Fall 2009 Mechanics Institute Round 3 (my game + photos)

Hello all.

I had to choose whether to wait until all games have ended before posting, or whether I should post a game per week, given that 1 game takes place every Tuesday.  I decided to post 1 game per week so that I can post the game when it is still fresh in my mind so that I can more effectively provide my thoughts about the game.

I had to take a bye in rounds 1 + 2, as I did not know about the tournament until recently, but the tournament director inserted me into the tournament before the start of round 3, which was very nice of him, so that I could play in the rest of the tournament.

The Mechanics Institute is a famous place in San Francisco, and the chess room at the Mechanics Institute is one of the oldest chess clubs in the US.  The club is currently being run by IM John Donaldson.  He gives a lecture before the start of the tournament.  Here are some pictures:

The guy standing up next to the display chess board

is IM John Donaldson.  It is sort of hard to see him

from this angle.  I had arrived just after the lecture started,

and I sat down to a convenient seat, but eventually had

to relocate myself to a chair on the other side of him so

I could actually see the display chess board.  The lecture

he discussed was about the difference between classical

chess and modern chess.  Basically to summarize what 

he said, in classical chess there were these rules that

were created and followed and in modern chess,

there are these moves which may seem to deviate

from classical chess principles, yet they still have

some plan behind them nonetheless.  I am sure there

were more details of the lecture, and he lectured

on 2 games, one of which I cannot remember, and

another one was a blitz game he played over the

internet. I should also mention that it is a lecture where

the audience gets to ask questions or make comments

during the lecture, so it is more of a conversational

style than what might be considered a traditional

lecture, where the audience is silent and does not

speak until maybe after the lecture has completed

to ask questions or make comments.

Here is a slightly better picture of IM John Donaldson

lecturing to the crowd.  If you notice the chess tables,

we actually play on those for the tournament.  There are

no rollup mats that I am sure those of you who play in

chess tournaments are used to.  There is also no letters

and numbers on the sides of the board to help with

notation, so if you play chess at the Mechanics

Institute, you better know your algebraic notation!

The room is spacious, but it is well insulated, so

if you are like me and notice those types of things,

then you may start to feel that there is slightly less

oxygen available in the room than you would like

to have.

OK - onto the game.  According

to Rybka, I was being outplayed the whole game,

until my opponent gave me back a pawn in the endgame,

to which I immediately sacrificed my knight, not

processing the position correctly.  It is one of those

mistakes where you tell yourself not to make moves

that stupid, and you remind yourself

during the game of this, and then to your surprise,

you actually end up playing a move anyway.  Based

on a move like that, you would think I just wanted

to lose the game.  I should have resigned after that

move and then told my opponent "Here you go,

I did not want to win this game.  Merry Christmas".

Time Control: 30/85 G/30 (30/90 G/30 without 5 second

delay - but we used my chronos digital clock where this

can be set).  I should also mention that my opponent

decided towards the middle of the game he

would stop notating, which gave him a big advantage,

given that I was in time trouble the whole game,

and he was never in time trouble.

it is against the rules not to notate.  There is a rule I

think where if a player gets really low on time,

he can stop notating.  However,

my opponent was never in that situation.

I spoke to IM John Donaldson about it after the game,

and he said I would have had the option to stop the clock when

I saw he was not notating, call the tournament director over to the table

(in this case IM John Donaldson) and then my opponent would have had

to update his notation sheet on his own time.  That is what

I should have done, but I guess I figured my opponent would

be a little bit more respectful. He

wanted me to sign his notation sheet at the end, and I refused.

He was angered that I would not sign his

notation sheet. We did have to turn

in one signed notation sheet, so we signed mine. 

47 Nd6 and its a draw if played correctly

I agree that best would have been to keep the knight on the board.  Sacrificing it was really just a careless move.