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I played in the Michigan Masters and Experts tournament last weekend. I lost about ten points in USCF rating and probably a few points from my FIDE rating. The tournament featured a fairly aggressive schedule with three rounds in a day on the first day and a time control of 90 minutes with a 30 second increment. The schedule did not really allow for a break between rounds if your games went the limit.
These type of tournaments are a good reality check for those of us who rely too much on online blitz and actrive chess to get into practice.
In the best of circumstances much has to go right for me to be able to play decent chess these days. I need a good night's sleep and I have to strike a balance on keeping my blood sugar within a good range.
I drove up to Lansing in the morning meaning that I had to go quite early to allow for any border glitches that might delay me. Scratch the sleep.
My best game was in the first round when I played a young player who was about 250 points higher than me. I got into a difficult position and into a position where I was in a bit of a bind but possibly defendable with the right amount of patience. Alas my patience ran out and my opponent broke through.
In the fourth round, after taking a bye in the third round and third game of the day, I played a FIDE master and he taught me a lesson which I have learned many times before which is that you shouldn't rely on ten year old memories of obsolete theory and hope it will all work out. It was quite brutal.
The second round was interesting in the way that a car wreck can be interesting. I was playing someone that was a little higher rated than me. At the beginning of the game he had a special request. For religious reasons, he could not press his clock and asked me to do it for him. I did not understand that he would also not be keeping score. He offered to give me six minutes or give himself a six minute penalty as compensation. I told him that he would have to remind me when I forgot to press his clock as it was a bit of an unnatural situation not encountered in my 50+ tournament career. I did a poor job of it. He did not remind me but just stared at the clock when I forgot to press on the completion of his move.
He played some weird opening moves and in response I played some weird opening moves and then I got into trouble and fell under a withering attack. To make a long story short, I did not realize how unnatural pressing my opponents clock would be. In theory, I won on time but did not claim it because I felt bad about my inability to remember to press his clock. To be fair, I often forget to press my own clock so it was not malicious but the second problem revealed itself in relying too much on blitz and 15/10 games. My clock had an hour and ten minutes left when he overstepped the time.
It looked like he might checkmate me for a while but somehow I managed to liquidate into an opposite coloured bishops ending and move my pawns from his bishop's colour to my bishops colour and we got into a theoretically drawn ending.
I don't know that I would agree to such an arrangement again given that I now realize the difficulty of acting against more than fifty years of conditioning. Remembering to press his clock probably disrupted my concentration enough to contribute to my poor play. I did recover but am sure that there must have been a way for him to have won. Not having to keep score or press your clock is probably worth a bit more than six minutes which I didn't actually require him to provide in any case.
Had I claimed the win on time, I would have gained a few points on the tournament rather than losing a few points but in the end it doesn't make much of a difference because my U.S.C.F. floor is 2000 which while I have flirted with a bit having dropped 180 points or so from my peak, bad tournaments are usually followed by good tournaments and my rating goes up and down.
These type of tournaments are a good reality check for those of us who rely too much on online blitz and actrive chess to get into practice.
In the best of circumstances much has to go right for me to be able to play decent chess these days. I need a good night's sleep and I have to strike a balance on keeping my blood sugar within a good range.
I drove up to Lansing in the morning meaning that I had to go quite early to allow for any border glitches that might delay me. Scratch the sleep.
My best game was in the first round when I played a young player who was about 250 points higher than me. I got into a difficult position and into a position where I was in a bit of a bind but possibly defendable with the right amount of patience. Alas my patience ran out and my opponent broke through.
In the fourth round, after taking a bye in the third round and third game of the day, I played a FIDE master and he taught me a lesson which I have learned many times before which is that you shouldn't rely on ten year old memories of obsolete theory and hope it will all work out. It was quite brutal.
The second round was interesting in the way that a car wreck can be interesting. I was playing someone that was a little higher rated than me. At the beginning of the game he had a special request. For religious reasons, he could not press his clock and asked me to do it for him. I did not understand that he would also not be keeping score. He offered to give me six minutes or give himself a six minute penalty as compensation. I told him that he would have to remind me when I forgot to press his clock as it was a bit of an unnatural situation not encountered in my 50+ tournament career. I did a poor job of it. He did not remind me but just stared at the clock when I forgot to press on the completion of his move.
He played some weird opening moves and in response I played some weird opening moves and then I got into trouble and fell under a withering attack. To make a long story short, I did not realize how unnatural pressing my opponents clock would be. In theory, I won on time but did not claim it because I felt bad about my inability to remember to press his clock. To be fair, I often forget to press my own clock so it was not malicious but the second problem revealed itself in relying too much on blitz and 15/10 games. My clock had an hour and ten minutes left when he overstepped the time.
It looked like he might checkmate me for a while but somehow I managed to liquidate into an opposite coloured bishops ending and move my pawns from his bishop's colour to my bishops colour and we got into a theoretically drawn ending.
I don't know that I would agree to such an arrangement again given that I now realize the difficulty of acting against more than fifty years of conditioning. Remembering to press his clock probably disrupted my concentration enough to contribute to my poor play. I did recover but am sure that there must have been a way for him to have won. Not having to keep score or press your clock is probably worth a bit more than six minutes which I didn't actually require him to provide in any case.
Had I claimed the win on time, I would have gained a few points on the tournament rather than losing a few points but in the end it doesn't make much of a difference because my U.S.C.F. floor is 2000 which while I have flirted with a bit having dropped 180 points or so from my peak, bad tournaments are usually followed by good tournaments and my rating goes up and down.
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