Chess weekend
I probably played the best chess of my life last weekend at the Boulder Open (yes, it fell on Easter Sunday... a little weird, but then again, I'm not all that religious anyway). I only scored 2.5/5, but breaking even is pretty good for an event with 3 experts, 3 masters, and a grandmaster. (16 players total in my section) I was expecting to only score maybe 1 point.
I even beat an expert (2000+ rated), only the 2nd time I've done that. Beautiful game of 70+ moves with a rook endgame that just worked so well. It was the perfect plan, but it took a lot of thought to put together -- just the way I like them. That was a wonderful feeling, but I spent all my energy and creativity battling him, so in the last round against an 1830 (my rating's 1670), I just didn't have any drive or energy to fight. So I just went through the efforts and before long had a simple draw on my hands. It's definitely good for my rating, but I wish I had some desire to fight during that last round.
Even my losses were good -- another expert I played in the 3rd round ended up beating me, but I played him within a pawn every step of the way. A very even game, and he complimented me afterward for saying that I play far stronger than my rating suggests. Great to hear, and I felt it was true.
Another loss came to Tyler Hughes, an up-and-coming high school senior rated 2272 or so. That's a lot -- that's why they call them masters! Anyway, he had a really good attack set up on my c-file, and I figured I could either wait for the attack to become complete or go off on my own, sacrificing a piece for a decent attack and shot at winning. It worked for a while, but eventually he stumbled (his words) onto a perfect move, where everything else would lose for him. So I lost my piece and ended up having to resign. But at least I went for the tricky play instead of settling in for a slow loss.
Hopefully I can keep it up...
I even beat an expert (2000+ rated), only the 2nd time I've done that. Beautiful game of 70+ moves with a rook endgame that just worked so well. It was the perfect plan, but it took a lot of thought to put together -- just the way I like them. That was a wonderful feeling, but I spent all my energy and creativity battling him, so in the last round against an 1830 (my rating's 1670), I just didn't have any drive or energy to fight. So I just went through the efforts and before long had a simple draw on my hands. It's definitely good for my rating, but I wish I had some desire to fight during that last round.
Even my losses were good -- another expert I played in the 3rd round ended up beating me, but I played him within a pawn every step of the way. A very even game, and he complimented me afterward for saying that I play far stronger than my rating suggests. Great to hear, and I felt it was true.
Another loss came to Tyler Hughes, an up-and-coming high school senior rated 2272 or so. That's a lot -- that's why they call them masters! Anyway, he had a really good attack set up on my c-file, and I figured I could either wait for the attack to become complete or go off on my own, sacrificing a piece for a decent attack and shot at winning. It worked for a while, but eventually he stumbled (his words) onto a perfect move, where everything else would lose for him. So I lost my piece and ended up having to resign. But at least I went for the tricky play instead of settling in for a slow loss.
Hopefully I can keep it up...