me. All my opponent needed to go was to promote before I did and my opponent would bag the point. He decided to move his king forward to support the advancement of his pawn promotion.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, I realised that my pawn would promote first. This innocent-looking and natural protection of the passed g4 pawn would turn out to be a huge blunder by Black (the evaluation changed from -10.3 to +5.34), but I cannot blame my opponent at all since his time was also under 2 seconds by this point of time and the move appeared to be ordinary. Finally, I started to gain confidence and ended up exchanging the promoted queens.
What a great relief! Against all odds of a severely losing position and a time of under two seconds in almost every move, I actually battled my way. I won the game eventually in a further 19 moves.
With a loss in this round, it would have been not possible to win a third place trophy. After this very dramatic win, I went up to 3/4 and my opponent remained at 2.5/4. The tournament leader (the player whom I lost to in the in the first round) went up to 3.5/4, but the two other players who remained in the tournament for round five had a score of 2/4. Now, I am almost certain of receiving the third place trophy, since I would probably edge both players on 2/4 on tiebreaks even if I lost the fifth round.
And finally, I realised that I was awarded a bye in the fifth round (I had expected to play the other player on 2/4) to move me up to 4/5, and with the 2.5/4 player and the two 2/4 players not being able to reach 4/5 as well, this secures me a second place trophy! Oh yes oh yes oh yes! Second place! Yes, it's second place and not third place!
I went to watch the tournament leader play the 2/4 player whom did not play with me. Finally, in a sudden shock, the tournament leader lost the game due to a series of attacks by White to pick up the queen, and he remained in 3.5/5.
That one choice of mine to not resign against all odds turned the tides for me. From no trophy in sight at all, I clinched the first place trophy.
One year has passed since then and I have since stopped playing games (I am still practising regularly on puzzles), but I will never ever forget this game.
P.S. The link to the tournament which I had joined is here https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/21-bullet-1249702 if you are curious.