Another disappointing tournament

Saturday, April 17th

With my weekend visiting Michelle in Berlin cancelled, I drove down the M1 to Nottingham to take part in the Nottingham Congress. It's the UK congress I've competed in the most often, having previously taken part in 2006, 2007 and last year.

I left early because I had not entered in advance, and wanted to be there in good time to get my entry in. It was a sunny spring morning when I parked my car in the free park and ride car park near the venue and walked across the daffodil-strewn Forest Recreation Ground to the venue at the Nottingham High School for boys. Its the same venue as last year, but a much nicer hall - last year us bottom-feeders were shunted into a small and dreary classroom, but this year everyone was fitted into an airy and pleasant hall which evidently had once been a courtyard and had recently been roofed over.

'Blog readers Peter Brace and Brendan O'Gorman were both playing and there were other familiar people to say good morning to including Richard Desmedt.

This year the grading sections had not been amended for the new grades, and so the bottom section was a relatively enticing-looking Under-110 where I thought I would have a good chance of winning some money and even, if things worked out well, winning my first tournament for five years.

The first day I played three uninspiring but solid games which don't merit much attention. I ended up with one win and two draws - yet again the bottom section proved a bit of a minefield with talented juniors and unpredictable ungraded players. These categories of players are even more unpredictable at this time of year, 10 months since the last grades were produced.

Game 1 -
I was playing a young bloke in his 20s, ungraded and playing in his first tournament, but who was clearly no mug. I knew that as soon as he confidently banged out the first 9 moves of the Sveschnikov Sicilian. I, as black, had slightly the better of the whole game, getting doubled rooks on the h-file and a pawn up just after the time control. I mistakenly swapped an active Bishop for his inactive one, thinking the ending was won, but it turned out he could repeat the position and a draw was agreed.

I had a nice luncheon sandwich (cheddar and home-made chutney) and a pint of local real ale in the Bell Inn, a sound old historic Inn in the city centre. The weather being nice, the park next to the venue was pretty with spring flowers - rather less attractive were the big groups of people showing rather too much flesh in most cases. By evening the park was completely covered in litter - people are disgusting sometimes.

Game 2-
My opponent didn't show, so I was re-paired against a junior, rated 73. I was very nervous, knowing how strong these juniors can be, but as it turned out, his heart was never in it. He blundered regularly and I won quickly.

Having over two hours to wait untill the evening game, I went back to the Bell, drank beer slowly and read my book. I had an enjoyable pork steak and walked back via Corporation Oaks, a hilltop reservoir surrounded by Victorian houses which is one of my favourite features in Nottingham.

Game 3 -
Another low-graded junior, this time an earnest bespectacled Indian boy of about 9 whose feet didn't reach the floor when he was sitting at the chessboard. It was a dreary Colle, and nothing much happened all game. He tried to win my Queen with a sneaky tactic but I spotted it and blocked the centre. Then he made a mistake and allowed me a tactic which won a pawn. I took the pawn and with the Queens off he started losing interest and offered me a draw several times. Eventually I accepted it since the position offered him a lot of counterplay.

I had a chat afterwards to him and his Mother, who was keen to know how well he had played.

So one easy win and two drawn games both of which I had been a pawn up in, not a bad day's work, though I should have worked harder to convert those two draws. At least I was finished at 8.15pm, which was a good thing since I had a 65 mile drive home.

Sunday, April 18th

Disaster strikes in round 4
Another bright sunny day, and as I arrived at the venue I was relatively confident since I thought I'd played solidly yesterday. Yet again I had been drawn against an ungraded junior, this time an Asian teenager in a stripey jumper.

He played a bit of an offbeat gambit, which I knew a good trap against, and he walked into it, but then I made colossal blunder and all my weekend's work was undone in an instant.

Here are the notes on the game that I have already written for some readers of this 'blog:

Up there with all my worst defeats of all time was yesterday's game vs Radhav Sudarshan, an ungraded 13 year old Indian (who was obviously quite a decent player because he ended up on 4/5). This defeat is so dreadful because the game lasted so few moves and I had been clearly winning (+3.5 on Fritz).

My opponent made 11 moves, moving only 5 pieces - his Queen 6 times, his King once, one pawn and one bishop and knight! There should be no way that I should lose against such a monumental failure to develop. Here's how I managed to -

Bailey-SudarshanNottingham 2010

1 d4 e5
the Chalick-Englund gambit, a one-trick pony of an opening in which Black neglects development in the hopes that White will stumble into one of the opening traps. I know the traps though and a good counter-trap.
2 dxe4 Nc6
3 Nf4 Qe7
4 Bf4 Qb4+
5 Nc3!? Qxf4?
played instantaneously, clearly thinking I'd blundered a Bishop
6 Nd5!
I banged that out and then headed off for a cup of tea, enjoying the discomforture on my opponent's face. 6 .. Qf5
7 Nxc7+ Kd8
8 Nxa8
I've had this position before, and whilst the computer considers White winning, there is an issue re getting the Knight out of the corner. Rapid development is crucial.
8 .. Nb4
9 Nd4 Qxe5
at about this point his friend came over and my opponent gave him a wry "I've messed this up" sort of a look.
10 c3 Qb8!?
a devious move on his part - he spotted that I couldnt take the b4 knight and wanted to tempt me into taking it, but didn't want to make me suspicious as I would have been if he'd simply left it there. The only problem is that if I didn't fall into his trap he is losing.
11 cxb4??
played without thinking. A moment's consideration of the move, a simple examination of all available checks would have shown me that this was disastrous. After my equally calamitous round 4 performance the week before at St Albans, I had chatted to Brendan about the importance of examining every check, and yet we both remarked upon the exceptional difficulty in doing that simple task. He told me he'd tried all sorts of things to make himself do it, and even then, he, a strong player, can't manage it. If I had checked for two seconds, this game was won and the tournament was on track. As it was, i was within minutes of withdrawing from the tournament.

