Late Summer Swiss Round 2 Austin Chess Club

Played my second round game tonight and recorded my second loss in this 4 round Swiss. Very frustrating game that I need to analyze as I felt pretty good about it as I was playing but toward the middle of the game realized that it was a lost game unless my opponent blundered. I ended up 2 pawns down and struggling to hold the center against a connected pawn pair.

Need to put some time in studying and practicing before next week's game. Still very rusty in my move choices and calculations. I'm probably also still too fast on my moves as I had ample time on my clock tonight. But time doesn't help when you're bleeding off pawns.

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable evening and better than sitting around surfing the internet or watching TV. Also, used the Chronos clock tonight and it is a very nice time piece.

Chronos Chess Clock Touch

My digital chess clock arrived today. I mentioned previously that I was impressed with using the clock. Well, I'm still impressed but learning to set the monster is a bit daunting. The 47 pg manual goes into great depth. With the excellent video from Chesshouse on Youtube, I figured it out and have several presets on the clock and am ready to go. Back in the day, playing with my analog clock it was always interesting to hear the clacking of buttons as turns changed from player to player. With this clock, if the beeper is off there is no noise. Very nice.

I'm starting to get back to playing on FICS. I have always thought it was a nice active place and have had no problems getting a few games there. I'm finding I prefer at least 5 minutes games and very little increment. That seems to be enough time to consider a bit what is happening on the board and hopefully evade the most grievous blunders. I think the endgame pawn calculations are frustrating as the time slips away.

Well back to adjusting the Chronos so its ready for play on Sunday evening.

Back at the board.

I played chess casually over the years but never real seriously although I've built a small collection of books and read bits and pieces of most of them.

However, two weeks ago I attended the Austin Chess Club and played in a tournament. The first since '95 when I had played in a handful. However, I live only 10 minutes away from a club and I'm going to be a bit serious and play with the serious intent of improving my game. This blog will, I hope, be a kind of bread crumb trail of my experiences and thoughts along the way.

Played my first quick chess at the club the first night there. 6 rounds of G/15 and 3 sec increment. First interesting experience was the new to me clocks. I have a typical chess clock that you simply set the hands and let the clocks run down till a flag falls. These "new" clocks are all digital and manage the increments that I had only experienced in online chess to manage lag.

It should be noted that my current rating is 1289. This makes me a fairly weak player. USCF defines that as a Class D player. So there are 6 levels above mine. I'd like to lessen that number a bit over time.

That first tournament, I did not keep a score sheet so nothing to evaluate really after the tournament except my feelings. I won 1 game of 6. So the feelings were not that charitable concerning the results. However, I really did enjoy the competition.

This week I joined a 4 rd Swiss with game in 90 minutes with 60 sec. increment. I lost rd 1 to a very affable guy rated 1656. We played an entertaining game until I blundered a very drawish position away and was immediately punished. In a later post I will offer up an analysis to try and learn a bit from the result. Will be breaking out the opening books (Korn's MCO in particular) to see my early mistakes and unintentional novelties. So 3 rounds to go over the next 3 weekends.