The Ford Memorial Catchup

Apologies for the lack of updates.

The Ford Memorial at Norths has gone underway. Due to some circumstances, I was unable to take part this year.

The greatest shock of the tournament so far was FM Greg Canfell (2315) drawing against Benjamin Cheung (1729). A superb result for young Benjamin.

The young guns are doing very well in this tournament after 3 games played.

Jack Ruan, Oscar Wang and Anton Smirnov are on 3 points each with Benjamin half a point behind followed by Vincent Cheng and Harry Ruan on 2 points each.

My brother-in-law Steven is currently on 2.5 points.

I cannot help but notice that the number of participants for this year's Ford has dropped. Last year, we had 89 participants but this year, it had fallen to around 79 - a fall of 10%.

Ford Memorial Round 8

Last night was a scheduled postponed games night but I was informed by Norman Greenwood that Frank Low is having scheduling problems so we agreed to move forward our round 8 game to last night.

Frank sacrificed a minor piece to open up my uncastled king and placed my position under severe pressure - the opening was a Pirc Defence: Classical.

I subsequently made 2 errors which allowed him to retake the position but I subsequently regrouped after he made a unnoticeable mistake (he was under severe time pressure by then) which allowed me to take home the point. I was pretty sure I was lost at one particular point in the game and after letting Fritz do its handiwork, sure enough, Fritz pointed out a mate in 7 at that location.

I was lucky.

Because of the schedule, I 've yet to play round 7 but have played round 8. So far, I'm now at +4-3=0.

Losses:
Karel P Hursky (2013)
Sarkis Nalbandian (1734)
Gordon Miller (1588)

Wins:
Robert Laurie (U/R)
Owen Roach (1458)
Anthony Pickering (1769)
Frank Low (1575)

I definitely need to improve. My opening theory sucks. I can no longer get by just remembering the first 4 moves in any opening. I'll never survive in this way. My remaining 2 games will be as White.

Next week is the start of the final round of the Ryde Eastwood Club Championship and it clashes with my Ford Memorial game so it looks like I may have to postpone my Ford game, which is a bit unfortunate.

Ford Memorial Update Round 6

Ever felt like a complete dufus?

I just did. Losing tonight to Sarkis Nabaldian (1734) sure did the trick on Round 6 of the Ford Memorial, and does little for my self-confidence.

Apologies to Vladimir and Steven who offered to have a look at my game but I declined as I didn't feel like having any post game analysis. Game was effectively over after 2 bad moves and knowing exactly where you went wrong was even more terrible.

Current score: +3-3=0 with 3 games left to turn the tide. When I first started out, my aim was to get 5 points and right now, that means having to win 2 out of my last 3 games.

Funny, I was in a bad mood so I logged onto freechess.org and proceeded to win 8 rapid games consecutively (hmm... a first for me... but it still didn't erase the self-recriminations from tonight's game).

There are times when you just want to throw your hands up in the arm and ask yourself why you would want to subject yourself to such mental torture. This is one of them.

I guess all chess players have to go through disappointments in order to improve but the journey is long, hard, laden with rocks and success only comes to those who want it bad enough.

I'll probably skip tomorrow's lightning competition at Ryde-Eastwood. I find that playing lightning and blitz chess is actually pulling my game down in the sense that I do not spend enough time working out the variations or analysing the position properly. The net effect is that it's making me make hasty moves. I didn't use to do that and I need to 'unlearn' blitz thinking and refrain from making a move too quickly. I reckon if I slow down, I would probably play a lot better.