I played in my second real
life tournament this last weekend. I took the train down to Taichung which
on the slow train I took is 3 hours away. There's a high speed line but
its a bit pricey. I had a good time and am glad I went but played
super crappy chess. Well, I went 2-2, this time so I broke even again.
The first game I dropped a piece in the opening to a simple pawn fork.
Last tournament my friend advised me not to resign in rapid games like
these just down a piece so I played on. The opponent is an older fellow
who is of similar strength to me, but his son is quite strong. Anyway,
I was trying to develop something or other and at one point it looked
like I might win my piece back, but then I realized he had a mate threat
he could use to get out of it. I threatened his queen with my pawn
(also answering the mate threat) while his knight was still hanging to
try to keep up the little pressure I had going, and he just totally
blundered and let me take his queen with the pawn. He played on for a
bit, but it was too easy for me then and I soon won his knight anyway
and he resigned. When he blundered there were literally several moves,
shown to us by a stronger player that got him out of that little
pressure I had.
The second game was much better. I
played a reasonable game and he kept trading pieces till we ended up in
an end game and I won a pawn and soon my extra pawn was passed. Still, I
still had work to do and could easily have blown it but I was in a good
situation. Simply put he dropped his queen to, moving it to a square
controlled by my pawn and I took it. He too played on for awhile but
again, it is just too easy to win with an extra queen.
The
third game was a reasonable one too. He played the Scandinavian and I
traded bishops opening up the h-file with his rook controlling it
leading directly to my castled king position. I kind of neglected to
take that into my calculations and he sacced a bishop for an attack and
was basically winning from there on out. I held on and forced him to go
to an endgame but he was always in control of the game and there was
never any real doubt about what would eventually be the result. Still, I
felt happy that I did as well as I did defending against a stronger
player.
Fourth game I lost in within 10 moves in a Ruy
Lopez exchange. I left my e-pawn hanging to develop my g-knight
thinking I could just take his if he took mine and at worst he would get
a check. Unfortunately I missed the fact that the check could come
simultaneously with an attack on my queen, and I resigned, not wanting
to play a queen down. So, basically I felt I played the two middle
games at a reasonable level, and the first and fourth games shamefully.
No comments:
Post a Comment