Here is the first part of the account of my successful tournament at Grange-over-Sands. The rest will follow over the next few days. I've added some "reaction" buttons at the bottom, so please have your say if you like and let me know what you think of it.
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Friday June 5th
I am in a bed and breakfast place in Lancaster awaiting the start of the Grange over Sands tournaments. Grange is a small seaside town on Morecambe Bay, about 26 miles from here - as ever I left it too long to get my accommodation organisedand so I couldn't find anywhere affordable to stay, so I'm a fair way from the venue. Its a nice B&B though, rightnext to the railway station.
To be honest I've hardly picked up a pawn in anger since the Nottingham tournament, which is why there have been no chess journals since then. Michelle has been here for a month-long visit. We had a nice holiday for a week, touring the country staying with friends in various locations, and doing hill-walks in places like the South Downs, Chilterns andCheshire. She then stayed at my place for another three weeks and so we filled our time with lots of nice walks, pubdinners and film nights, and so there wasn't much time for chess. It probably did me good to have a break though.
Today I dropped Michelle off at Liverpool airport and she's now back in Berlin and I'm torturing myself once again on the chess circuit.
Dave Stephenson, one of the small and select circulation of readers of this journal, is playing here too - though he is in the Open and I'm in the bottom section, which tells you all you need to know about our relative abilities! Dave manages to combine playing high-level chess with singing in a choir, hill-walking and being an IT contractor - I'm not sure how he managesto do it all!
Another friend is going to be coming along to the tournament - Geoff Renyard, a very sound man whom I worked with on an IT project all of last year. We lived in the same hotel and so spent a lot of time drinking, going for walks and playing board games with one another. He lives near Carlisle, 60 miles north of here, and so he's coming along to spectate. He will be staying in this B&B tonight and then tomorrow I will stay in his place. Nice to have a couple of friends at the tournament anyway.
Now I must re-read my precepts list from Nottingham - I must make sure I stick to them all again. Unfortunately Michelleand I were staying at John's place in Nottingham last night (coincidentally the same friend I stayed with for the last tournament) and he and I were up drinking gin until 2am and watching the election coverage on the news, so that's oneprecept broken already! I haven't had a drink today though. Must lay off the beer!
Friday 24 July 2009
Friday 17 July 2009
Rest of the Nottingham tournament story
Thanks to all of you who have troubled to sign up - and apologies for the slowness in getting this going. I keep forgetting to do it - the problem is made worse by the fact that its the off-season for chess so its not at the forefront of my mind.
My next tournament will be Twyford, which I will be attending with Colin over the August Bank Holiday weekend, then I will probably play at Bradford in September. October will be a very busy month with tournaments in Galway, Bury St Edmonds and Scarborough.
Here's the rest of the Nottingham tournament, which was overshadowed by my Sister's great achievements in the London marathon.
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Sunday April 26th
My Sister is competing in the London Marathon today - running whilst I'm hunched over the chequered board, so I will be thinking of her as I'm calculating or miscalculating my variations.
Yesterday afternoon's game was a straightforward win against someone with the eye-catching rating of 14. In essence, he was a casual player who takes his son, a much stronger player, to tournaments, and just plays to fill in the time. About all you can say of the game is that it was an efficient win. Still, nice to get a win and end a run of 6 defeatsand 10 games since my last win back at Doncaster in February.
After the chess I had a nice walk through the Forest Recreation Ground and Arboretum. THe Arboretum is a nice Victorian Park. Despite all my time in Nottingham (I went to University and lived here for 4 years afterwards), I had never been to it before. It was a sunny afternoon with fluffy clouds and the park was full of students snogging, playing frizbee and wearing shortskirts. I think I was the oldest one in the park apart from a local tramp. Rather poignant, the passing of time andthe realisation that I was old enough to be most of the students' father. There was also a Chinese bell, pinched duringthe Opium Wars and 2 cannon captured at the Battle of Sevastopol. Good old Imperialism!
Off back to the venue now for 2 more games.
Tuesday April 28th
Things didn't go too well at the chess on the Sunday. I did have a nice walk into the venue. I parked at the entrance to Wollaton Park and walked across the park and up Ilkeston Rd - about 3.5 miles altogether. My Sister was running in the LondonMarathon and I was following her progress via mobile phone and laptop. I had to keep leaving the venue to check the phone for updates which could have been a bit problematic if my opponents had noticed. I have to tell you that she did rather betterat the Marathon than I did in the chess, finishing the 26.2 miles in 4 hours 49 minutes.
