3/6 ... failed

Score 3/6: 2 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses. Not a good result.

Round 1: Easy win over unrated junior. They really should be put in a seperate sub tournament! I had black, so for my remaining 5 real games, I should get 3 whites which is good...

Round 2: White vs #1 seed. He plays french defence, an opening I dont really have a good answer for. I play a gambit, and after a long struggle, we end up in an end game, and I am 1 pawn down. I made my first real mistake of the game and lost another pawn, and resigned.

Round 3: Fairly easy win over a lowly rated junior - my opponents rating was only 800. My hopes of getting a good performance rating dont look good now. Game was harder to win than it should have been, due to still being tired from the previous round.

Round 4: White against another unrated opponent in rd 4. This time its some guy who has just moved here from England, and he is quite good I think. A long hard game where I again had to go into an ending 1 pawn down. This time I was able to get the pawn back, and the game was drawn.

Round 5: An exact repeat of round 5 of my previous tourney: same opponent, same colours, same round! This is the opponent who cracked under pressure in rd 5 in my last tourney. This time we ended up in a kind of mutual stalemate in the middle game where neither could make any progress. Game drawn.

Round 6: White vs lower rated adult player. I need to win this game! In the opening I miscalculate a Bxf7+ sac and simply go a piece down for nothing (not even a pawn). I resign.

Because my only 2 wins were against lowly rated juniors, this tourney will cost me quite a few rating points, and of course my goal of getting a better perfomance rating was not met...

Showtime again

Round 1 of my final tournament for the year starts tonite. 1 game friday, 2 on saturday, 2 on sunday and 1 on monday for 6 rounds total.

The tourney is at the chess club I play for, so I have homeground advantage ;) And since its only a few minutes away from where I live, I should be able to give daily updates...

Last year in this tourney I had 3.5/4 with 2 rounds remaining, and lost them both. I havent done much tactics work in the 2 weeks since the last tourney, so once again I'm not feeling very positive about my chances, I just have to try to play as carefully as possible.

The national rating list will come out a couple of weeks after this tourney. Then I can see if my last 6 months of training effort have made a difference :)

Goals, pt 2

Next weekend swiss tournament is in just 2 weeks time (less really, its already friday) .. I only get to play about 4 or 5 weekend swisses per year, its unusual for them to be so close together.

Goals for this 6 round tourney have to be simple, I dont have much time left to get ready:

Goal 1: Better performance rating

Thats all ;) Might as well take the one goal that wasnt met from the last tourney.

The national rating list will come up shortly after this tourney, so that will be time to see what difference, if any, training has had on my rating.

After that, no more tourneys until April or May next year...

Verdict

Time now to really consider if the tactics blitz was useful...

On the surface it does look to have been pretty successful, who can argue with a result of 4/5?! :) Using the set of goals that were stated at the start, then there is no question that this has been a success.

On the other hand I have to say, I do not feel that that I have improved my tactical abilities in the slightest! Two reasons firstly, the short timeframe, and secondly the material choosen was too varied.

MDLM is compared to learning multiplication tables, but the collection of tactics I chose was more like trying to lean multiplication tables by being asked "what is 2x3=?, what is 5x8=?, what is 7x9=?" etc, when we all know that the best way to learn multiplication tables is to learn the 1 times table, then 2 times table, then the 3 times table etc, ie start from the easiest and work upwards, and always keep things grouped together.

So I am now going to work out a plan for the next stage of my tactics training, which will be more like learning multiplication, ie start with the easiest, and learn in groups, and steadly move towards the harder tactics.

My next weekend tournement is in two weeks, and I'm trying to catch up at work, so I wont do much tactics for 2 weeks. After this next tourney I will properly formulate my plan for longer term tactics study ..... stay tuned!

Success! :) 4/5, 3rd=

Fantastic result, 4 wins, 1 loss for 3rd= :)

So how did I do compared to my goals?

Goal 1: Higher performance rating: Fail (!) due to playing too many lower rated opponents
Goal 2: Higher percentage: Pass
Goal 3: Higher placing: Pass

2/3 goals = successful result :)

The tournament had 70 entries, far more than expected, and 5 rounds was probably not really enough to find a winner. However in the end there was a clear winner on 5/5 (the person I lost to), and a clear 2nd with 4.5/5 but nine people were 3rd= on 4/5.

My expected performance, based on my opponents rating was 3.78/5, and I scored 0.22 points more than that so my rating gain will be about 7 points. Yes thats right, 7 measly points for a 4/5 performance! No wonder I cant improve my rating!!

Round-by-round commentary:

Round 1: White vs very lowly rated player (typical swiss system first round mis-match). A complete thrashing, I checkmated my opponent after just 13 moves. My opponent had a rating of just 685 (! yes ratings go that low). This first game pretty much ruins my chance of getting a good performance rating.

Round 2: Black vs an under rated junior. After some not exactly inspiring moves I find myself under huge pressure, and with badly placed pieces. Somehow I manage to swap queens, then play a strange looking follow up move, he misses the point, and I win a knight for nothing. About 10 moves later his king is trapped in the centre and the only way to stop mate is to lose a rook. He resigns.

Round 3: Black again (!) against 4th seed. I quickly get under pressure, and lose a rook for nothing, resigned on move 19. I thought I was only losing the exchange, but was wrong! My opponent went on to win the tourney with 5/5.

Round 4: White, and finally a chance to play my smith-morra! He declines with e6 and b6 and it isnt really a smith morra anymore, just a weird no opening opening. I pile on the pressure, he responds quite well, and the game remains finely balanced. I turn extremely agressive, and get an initiative in return for a couple of pawns. Under time pressure I move my rook to g3, when h3 was far better. He finds the saving move and sacs the exchange to force a queen swap. We are now in an endgame where I have 2 rooks and 3 pawns vs rook, knight and SEVEN pawns! My chances are not good, and I came very close to resigning the move after that queen swap. But I decide to play on, and a few moves later he blunders and loses the knight. Now it is 2 rooks and 2 pawns vs rook and 5 pawns - still could go either way. I manage to slowly grab his pawns one by one until it is 2 rooks vs rook and 1 pawns, and he is threated with mate. He resigns, an absolute swindle.

Round 5: 3rd Black vs another under rated junior, and I need to win to get amongst the prizes. He comes out fighting from the start and I am under huge pressure again. But I resist and defend like an immovable rock. Slowly my pieces get better and better positions, with a beautiful knight outpost on e5 the centrepiece of my position. Finally my queen + knight infiltrate his position and he cracks, dropping a bishop and then resigning a few moves later.

After 2 long days I have emerged with 4/5 and 3rd= place, a very satisfactory result. About 5 or so years ago in the same tourney I got 2nd= place with just 3.5/5, but the huge number of entries means that 4/5 is only good enough for 3rd= this time.

Showtime

Amazingly, I have survived this far :) There is just 3 days of tactics training left, and the big tourney starts in 4 days... so will the tactics have helped or not?

- Since starting tactics training, my OTB results have not been very good: 3/6, or +2 =2 -2
- I've made bad tactical mistakes in 4/6 games played, and won 2/6 by tactics
- I'm finding it harder to look at the overall situation of a game, due to focussing so much on small tactical details
- I am finding it easier to calculate tactical things such as sequences of exchanges

Overall, I dont feel so positive about my chances, mainly because I have been playing quite badly lately. In any case, I know that to do well I must concentrate more on not making mistakes than on trying to make brilliant moves ... my strategy has to be to wait for my opponent to make a mistake then attack.

Anyway, it will be showtime very soon, and the results will speak for themselves ...