One tiny oversight, in other words, ruined my entire weekend. The correct move for me, as I found immediately I looked at the positoin again, is 11 Qb3! preventing the check and threatening Qxf7, and now the computer has White +3.5, winning.

11 .. Bxb4+
White resigns, as the Queen is lost. There was a look of disbelief and relief on my opponents face. After shaking his things I just walked out of the hall without even picking up my bag. Shortly afterwards I came back to withdraw from the tournament and went to the cinema since I was in no shape for another game after that.

I went back to the tournament hall later on to watch the end of the last round. Sudarshan won again to go to 4/5, which was some consolation, and I watched Richard Desmedt draw in an excellent game which went to 92 moves.

Conclusion

So for the second week running, my weekend was ruined by totally messing up the Sunday morning game against, on paper, a weak opponent. I seem to have overcome my round 1 hoodoo only to have replaced it with a round 4 hoodoo which is even worse because after playing well for three games you start to have hope, before the familiar despair returns.

I have now played four tournaments in four weeks, and in every one of them there has been one disastrous, easily-avoidable defeat -

• Huddersfield - missing a mate in 1 for me, and then losing against John Eddershaw, overpressing.
• Coulsdon - losing in 9 moves after neglecting development against c3 sicilian
• St Albans - missing a mate by a 59-rated opponent who thought he'd blundered a pawn
• Nottingham - missing a move which losdt the Queen, when I was winning.

There are similiarities between all of these games. In all of them I was winning, or ahead, and in all of them, the thing I missed should have been very easy to spot and then the game could have continued with me ahead. Its not as though I was really outplayed in any of them.

Blunder checking
Lots of advice has come in about the importance of blunder checking, which would, if applied successfully, have allowed me to avoid all these defeats. I know all about how important it is to check for captures and checks on every move, and I often remember to do it (when its a quiet position and it doesn't matter), but as soon as things get tense or exciting, I forget to do it.

Dave Stephenson made it sound as though its the easiest thing in the world to remember, but more encouragingly, as strong a player as Brendan O'Gorman told me he has problems remembering to check - he says that for a time he tried putting a dot on his scoresheet before moving, as a way to remind himself to check, until an opponent asked him to stop because it's technically against the rules to mark the scoresheet.

One idea I had after that discussion is to start carrying a small pebble and to transfer it from pocket to pocket - you're not allowed to move until you move the pebble and you don't move the pebble until you've done the check. I may start doing that at Hereford.

Withdrawing early
There has also been some comment about the fact that after the disasters at St Albans and Nottingham I withdrew before the final round. The general feeling seems to be that one should bounce back and play the last game.

My feeling on this is, firstly, if it was a tournament where I had hopes of winning, then I have no real enthusiasm for playing a "dead" game at the end which might get me to 3/5 if I win. There's nothing to play for and the games have a sterile feel to them. I have had some easy wins in final rounds, actually, because obviously my opponents can't be bothered either.

Secondly, after a really bad, humiliating defeat like those in round 4 at both St Albans and Nottingham, I just don't want to play chess. There are a lot better things to do on a Sunday afternoon than slogging over an irrelevant chess game, and of course being out of sorts after a bad defeat just makes another loss more likely.

The example of Russell Goodfellow is instructive - he always withdraws from tournaments once he can't win money. I wouldn't go that far, but in circumstances like these I can see little point in continuing to play.

Minor Sections
These experiences have shown again that bottom sections of tournaments are not necessarily easy, and can be full of dangerous pitfalls in the shape of juniors and ungraded players - especially at this time of the year when everyone's grade is almost a year out of date.

In many ways, I've played better this year when I've been in tough sections (the under-145 at Kidlington comes to mind). Then it's me that is the underdog and playing players rated 130+ have played badly against me because they are the ones thinking "this bloke has got a rubbish rating, this should be easy".

The burden of expectation can be hard. Maybe I should play in higher sections all the time. I'd have no chance of prize money but on the plus side I wouldn't lose to any more ungraded juniors or 59s. And I wouldn't have the distraction of expecting to get prize money or win a tournament. But on the other side of the coin, the tantalising prospect of the glory of a tournament victory is something I'd hate to give up forever. If I did play up in harder sections I'd be forever condemned to mid-table anonymity, at best. Tough decision.

A year of the 'blog
This 'blog is a year old now - I wrote my first entries for the Nottingham tournament twelve months ago. When I started out it was to be for one year only , and the intention was to force myself to improve by writing about my experiences. I also set out a number of "precepts" which I was going to follow to try and achieve that.

To some extent, both these goals have succeeded. I am getting (marginally) better results than I did a year ago, and my grade will be going up around 10 points. I have managed to stick to the precepts I set myself, and some of them are now probably out of date. Succeeding in solving one set of problems, instead of being the road to glory, has merely allowed me to see another set of issues I have to solve. I clearly need another set of precepts.

In my next entry, I will go through the precepts, and set myself a new set to follow for the next year ahead. But this entry is probably long enough already!