My opponent in the morning was an unrated ginger-haired girl of about 10. She was unsmiling at the start and emotionless throughout. She moved pretty muchinstanteously every time and only used 15 minutes for her 40 moves. Her opening play was abysmal - if I tell you that the opening moves were
1 e4 c5 2 a3?
you will see what I mean. WIthin five moves of the start I was a piece up with the Bishop pair, though annoyingly I missed a chance to win a piece onmove 6 which could have led to a different result.
What actually happened was I soon got bogged down in a cramped position and had to manoeuvre carefully to start to make my pawn advantage count. LIke a lot of children, she was very good at rustling up activity and sharp tactics. They seem to be things that come naturally to children, maybe because they know no fear and don't waste time defending pawns and worrying about threats. Forunatelythe Queens were off. In the end I got myself sorted out and won another pawn to go 2 pawns up in a R+B ending. We got to the time control at which point I'd used 75 minutes and she'd only used 15. I was still winning though, but that soon changed with an appalling blunder - I just didnt notice that she couldpush her h-pawn through to h6 whereafter it could not be stopped from Queening! It wasn't a good feeling.
I had a sandwhich and tea for lunch and a nice walk up Mansfield Rd, around the mysterious waterwork land called Corporation Oaks (with great views of the City) and back across the recreation ground.
At least I didn't withdraw and was still there to play in Round 5. So poor had been my performance that I hadn't even qualified out of the side roomwhere all the bottom boards in the Minor were playing. In the last round I had another unrated opponent, an older chap. Of my 4 games, three were againstungraded players and the fourth was graded 14, so this tournament won't have done much for my own grade.
I was White and the game was a Gruenfeld. It was relatively even throughout. I did my Dave Stephenson impression and didn't castle, put the K on g2 and launched an attack with the h-pawn. It does seem quite effective and I gradually wrested an advantage. There was a strange moment when I had been thinking I was a pawn up only to realise I actually wasn't! I had a passed d-pawn though and gradually got better and better. I was somewhat distractedhowever, both because of Eleanor running in the Marathon (she finished during this game) and because even though I hadn't withdrawn, its hard to take the final round all that seriously if there's nothing riding on it. In the ending I won a Knight , so had a won position with N+R+3 pawns vs R+3 pawns. I only had 5 minutes left on the clock though against his 25, and didn't fancy trying to win the ending with so little time left, so I offered a draw which he accepted.
My next tournament will be Twyford, which I will be attending with Colin over the August Bank Holiday weekend, then I will probably play at Bradford in September. October will be a very busy month with tournaments in Galway, Bury St Edmonds and Scarborough.
Here's the rest of the Nottingham tournament, which was overshadowed by my Sister's great achievements in the London marathon.
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Sunday April 26th
My Sister is competing in the London Marathon today - running whilst I'm hunched over the chequered board, so I will be thinking of her as I'm calculating or miscalculating my variations.
Yesterday afternoon's game was a straightforward win against someone with the eye-catching rating of 14. In essence, he was a casual player who takes his son, a much stronger player, to tournaments, and just plays to fill in the time. About all you can say of the game is that it was an efficient win. Still, nice to get a win and end a run of 6 defeatsand 10 games since my last win back at Doncaster in February.
After the chess I had a nice walk through the Forest Recreation Ground and Arboretum. THe Arboretum is a nice Victorian Park. Despite all my time in Nottingham (I went to University and lived here for 4 years afterwards), I had never been to it before. It was a sunny afternoon with fluffy clouds and the park was full of students snogging, playing frizbee and wearing shortskirts. I think I was the oldest one in the park apart from a local tramp. Rather poignant, the passing of time andthe realisation that I was old enough to be most of the students' father. There was also a Chinese bell, pinched duringthe Opium Wars and 2 cannon captured at the Battle of Sevastopol. Good old Imperialism!
Off back to the venue now for 2 more games.
Tuesday April 28th
Things didn't go too well at the chess on the Sunday. I did have a nice walk into the venue. I parked at the entrance to Wollaton Park and walked across the park and up Ilkeston Rd - about 3.5 miles altogether. My Sister was running in the LondonMarathon and I was following her progress via mobile phone and laptop. I had to keep leaving the venue to check the phone for updates which could have been a bit problematic if my opponents had noticed. I have to tell you that she did rather betterat the Marathon than I did in the chess, finishing the 26.2 miles in 4 hours 49 minutes.
My opponent in the morning was an unrated ginger-haired girl of about 10. She was unsmiling at the start and emotionless throughout. She moved pretty muchinstanteously every time and only used 15 minutes for her 40 moves. Her opening play was abysmal - if I tell you that the opening moves were
1 e4 c5 2 a3?
you will see what I mean. WIthin five moves of the start I was a piece up with the Bishop pair, though annoyingly I missed a chance to win a piece onmove 6 which could have led to a different result.
