My second tournament, I split the U1200 prize of $40 three ways. The TD was nice enough to round it up to $13.
My First Tournament!
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tinphan wrote:
play some slow live game is much easier :)
Definitely! But not today, we'll figure some time out but today i am kinda busy...
Well done on the tournament result. I suggest looking at planning at some point too, your idea of Ra7 and Qa8 in the game where you had no chance of attacking anything down that file was not great. Tactics are important but so are endgames and most other bits. I think though that even +/- 2000 rated players - a lot have weak endgames. I would suggest looking into some endgame books - if you improve that area a lot you will become significantly better than those at a similar rating.
May 27, 2011
0
#25
Hey Buddy:
Great review of your games and I didn't get to tell you, but you did extremely well for your first time out! 50% right out of the gate is awesome!
I saw first hand how frightenly knowledgeable you are about chess after we reviewed your games back at the College and it's no doubt you will become even more successful. The fact you've already posted and annotated your games here, just illustrates the passion you have for chess. That passion will be the deciding factor in close games no doubt.
All the best to you! You are an amazing person and I am privileged to know you!
Sincerely,
Billy C.
so when is your next tournament?
who knows... may end up swinging to ottawa but for now i have no immediate plans
May 30, 2011
0
#28
Free room for you guys if you come to Ottawa for the Canada Day weekend tournament!
Thank you for sharing. Fascinating games with a strange mix of excellent play and blunders too. Your scores here on chess.com are excellent so I have to believe once you get use to the OTB play, your score will increase dramatically. I think whenever you change anything about where you are playing, there is a newness factor that takes a few days to get over. Once you translate your skill, you will be deadly.
I went back over your first game and wanted to give you quick comments about it. The fact that you went down a piece to a pawn but kept fighting is excellent. Psychologically that must have been hard to do. I also liked your endgame approach....you took small steps to make your pieces more active. Great advice....especially by making pawn exchanges to give your rook more scope. I really liked that advice. Honestly, I think your opponent fell asleep at the wheel towards the end of the game. He made a lot of king moves when he should have activated his knight. It's like he was playing even material by not giving his knight something to do. He also fell into the trap of wanting to exchange pieces instead of finding ways to make his extra material gain other advantages on the board. It is difficult sometimes to coordinate three minor pieces in an end game but it is a skill that needs to be learned. He had the advantage and you just chipped away at it until he fell apart. What's so fascinating about this game is that like so many chess.com players, you have strong end-game skills which you put to use to beat him: activate the king, maximize your pieces, open lines for your pieces, attack what is weak, etc. It really saved your game.
Game two comment: Almost the exact opposite of game 1. You gained the early advantage and your opponent won back the piece and beat you in the end-game. Your opponent's end-game skills were really excellent. He is controlling the board positionally and he is setting up exchanges that if you accept, will favor him: passed pawn - fork, etc. His activated king was really strong and he gobbled up space on the board. You made a comment in the notes that "blitz" killed your game because you gave back the piece. Your standard chess game on chess.com is really strong, so my advice to you is that for the weeks leading up to a tournament, play longer games. I've noticed whenever I play blitz for a long period of time and then go back to standard, my score temporarily suffers and vice versa. So I think if you play the longer games exclusively prior to a tournament, it will remove the blitz mentality (ie....time is more important than material, tactics and attack are more important than positional play, etc).
Thank you Redgolve6, the praise is very appreciated, since then I have played in some other tournaments im proud of and some not so much,
the best of which I posted in an article here
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/my-first-u2000-tournament
you seem genuinely interested in the games so I think you will find these to be a treat
Wanna learn? I'll teach you for free :)
My USCF rating is 1700 :D (It's increasing 100pts/month) :D
free lessons are never something to be turned down, I am always willing to learn from people... how though? play correspondence or is there a more direct way you had in mind...