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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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Bob (and others) are doing a nice job describing their experiences at this CO, so I will try not to duplicate their writings too much while focusing on a sub-1800 player’s perspective.
First of all, it’s a joy to play in an attractive environment like this – makes you feel that chess is not a second-class sport/game! The complementary shirts, the spacious, quiet, air-conditioned playing room, the standard pieces and digital clocks (allowing all players, not just the top boards, to play with time increments) all contribute. I liked Erik Malmsten’s posters of results from past Opens- got to check out my results from way back when: Fredericton 1977; Hamilton 1978; Scarborough 1988.
Secondly, as pointed out by Bob, the social aspect of the tournament is a large part of the enjoyment. My club, Scarborough, is out in force here but I have renewed acquaintances with fellow players from the old Dutton Chess and Bayview Games clubs. For example, my first round opponent, Julian McRoberts, used to play at BGC but has been working overseas the past few years.
Finally to my game. I reacted a bit too passively to my opponent’s Exchange Variation against my French Defence and had the worst of it for a while, but kept the major pieces on to maintain some complications. It worked- Julian missed a little tactic that allowed me to win his Queen for a Rook and I got my first point.
Got paired against an unrated guy today (from Germany, judging by his name and t-shirt). After a fairly standard and solid opening, he allowed me to break up his King-side pawn position and then build up a strong attack (how strong will be determined when I do my Fritz-aided analysis of the game) which I converted into two extra connected and passed pawns. My opponent fought on for a while, but I avoided any brain-cramps (the longer time control here, as compared to Scarborough CC's G/90, certainly helps!) and took home my second straight point. I'm now leading the under-1800 contingent of SCC players:
Kurkowski K. 2
Dattani D. 1.5
Gillis D. 1
Moran-Venegas M. 1
Posaratnanathan J 1
Liu Jiaxin 1
Termeer T. 1
Philip A. 1
Xie P. 1
Posaratnanathan R. 0.5
Bellomo J. 0.5
Karmalkar V. 0
Rogers M. 0
But now it gets tough as I'm paired against a 2162-rated player in round 3!
After two relatively easy pairings, things got a lot tougher this round playing an opponent with a strong Expert rating. I find there are two challenges when being paired up this much. First there are your opponent's strong chess skills - opening knowledge, middlegame understanding (most important in my opinion), endgame technique. Secondly there are psychological issues- I have to fight the tendency to slip into a defeatist mindset that often leads me to play below my own strength. I also tend to 'trust' my opponent - if he plays an aggressive move or sacs material I tend to think 'uh-oh, now I'm in big trouble', when it should be 'hmm, is this really sound?'. Then there is the question of whether to play in a super-solid manner, hoping for a draw, or mixing it up in the hope that the other guy will make a tactical slip in a complex position. In my game today, I kind of opted for the former approach, but my opponent quickly castled on the opposite side and started a wing attack. I tried to generate counterplay on 'my' side of the board but couldn't get anything going in time. There was always some threat to deal with before going on the attack. Eventually I lost material and soon resigned.
Random thoughts...
Bob Armstrong says he sleeps little during COs. My sleeping hours are pretty much as usual: home by 11:00pm, relax a bit, do some reading, in bed by 12:30 to 1:00 am, up at 8:30 to 9:00 am (incidentally I am retired, like Bob). I am reminded of a quote by a famous GM (I think it was the late Tony Miles) who said that his chief non-chess activity was sleeping!
Sounds like there was a bit of a pairings controversy in round 3 - amazing how this seems to happen in so many tournaments. I can understand people being upset by this if they are legitimate contenders for the championship or one of the class prizes. Getting several tough pairings while your rivals get a couple of easy ones can make a big difference. In my case, it's no big deal. Unless I end up playing nothing but experts and novices, I'm happy. Like I sometimes tell my wife, if all customers were like me, everyone in the retail/service sectors would be in love with their job.
After two relatively easy pairings, things got a lot tougher this round playing an opponent with a strong Expert rating. I find there are two challenges when being paired up this much. First there are your opponent's strong chess skills - opening knowledge, middlegame understanding (most important in my opinion), endgame technique. Secondly there are psychological issues- I have to fight the tendency to slip into a defeatist mindset that often leads me to play below my own strength. I also tend to 'trust' my opponent - if he plays an aggressive move or sacs material I tend to think 'uh-oh, now I'm in big trouble', when it should be 'hmm, is this really sound?'. Then there is the question of whether to play in a super-solid manner, hoping for a draw, or mixing it up in the hope that the other guy will make a tactical slip in a complex position. In my game today, I kind of opted for the former approach, but my opponent quickly castled on the opposite side and started a wing attack. I tried to generate counterplay on 'my' side of the board but couldn't get anything going in time. There was always some threat to deal with before going on the attack. Eventually I lost material and soon resigned.