What actually happened was I soon got bogged down in a cramped position and had to manoeuvre carefully to start to make my pawn advantage count. LIke a lot of children, she was very good at rustling up activity and sharp tactics. They seem to be things that come naturally to children, maybe because they know no fear and don't waste time defending pawns and worrying about threats. Forunatelythe Queens were off. In the end I got myself sorted out and won another pawn to go 2 pawns up in a R+B ending. We got to the time control at which point I'd used 75 minutes and she'd only used 15. I was still winning though, but that soon changed with an appalling blunder - I just didnt notice that she couldpush her h-pawn through to h6 whereafter it could not be stopped from Queening! It wasn't a good feeling.
I had a sandwhich and tea for lunch and a nice walk up Mansfield Rd, around the mysterious waterwork land called Corporation Oaks (with great views of the City) and back across the recreation ground.
At least I didn't withdraw and was still there to play in Round 5. So poor had been my performance that I hadn't even qualified out of the side roomwhere all the bottom boards in the Minor were playing. In the last round I had another unrated opponent, an older chap. Of my 4 games, three were againstungraded players and the fourth was graded 14, so this tournament won't have done much for my own grade.
I was White and the game was a Gruenfeld. It was relatively even throughout. I did my Dave Stephenson impression and didn't castle, put the K on g2 and launched an attack with the h-pawn. It does seem quite effective and I gradually wrested an advantage. There was a strange moment when I had been thinking I was a pawn up only to realise I actually wasn't! I had a passed d-pawn though and gradually got better and better. I was somewhat distractedhowever, both because of Eleanor running in the Marathon (she finished during this game) and because even though I hadn't withdrawn, its hard to take the final round all that seriously if there's nothing riding on it. In the ending I won a Knight , so had a won position with N+R+3 pawns vs R+3 pawns. I only had 5 minutes left on the clock though against his 25, and didn't fancy trying to win the ending with so little time left, so I offered a draw which he accepted.
Saturday 4 July 2009
Nottingham tournament part 1
Apologies to everyone for taking ages to getting around to putting the next bit of the Nottingham report on here - I keep meaning to and I keep forgetting.
For most of you its not new material anyway, but I need to get up to date.
This one was the very first report from that tournament where I listed my new "precepts" to try and improve my tournament performance. They didn't do much good at Nottingham itself, but did pay off in an improved effort at Grange-over-Sands and to a lesser extent at Heywood.
Thanks to Jim for sending this back to me so I could post it since I'd lost my own copy.
One more note - Russell Goodfellow is this weekend doing battle in the World Open in Philadelphia, the largest and richest chess event in the world. I don't know how he's going, but good luck to him anyway.
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Friday 24 April 2009
The launch of my one-year chess journal was rather delayed by the fact that I had to download some annoying software to be able to use Word on my laptop. Aren’t computers a pain? I am sitting in my kitchen eating porridge and listening to some Stamitz concertos, to aid concentration. The Nottingham chess tournament starts tomorrow.
The main reason for writing a chess journal is in an effort to get some better results. This chess season has been nothing short of abysmal for me – after a reasonable showing at Galway and Bury St Edmonds last autumn, I got 0.5/3 at Hull, 0/3 at Coulsdon, 0/3 at Gonzaga in Dublin. Then a minor improvement at Doncaster where after losing the first game – meaning I’d lost 10 of my last 11 games -I then managed to win two games – both incidentally after drinking 2 pints at lunchtime.
Blackpool was a tournament of mostly drawn games (and a loss) and then I sunk back down again at Huddersfield with 0/4, though the influence of a superb real ale pub I found near the venue was at least partly to blame for that. So over all those events, a pretty poor showing – I won 2, drew 4 and lost 14. At least it can’t get much worse. By writing a journal of my thoughts on each game and the preparation I do between tournaments, and sending it to a panel of expert players and ex-players, I hope to get a better idea of where things are going wrong (or right) and be able to take steps to improve.
My plan is to keep this going through all the tournaments over the next 12 months. Read on and you will hear about my adventures in all kinds of glamorous locations – Nottingham, Grange-over-Sands, the Isle of Man, Chester, Galway, Scarborough, Bury St Edmonds, Hull, Coulsdon, Halifax, Dublin, Gibraltar, Doncaster, Blackpool and Huddersfield all being tournaments I am considering playing in in that time. I will also liven things up with tales of the antics of the other players I come across and try and provide some local colour and entertainment with tales of the goings-on that go on.
