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.

Moving At Turtle Speed

And I don't mean ninja turtle speed (see inset).

I am just terrible at blitz. 5 minute chess just confuses the heck out of me.

Just how bad am I?

On Wednesday, my brother-in-law Steven and I (I usually give Steven a lift) had great fun at the chess club. To our surprise, we saw Vladimir and we proceeded to do a simul with him again in 5 minute chess.

First off, I like to say Vladimir is an exceptionally talented and great player. How many 2300+ players can you name, who is willing to sit down with you, even go through and analyse with you on your game (pointing out what you did right and wrong), converse with you like a normal human being and always willing to play in 5 minute blitz games with anyone?

Not many, I would say.

Vladimir is usually nice enough to give me a Rook/Knight advantage (which in spite of it, I will proceed to lose against him in record time). At one point, he stopped, gave me a look and said in a friendly tone,"Hmmm..... you like to think." (as in, I like to think long and hard before I make a move) and I replied in the affirmative. He's right. I usually get into severe time trouble in these lightning games because of this. My style of playing is just not conducive to blitz/lightning games.

This can be seen in my blitz games with Shane as well. Shane is an absolute livewire and a great guy to be with. He will always proceed to beat me the crap out of me because I tend to make stupid mistakes in my middlegame because my turtle brain just could not cope with the speed and intensity needed for lightning/blitz games.

How do people play fast games? I have severe problems trying to come to grips with recognising patterns and able to formulate a strategy/plan quick enough.

Every time my opponent, makes a move, I do the following:

Quick scan of board, identify own weaknesses, identify weak spots, look for undefended pieces, how to move my pieces to better squares......... bzzzzzt! Time's up!

I just can't do it in the space of a few seconds.

Shane does it because he sees like,"this move looks good, so I'll play it." Smirnov plays in a similar style. It seems that both of them acquire the necessary experience and from there, their brains draw on definitive plans or try to identify logical patterns and make them fit onto the board into a cognitive whole.

I watched my brother-in-law Steven play as well. He reacts faster than me but is able to quickly process all of this information much much faster than I could.

What does this mean for me? I guess, it means that I just need to train to see stuff quicker. And to do that, that means looking at more positions on the board and remembering more patterns.

Less someone else mistakes this, I had a great time with Shane and Vladimir. Thanks, guys!

Death Comes As The End

I'm sure some of our fellow chess bloggers have been wondering why I've blogged so much in the last couple of days. Well, that's because my studies are finally out of the way and I can now comfortably work on my chess.

I was particularly upset yesterday as I had just learnt that a family friend had passed away in the afternoon. He had been ill and was suffering from cancer for a year now. My wife and I were intending to visit him this weekend as we learned that his condition had worsened and was warded at West Mead hospital. We were very shocked to learn that after taking his X-Ray at half-past twelve yesterday, he suddenly couldn't breathe and just collapsed and was gone. Just like that.

The news knocked me out of my stride. While I turned up last night to play our scheduled games against Parrammatta, I told the U1400 team captain Greig that I was in no mood to play but if he cannot find a replacement at such short notice to play, I would fill in. I didn't really feel like playing but I didn't want to let the team down either. Unfortunately, there was no able replacement so I ended up playing. After all our games finished, Greig informed me that our U1400 team's 3-1 win over Parrammatta was enough to secure the final 4th place for the next round. Our team had garnered 12.5 points to Parrammatta's 10.5.

During my game, I was very surprised to see Weng turning up at the chess club with his son. Weng is my brother-in-law's Steven friend (we went over to his place a few times for a nice Christmas meal) who is also another chess fan. He's currently taking his Masters and is thus not available to play for the club. When my game ended, I had a good long conversation with Weng. Weng's concern was his son's chess progress. I offered to help him by passing him some chess materials which hopefully can be of some use to him.

Vladimir turned up (!) as well and he and Shane had a good conversation and were in a jovial mood. When Steven finished his game, Vladimir proceeded to do a simul against Steven, Shane and me in 5 minute blitz chess. He wiped us off all the board with me being the first to fall. In our second round, again, I was the first to fall, Steven resigned a few moves later after me and Shane kept talking to Vladimir and made him forgot his clock was still running and Vladimir lost on time. It was hilarious. Many thanks to Vladimir for being so gracious in taking time to play against patzers like me and to Shane for helping to lighten up the atmosphere of the game. I really needed that as their good nature helped lessened the impact of the news of the death.

The U1600 Team Captain, Les informed me that I would need to fill in to play the North Sydney chess club next Tuesday on Board 4. That's it from me for now.

North Sydney Ford Competition: Musings

I popped by the North Sydney chess club last night for a quick hour or two to see the Ford competition games.

First of all, hats off, I was mightily impressed by Board 1 player, Vladimir Smirnov. A very talented player. His opponent got into a losing position and was gracious enough to resign instead of fighting on as his position was unsalvageable. Vladimir then took his time to discuss the game over with his opponent, highlighting any mistakes as well as strategies and possible variations to improve his position. Top class bloke.