Random thoughts...
Bob Armstrong says he sleeps little during COs. My sleeping hours are pretty much as usual: home by 11:00pm, relax a bit, do some reading, in bed by 12:30 to 1:00 am, up at 8:30 to 9:00 am (incidentally I am retired, like Bob). I am reminded of a quote by a famous GM (I think it was the late Tony Miles) who said that his chief non-chess activity was sleeping!
Sounds like there was a bit of a pairings controversy in round 3 - amazing how this seems to happen in so many tournaments. I can understand people being upset by this if they are legitimate contenders for the championship or one of the class prizes. Getting several tough pairings while your rivals get a couple of easy ones can make a big difference. In my case, it's no big deal. Unless I end up playing nothing but experts and novices, I'm happy. Like I sometimes tell my wife, if all customers were like me, everyone in the retail/service sectors would be in love with their job.
The problem is, most players view themselves as "legitimate contenders for their class prizes".
For example, I would argue any player who won up in their second round, beating players outside of their class (such as myself beating a 1688 as a 1506, or another player I know beating a 1710 while being 1510), would arguably feel they're competing for the U1600 prize.
To have other members of that class get easier opponents is significant.
What about the argument that "it's a long tournament, it'll all 'come out in the wash'", in other words the system will eventually even out early inequities, assuming that pairing errors do not continue to be made. Looking at my own example, I had two easy pairings in rds 1 and 2, wow I'm off to the races. Not so fast, my rd 3 opponent was a strong expert and I got crushed. But if I had been paired way up for two rounds and lost twice, I would likely get a weak rd 3opponent and probably win. Mind you if I then looked at my rd 3 pairing and saw the name Harikrishna or McShane or Rozentalis next to mine, I might be a little perturbed...
What about the argument that "it's a long tournament, it'll all 'come out in the wash'", in other words the system will eventually even out early inequities, assuming that pairing errors do not continue to be made. Looking at my own example, I had two easy pairings in rds 1 and 2, wow I'm off to the races. Not so fast, my rd 3 opponent was a strong expert and I got crushed. But if I had been paired way up for two rounds and lost twice, I would likely get a weak rd 3opponent and probably win. Mind you if I then looked at my rd 3 pairing and saw the name Harikrishna or McShane or Rozentalis next to mine, I might be a little perturbed...
Well, there's a couple problems.
1) The fact it'll "all come out in the wash" is no justification for doing things wrongly.
2) The fact that, it doesn't come out in the wash, and its a misnomer.
For example, due to the screwed up pairings, I had a much tougher opponent in Round 3 than some of my peers in my class. Say I had won, and not lost.
I would have had to have beaten a player nearly 350 points higher, which is fairly improbably (I think the statistics peg it at what? 10-11%?) My opponent, meanwhile, would need to have beaten someone around his rating. Further, since one of those two players had to win, it effectively was a 100% chance one of them would get to 3 points. On a macro level, one of those two will get that score.
Now, in the subsequent round, to stay even with them, I need to win again. Let's say it's now a 450 point gap, so my odds of winning are 5-6%. Let's say my competition also now has a 450 point gap, so their odds are the same.
So, the odds of one of my 2 opponents reaching 4 points: 5 or 6%
The odds of myself reaching 4 points = 0.10 * 0.05 = 0.5% chance.
In other words, my opponent has a 10x better chance at reaching that mark. How is that fair?
Maybe this an over-simplified example (I'm assuming standard pairing, no 'ghost-points':
Going into the tournament players A, B, and C are all rated in the high 1700s and therefore contenders for the U1800 class prize. After two rounds, all three have split their first two games (1point). In round three, A is erroneously paired up against a 2200 guy. B and C are paired correctly against opponents closer to their ratings. As expected, B and C win their games, but A scores a big upset and also wins, thus overcoming (for the moment) the injustice of his pairing. Now all three have 2 points going into round 4. Following the standard pairing procedure, the 2's are split into two halves, #1 in top half playing # 1 in bottom half. Let's say A, B and C having similar (pre-tournament) ratings are all in the middle 10 of the top half 2's. So all three get paired against opponents with 2 points, and in the same rating range. So , going forward, A,B and C should have equal chances to score in rd 4, no?