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One thing I am not going to do in this journal is include full games or reams of analysis, since its something I want to make more of a readable story – something you can read in the bath or on the train and not need a chess board in front of you.I have just been going through all my recent defeats with a view to trying to find the most common reasons why I lose chess games. There are three broad categories of reasons for my defeats –
1. Pre-game psychological reasons. Most of these games are lost before they begin. If I’ve had a bad loss in the previous game I often don’t make any effort in the next one. Often I turn up to a tournament out –of-sorts or nervous and things go wrong from the start. And there’s the old problem of intra-game drinking, when I have a few pints to recover from a traumatic loss and the next game is a write-off.
2. During-game psychological reasons. There are two ways in which these problems manifest themselves. (a) If I blunder or miss something I then feel like a complete idiot and just want the game to be over as fast as possible, so that I often resign really early. I know ideally one should fight on, but after I’ve blundered I just want it all to be over. (b) The other category of problems come when I’m in a good/winning position and it all goes wrong and falls apart and I go on to lose. In one recent game I walked into a mate in one when 2 pieces up! This seems to happen a lot – I am perfectly capable of playing well against people of my level and getting into a strong position but then seemingly can’t finish things off.
3. Chess-related reasons This is the least common category – most defeats are for psychological reasons. But the main chess-related reasons for losing games are:(a) Gross blunders – just missing something completely obvious and giving away material. (b) Being too passive in the end-game – well not many of my games even get to an ending , but when they do I’m often too worried about my opponent’s threats rather than looking for counter-play. In a game from Huddersfield (before I found the pub) that I’ve just been looking at, I was a pawn up in a King, Rook & Knight ending, but I tied up the rook defending my isolated a-pawn from his King, rather than using it to attack his two backward pawns and moving the central pawn majority. It looks obvious now I see it on the practice board but obviously under the pressure of the game I panicked too much about his threats. So maybe this is psychological as well?So if these are the reasons for my defeats, how to turn things around? Since most of the reasons are psychological, finding solutions won’t be easy – sorting out one’s dysfunctional personality is much harder than learning a new line in the Caro Kann!
However, here are some things I must try and force myself to do. The only problem is I’ve tried it all before without success.
1. Not turning up drunk or drinking between games whatever the temptation!
2. Not letting one defeat affect the next game.
3. Not turning up late for games, Goodfellow-style
4. Trying to maintain a calm dispassionate air at times. I might try the Dave Stephenson approach of looking quizzically at the board at all times.
5. Not getting complacent or relaxing if the position becomes good for me.
6. Trying to force myself to carry on after a blunder – maybe going out for a little walk to calm things down?
7. Not trying to do too much or over-push when the position is good – taking a bit more time might stop me from letting opponents back.
8. Blunder checking to avoid the ridiculous blunders. I’ve been trying to do this throughout my chess career. It tends to work very well when there’s no pressure on , and I dutifully examine all checks and captures in harmless level positions in the opening and then forget when the pressure is on later on. I must force myself to keep doing this when the chips are down later on in the game.
9. Always looking for activity and counter-play in the ending and not playing passive bollocks moves that tie my pieces up.
10. Being opportunistic and remembering that most of my opponents are as crap as I am and will make mistakes and give me opportunities. Well there are ten rules I’m going to take into the Nottingham tournament. None of them look like they should be hard to put into practice – but I can guarantee you it will feel very different this time tomorrow when I will be sitting there playing my first game.
For most of you its not new material anyway, but I need to get up to date.
This one was the very first report from that tournament where I listed my new "precepts" to try and improve my tournament performance. They didn't do much good at Nottingham itself, but did pay off in an improved effort at Grange-over-Sands and to a lesser extent at Heywood.
Thanks to Jim for sending this back to me so I could post it since I'd lost my own copy.
One more note - Russell Goodfellow is this weekend doing battle in the World Open in Philadelphia, the largest and richest chess event in the world. I don't know how he's going, but good luck to him anyway.
************************************************************
Friday 24 April 2009
The launch of my one-year chess journal was rather delayed by the fact that I had to download some annoying software to be able to use Word on my laptop. Aren’t computers a pain? I am sitting in my kitchen eating porridge and listening to some Stamitz concertos, to aid concentration. The Nottingham chess tournament starts tomorrow.
The main reason for writing a chess journal is in an effort to get some better results. This chess season has been nothing short of abysmal for me – after a reasonable showing at Galway and Bury St Edmonds last autumn, I got 0.5/3 at Hull, 0/3 at Coulsdon, 0/3 at Gonzaga in Dublin. Then a minor improvement at Doncaster where after losing the first game – meaning I’d lost 10 of my last 11 games -I then managed to win two games – both incidentally after drinking 2 pints at lunchtime.
