DCC Monthly Tournament: June Game 2

The Denver Chess Club has USCF rated games every Tuesday evening of the month. Each game gets added up at the end of the month for a month-long tournament. I missed the first Tuesday of this month but I got to participate this past week so that makes it effectively Game 2 of the tournament. I didn't leave any annotations or comments. Just enjoy and feel free to criticize as long as you're not overly rude :]

I can feel black's horror, pain and anguish after white's 25th move;)

Yup, white's 25th would just tear out your heart... OUCH!  and D'OH!

Haha yeah, he made his 24th move and I made my 25th move so fast it took him by surprise. It was like instant-ownage. He looked at me and looked at the board then back at me and said "well that's a nasty little trick". We laughed a bit and he resigned. 

Didn't get a chance to do any post game analysis with him but I did run it through ChessBase and Fritz. Apparently the game stayed in book until move 13. I thought this was really nice considering I had never played this variation and the ICS doesn't cover it at all :] 

As it turns out. move 13. Rh5 has only been played a few times in history and 13. Re1 is preferred. Black sacks a pawn but gains initiative and solid activity for this pieces(if 13. Re1 black would bring his Queen to h4, etc). 

I must say, after studying this opening a bit more with chessbase and adding the lines to CPT I feel comfortable having to play it again. 

At move 8, I was expecting 8...d6 so the d5 thrust really threw me off. I thought about the consequences of the move for awhile (5-10 minutes) before finally taking the pawn. I knew I'd be up a pawn but I also knew that Be6 was coming and I would be down a tempo for a pawn. Either way, I'm happy with this result.

I lost last night's game. I completely fell apart and was not thinking at all during the opening or middle game. Could not pull myself together to come up with a plan and wasn't even thinking of my opponent's move consequences. In a way, you can say I beat myself. I'll post the game in a new thread when i get home from work this evening.

Back in my weightlifting days prior to a heavy lift I would follow a ritual immediatly prior to the lift. The ritual, known as an anchor, served as the transition to total attention to the task at hand.

Lately I've been experimenting with easy problem sets on ChessTempo looking to establish anchors for problem solving. I've had some success in getting consistant success by clicking the box selecting the problem to be my last. That then triggers my mind to go through the checklist; king safety, hanging pieces, etc. Then, when I've completed the problem, I just go on to the next, following the same ritual.  Whether that carries over when I go back to higher rated problems, we'll see - but, usually my misses have been simple inattention rather than problem difficulty.

The question is what anchors might be useful before and during a game? Has anyone noticed that their performance improves when they follow some pattern? Could it be as simple as taking a sip of coffee after your clock is started and before your next move...

I never thought of doing something like that PawnCustodian. I remember back in high school when I played football and soccer, we would do a lot of interval training right before a game. I can relate to what you're saying. 

I think my problem may be that I don't have a solid thought process when actually playing in a game. I know that when I'm going over an annotated game or exercise I, I run through a checklist of thinks for positional evaluation as well as tactics... but when the time comes to actually play the game, all that goes out the window and I'm left with just pure intuition and bad calculation. Sometimes I get lucky and my opponent miscalculates worse than me, but last night against a 1662 USCF player (I had the black end of a Closed Sicilian) I was finally up against someone who did everything right and capitalized on my mistakes. I'll do a full analysis of the game tonight. I won't bother using an engine at this point as I already knew where I went wrong and how I continued to go wrong. I felt pretty sick afterward. I know I'm better than this. 

The rest of the week is dedicated to pure study and honing my thought process for this weekend's tournament. I may wind up playing in the U1400 section afterall...

I'm hearing ya.  I too suffer from inattentiveness or lack of focus during important games.  I somehow mentally fall lazy and fail to do the important things, like checking what my opponent can do against the move I am planning to make.

It costs me so many games.  When I am focussed and alert... not lazy, I believe I play at about 1900 strength... but when I am off my game, I play at about 1600... It's soooo annoying.  I wish there was a simple thing I could do to get to the zone, where I am focussed.

When I am at the board I can tell if I am unfocussed or not, but there seems to be nothing I can do about it when I detect that I am off my game.

When i'm playing a game I typically go through this thought process:

1. Threats, checks, captures, tactics
2. Consequences
3. To-Do list

Nowhere in there am I making a plan. Mostly because the ICS course confuses me. In the document titled "Making Decisions in Chess" they have you do self questioning... which I never really do other than consequences... how do you guys incorporate that self questioning into your thought process? That's where I'm confused.

I'm beginning to think my thought process is completely fubar and that's not good going into two tournaments in back to back weekends :\

Any tips/help would be much appreciated!

The "To Do List" is the plan. It really doesn't make sense to do it on every move, just every couple of moves.

If you have a prefered opening use the general principles of the opening as your To Do list for the first 5-10 moves. If you are using the ICS Opening Repertoire they give you the To Do Lists (I'm not sure they are doing that for the 1.e4 repertoire, that's one of the reasons I went with the 1.d4 repertoire).

So you mean you're not actually doing the self-questioning that is present in the Making Decisions in Chess article?

No.

After EVERY move think about consequences and threats.

Regularly, but not every move update your To Do List.

Ah that makes sense. Perhaps my thought process isn't so bad after all then. I know for a fact that my last game I was not in the right frame of mind. Also my apologies for not posting it yet. I'll get to it tonight. Last night I spent a considerable amount of time studying the annotated games from Month 1 again. I really want to be prepared for this weekend's tournaments.

Preparing for this weekend's tournament by studying this kind of thing works?  I thought you had to rest and only do a few tactics here and there... make yourself hungry for a game!

BorgQueen: I suppose I'm preparing for a tournament much like I used to prepare for a game when i played sports; train hard before the game. The point is that the training should be so difficult right before a game that the actual game is a walk in the park. It was effective for me in sports(3 years state champions football, 2 years state champions soccer).

However, with chess this may be completely different  also i'm about 10 years older and not in the best physical shape haha

I thought that led to exhaustion.  If I train really hard, either physically or mentally, just before the "fight" then I suffer from fatigue.  Always.

Exaggerating -- do a 20Km high resistance spin cycle class and then try running afterwards... you'd get tired too quickly wouldn't you?  I would!

If I had a weekend tournament happening, I would try to do nothing chesswise on the Friday and do about 20 mins of tactics training just before the event.  Perhaps this is just me though.  Maybe this is why I keep losing 

SirNemo wrote:
However, with chess this may be completely different  also i'm about 10 years older and not in the best physical shape haha

I think there are some similarities, and the things you did in football can help - and having competed at the championship level you know the feeling!

In both you have to be trained and ready, and you have to get your head into the game. The intervals certainly can get you ready and warmed up. But it's the head slaps and stuff that get you aroused in football - that's what I was thinking about.

Mabe we should have our head slapped or do some belly bumps before each game:lol:.

lol i'll have my fiance slap me across the face a couple times before my first game tomorrow

SirNemo wrote:lol i'll have my fiance slap me across the face a couple times before my first game tomorrow

Hmmm...

That probably won't work.

Perhaps you're right... She hits hard  either way I need to figure out a way to stay completely focused. I'll keep you guys posted on my progress this weekend :]

Good luck mate 

Well I'm back from the tournament. I did horribly. Lost 3, draw in the last game. I feel so blah.

How many games were played?

4 total

Ouch... bad luck mate... I'd feel pretty bleh too I think.

Time to study for the next tournament... analyse those games and find out where you went wrong and try to work on it.  Don't let those losses be for nothing!