Now let's say A had LOST his rd 3 game, while B and C won. "That's not fair, grumbles A, I should have played a weaker guy like B and C and chances are we would be tied now!" But now in rd 4 A, having only 1 point, easily rolls up some D class opponent. Meanwhile B and C only hold draws against stronger players. So after 4 rounds A has 2, B and C 2 1/2. In the next round B and C will (probably) have opposition slightly stronger than A, so it's still, as they say, a ball game- especially in a 9-round tournament.
I don't have sufficient comprehension of these accelerated pairings, so I won't even attempt to go through the scenarios there- maybe the ramifications of an early error are different...
Winnipeg TD and Expert Waldemar Schulz was a very sanguine and ironic TD whose practices and advice I listened to carefully. He always used pairing cards and rarely made errors. He had a very healthy disdain for computer pairings.
Because I, too, have been a TD, I sometimes try out my own pairings. Sometimes I even make my own pairing cards (as Mark Dutton can attest) while playing if the event is small enough. But I like that sort of stuff and it's fun for me.
However, I've never found that excess attention to unfair pairings ever did me any good. Move on, Matthew, and focus on what's important.
"Just play chess." Winnipeg FM, Kevin Gentes.
Last edited by Nigel Hanrahan; Tuesday, 13th July, 2010, 02:01 PM.
Reason: "while playing" added
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
When errors occur in events like this, it's important for the people responsible to fix the problem or at least minimize future recurrences, but in the meantime I agree, let's move forward and enjoy our chess.
Well, after a good start with two wins I'm now 'back down to earth' with 2 points out of 4. Back to back games against an expert and a strong A-classer will do that to you. Yesterday it was case of having a strong pawn center but not getting my pieces out and working fast enough. I tried to complicate matters by going on a pawn-hunting expedition with my Queen, with predictable results. Today I'll be taking my mind off chess for a few hours- I'm going to see the musical 'Rain', based on the music of the Beatles, prior to heading down to the Westin for round 5.
Just checked out the pairings for round 5. Ouch! After playing two in a row against 1900+ opponents and losing, I get... a 2100-rated guy! This is not an anomaly, as I noticed several similar mismatches among the players with 2 points. I guess this is a consequence of Hyper accelerated pairings- with normal pairings I would have taken my punishment in rounds 1 and 2 and then run up against players closer to my rating.
Just wanted to agree that Rd. 5 in hyper-accelerated pairings is adjustment time, with all the ghost points gone. I lost to a 2094 in Rd. 4, and as my reward, in Rd. 5, I get to play a national master, 2218. And I'm not complaining. I love to play masters - in the 2009 PwC Toronto Open, I drew my first two masters ever ! I think that is one of the attractions of the one big swiss ( even with accelerated pairings ). If you do well, your opposition may be master or over.
Just wanted to agree that Rd. 5 in hyper-accelerated pairings is adjustment time, with all the ghost points gone. I lost to a 2094 in Rd. 4, and as my reward, in Rd. 5, I get to play a national master, 2218. And I'm not complaining. I love to play masters - in the 2009 PwC Toronto Open, I drew my first two masters ever ! I think that is one of the attractions of the one big swiss ( even with accelerated pairings ). If you do well, your opposition may be master or over.
Bob
Agree. I don't get to play a national master, but I get to play a 2179, which is going to be a fun game. Don't know if I have much chance, but hey, it'll be fun :).
The U1800 Canadian Open Blog rd 5
Another day, another loss! To my credit I put up a good fight against my expert-rated opponent after dropping a pawn early on with minimal compensation. We ended up in a Queen and Pawn ending where I had hopes of getting a saving perpetual check, but it soon became obvious that my opponent could escape the checks (often while forcing a Queen exchange leading to a won King and Pawn ending) and slowly advance his connected passed pawns. Rather than grind it out til midnight and almost certainly losing, I resigned.
If someone had suggested before the tournament that I would, with 2 points out of 5, be paired against an opponent rated over 250 points higher than me, I would have said "No way!". But that is precisely what has happened, and contrary to my previous tournament experiences. And I'm not the only one. Scanning through the other round 6 pairings, I'm still seeing several rating differences over 350 points. Either this is the consequence of the pairing system used, or because the tournament is just 'top-heavy'- sort of like playing in the open section of our Scarborough Chess Club tournaments. This requires a bit of an attitude adjustment. Instead of looking forward to kicking some butt and maybe winning money, I should follow Bob Armstrong's approach of just enjoying the experience of playing challenging opposition (and hopefully learning something) even while losing. Of course an upset win here and there would be nice...
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