Blackpool was a tournament of mostly drawn games (and a loss) and then I sunk back down again at Huddersfield with 0/4, though the influence of a superb real ale pub I found near the venue was at least partly to blame for that. So over all those events, a pretty poor showing – I won 2, drew 4 and lost 14. At least it can’t get much worse. By writing a journal of my thoughts on each game and the preparation I do between tournaments, and sending it to a panel of expert players and ex-players, I hope to get a better idea of where things are going wrong (or right) and be able to take steps to improve.
My plan is to keep this going through all the tournaments over the next 12 months. Read on and you will hear about my adventures in all kinds of glamorous locations – Nottingham, Grange-over-Sands, the Isle of Man, Chester, Galway, Scarborough, Bury St Edmonds, Hull, Coulsdon, Halifax, Dublin, Gibraltar, Doncaster, Blackpool and Huddersfield all being tournaments I am considering playing in in that time. I will also liven things up with tales of the antics of the other players I come across and try and provide some local colour and entertainment with tales of the goings-on that go on.
**********************************************************************************
One thing I am not going to do in this journal is include full games or reams of analysis, since its something I want to make more of a readable story – something you can read in the bath or on the train and not need a chess board in front of you.I have just been going through all my recent defeats with a view to trying to find the most common reasons why I lose chess games. There are three broad categories of reasons for my defeats –
1. Pre-game psychological reasons. Most of these games are lost before they begin. If I’ve had a bad loss in the previous game I often don’t make any effort in the next one. Often I turn up to a tournament out –of-sorts or nervous and things go wrong from the start. And there’s the old problem of intra-game drinking, when I have a few pints to recover from a traumatic loss and the next game is a write-off.
2. During-game psychological reasons. There are two ways in which these problems manifest themselves. (a) If I blunder or miss something I then feel like a complete idiot and just want the game to be over as fast as possible, so that I often resign really early. I know ideally one should fight on, but after I’ve blundered I just want it all to be over. (b) The other category of problems come when I’m in a good/winning position and it all goes wrong and falls apart and I go on to lose. In one recent game I walked into a mate in one when 2 pieces up! This seems to happen a lot – I am perfectly capable of playing well against people of my level and getting into a strong position but then seemingly can’t finish things off.
3. Chess-related reasons This is the least common category – most defeats are for psychological reasons. But the main chess-related reasons for losing games are:(a) Gross blunders – just missing something completely obvious and giving away material. (b) Being too passive in the end-game – well not many of my games even get to an ending , but when they do I’m often too worried about my opponent’s threats rather than looking for counter-play. In a game from Huddersfield (before I found the pub) that I’ve just been looking at, I was a pawn up in a King, Rook & Knight ending, but I tied up the rook defending my isolated a-pawn from his King, rather than using it to attack his two backward pawns and moving the central pawn majority. It looks obvious now I see it on the practice board but obviously under the pressure of the game I panicked too much about his threats. So maybe this is psychological as well?So if these are the reasons for my defeats, how to turn things around? Since most of the reasons are psychological, finding solutions won’t be easy – sorting out one’s dysfunctional personality is much harder than learning a new line in the Caro Kann!
However, here are some things I must try and force myself to do. The only problem is I’ve tried it all before without success.
1. Not turning up drunk or drinking between games whatever the temptation!
2. Not letting one defeat affect the next game.
3. Not turning up late for games, Goodfellow-style
4. Trying to maintain a calm dispassionate air at times. I might try the Dave Stephenson approach of looking quizzically at the board at all times.
5. Not getting complacent or relaxing if the position becomes good for me.
6. Trying to force myself to carry on after a blunder – maybe going out for a little walk to calm things down?
7. Not trying to do too much or over-push when the position is good – taking a bit more time might stop me from letting opponents back.
8. Blunder checking to avoid the ridiculous blunders. I’ve been trying to do this throughout my chess career. It tends to work very well when there’s no pressure on , and I dutifully examine all checks and captures in harmless level positions in the opening and then forget when the pressure is on later on. I must force myself to keep doing this when the chips are down later on in the game.
9. Always looking for activity and counter-play in the ending and not playing passive bollocks moves that tie my pieces up.
10. Being opportunistic and remembering that most of my opponents are as crap as I am and will make mistakes and give me opportunities. Well there are ten rules I’m going to take into the Nottingham tournament. None of them look like they should be hard to put into practice – but I can guarantee you it will feel very different this time tomorrow when I will be sitting there playing my first game.
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