77th Southwest Open

Played in my 1st Southwest Open over Labor Day weekend. It was a great tournament and I enjoyed the whole experience quite a bit.

There were quite a few Titled players at the event. I think I counted somewhere in the neighborhood of 17.

 

Here's a shot of the playing hall.

I scored 3.5 out of 7 and lost quite a few points in ratings but I learned a few things.

• One thing I learned that will affect how I approach other tournaments is don't play the 3 day option and drive 3 hours prior to the 1st game. By the third game day I was exhausted. 
• A second thing I learned is not to focus on the mate that "must be there". It might not take the pieces when you can unless you see the mate. 
• The third thing I learned is always take a jacket into the playing hall even ifs its 103 degrees outside it might 53 degrees inside.

Here is the second round game I played. This one was particularly painful as I slowly implode.

I've really ignored this blogging thing. But a 1st place finish!

Ok, well, it's been a long while. Certainly unintentional but there you have it. Since the Austin Club Championship, I've been pretty busy with both study and tournament play, although its been no easy path so far. I feel as if I'm actually progressing but my rating was not indicating that until very recently.

The first out of town tournament I played in was a Temple Chess Club tourney and I played horribly.  Won one of three and had a 50 point drop! Ouch. However, I got better with each game in that tournament.

Then was fortunate enough to be in San Antonio the week of their City Championship. This was my first multi-day tournament out of town. Earned 1.5 out of 5 in this tournament and played a pretty stiff set of players comparatively so I was happy with the result. I won the only game I played against a lower rated player and drew against a 1475. I lost to a 1455, 1560, and a 1838. None of those were real close but I was competitive. Analysis showed I am still making calculation errors and missing in-between moves. So I'm working on ingraining a standard approach to each move decision.

Last tourney was back in Temple last weekend. I scored 2.5 out of 3 in an U1400 section. I played pretty well in that I had no outright blunders although I have found several inaccuracies since the tourney. But that performance was good enough to tie for 1st in my section!

Still haven't learned to use ChessFlash so actual diagrams will have to wait.

The remainder of the year, I'm looking to play the Southwest Open and the U.S. Class Championships so by the end of the year I'll have had quite the chess experience.

Back to books!

1st Serious Tourney since restarting play: Austin Chess Club Championship

This last weekend was the inaugural Austin Chess Club Championship. 5 rounds of 90 minutes games with 60 second increments. I entered the tourney with a 1279 rating and after 5 fun rounds including a win, a loss, and 3 draws I managed a 1239 post-tourney rating. Whew! Who knew such hard effort could be so pitifully rewarded. But I consider the tourney a success.  I stayed focused and made no outright blunders at least from my perspective. Obviously, in at least one game I made a mistake or two. You're welcome Forrest! ;-)

A few general observations: I hadn't realized the amount of downtime between rounds. With games of this length, there needs to be an ample amount of time between rounds. Still I was surprised how much time one has to deal with between rounds. I'll be factoring that in as I go forward with more tournament play. It is a very encouraging thing to be playing in a room full of people also playing. There were over 130 people playing in this tournament and expectations had run closer to 50 so the turnout was a pleasant surprise. Finally, the organizers and assistants of the tournament were excellent. While I haven't experienced much in the way of chess tournament organization, I have had experience with organizing training conferences and know some of the work that occurs behind the scenes. Again, very impressed on this front.

Now, its time to start figuring out the process of actually getting better. That'll probably mean less fun blitz chess and more serious study, focus, and analysis.

Much to learn on that front.

Some photos from the event:

The event had 135 participants!

The photo above shows the few top tables.
I'm already looking forward to next year!