He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgettin'
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out
He's chokin', how, everybody's jokin' now
The clocks run out, times up, over, blaow
Snap back to reality, ope there goes gravity
- Eminem
I did not drop many bombs during my easter tournament besides in round 1. I got a loss and a quick draw on day 2. The lost game was against the tournament winner who got 5/5 points and gained 118 rating points! In the below position I played an inaccuracy after a pretty even opening and middlegame.
I played a kind of a nothing move Kg2? nor foreseeing the idea for Black. But my opponent was quick to exploit the mistake and played a4 and suddenly it was possible to push for the win. The correct move was Ra2 stopping a4 with about an equal position. You can find my games from the tournament in this study.
Had I had more time I might have been able to find the correct plan and drawn the game.
In round 3 I played black and managed to win the tempo back in a complete symmetrical position after this move order.
I could have played on, but the loss from round 2 was still on my mind, so I decided to call it a day and to go into the final day on 50%.
I used the evening to relax and ran a nice 5K run along the waterfront. On the final day, my mood was optimistic and I was well-rested. In a Jobava London I I had chances for an advantage, but I failed to find the best moves and when my time got low I made a mistake.
I played Ra5 allowing Nxc5 and short after my position collapsed. Na6 would have kept everything together.
Before the final game, I forgot to eat a proper meal and only got a hotdog. Something I felt later during the final game when my stomach started to go hungry. In the game I got a really nice position out of a French Exchange:
In this position, I missed my chance to take the pawn with 26...Nxd5 27. Qxd5 Qxd5 28. Rxd5 Rxe2 29. Rxe2 Rxe2. Instead, I played Na6? and then I started playing some bad chess and lost the game.
Key takeaways from the tournament
- I spent too much time in the first phase of the game
- My calculation was simply not sharp enough
- Opening play was not really an issue, so I should not spend my time worrying about opening prep
- My concentration/focus seemed to slip after 2-3 hours
My opponents were rated around my level and I ended up losing 24 rating points as a result of my play. During the days after the tournament, I have reflected a bit on why I wasn’t playing better.
And to be honest I think I have not invested enough time in training the last year. Most of my limited time has mainly been invested in creating chess books, which has been really fun and rewarding. I have published:
The Tactics Ladder, Feb 22
Blindfold Opening Visualization, Jan 22
Chess Fundamentals, Aug 21
100 Headachingly Hard, May 21
Clearly, this has taken many hours to make. Hopefully, the book business will make it possible for me to set aside some money to travel to tournaments or take lessons in the future. The downside is however that it has taken away chess training time.
Moving forward I want to set aside more time for calculation training and maybe start taking lessons again. I will also work on making it a habit to solve tactics on Chesstempo instead of blitz and scrolling the news.
Also, I will publish the 2000-level book next in the tactics ladder, so I will have some challenging puzzles to work on.
This tournament has been a good opportunity to snap back to reality.
/Martin