Poison Pawn

2nd Annual Austin Chess Club Championship and I finally got my database built.

2012-03-07T23:24:00.003-06:00

For a short but intense period I have been building my database of games. The focus has been two-pronged. A database of OTB games I've played and a database of master's games using This Week in Chess as the major games contributor. It has been an instructive process and one I hope yields a useful tool going forward. I am currently using SCID as my database for the games and must really recognize the phenomenal job done in programming the free database for storing chess games. So far, it has everything I've been interested in using and is rather intuitive as well. Check it out!

The 2nd Annual Austin Chess Club Championship was held the 1st full weekend in January and I think it was again a complete success. I believe the tournament was full and good competition was abundant. For myself, I had a successful outing consisting of 3 wins, a loss, and a draw. Reflecting back a year ago, I feel many things in my game have changed for the better. Mainly, my familiarity in the tournament milieu. I distinctly remember the anxious energy from the 2011 tournament and this year it was markedly subdued. Whereas previously I was thinking about results, this year I was anticipating the game itself and I think that made a world of difference. My focus was on playing and enjoying the game. It made for a much more enjoyable experience. Additionally, I learned from the Southwest Open to, if possible, play the longer schedule. In traveling to Dallas the morning of the Southwest Open, I was not focused on playing well but rather simply finding the hotel in time. Later, I was very tired from having gotten up so early to travel to Dallas. Here, at my home club there was no travel and I played the 3 day schedule getting the first game under my belt Friday evening. This meant a leisurely Saturday morning and a more relaxed tournament on the whole.

Just to add some frosting to this, the Austin Chess Club just announced a summer tourney this July with the same format as the January tourney. I'm very much looking forward to another well-run tourney.

Here's I game I just played against a true gentleman of chess Dale McClemore. We've played several times and I always get beat but these are always enjoyable games. A couple of things I've noticed in quickly looking this game over is the utter uselessness of White's dark bishop throughout most of the game and the defensive shell I retreat to or rather am pushed to develop. It's never a good thing to be a piece down but even less so when the piece is still on the board! Argh...

So enjoy this "what not to do" example.

77th Southwest Open

2011-09-13T22:53:00.000-05:00

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!

2011-08-14T23:35:00.000-05:00

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

2011-01-11T22:09:00.003-06:00

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!

First Regular Time Victory

2010-08-04T23:17:00.001-05:00

Round 3 of the Austin Chess Club Late Summer Swiss. I was playing black against an equally rated opponent and scored a point. The game itself was well fought and had many opportunities for me and my opponent to blunder the game away but we both played steady and I worked myself into a winning endgame. Best move on my part was a rook queen pin I managed with a bishop but it wasn't a game changer until the end by giving me an advantage of the more maneuverable rook versus a bishop.

This sets me up for a last round with some confidence that I am starting to see the board a bit and recognize some critical moves on the board. Still a long way to go until good chess is being played but its encouraging.

I've also been putting in a good bit of time on FICS and I think this is helping me to see some patterns and move in and around them. So a good thing and I'm wondering if it might not be better to look to ICC for a few more games as FICS can be slow at times.

So its late. I have an analysis almost complete and I need to learn how to use Chessflash or something like so I can post some board positions. Hopefully soon.

Late Summer Swiss Round 2 Austin Chess Club

2010-07-25T23:32:00.001-05:00

Played my second round game tonight and recorded my second loss in this 4 round Swiss. Very frustrating game that I need to analyze as I felt pretty good about it as I was playing but toward the middle of the game realized that it was a lost game unless my opponent blundered. I ended up 2 pawns down and struggling to hold the center against a connected pawn pair.

Need to put some time in studying and practicing before next week's game. Still very rusty in my move choices and calculations. I'm probably also still too fast on my moves as I had ample time on my clock tonight. But time doesn't help when you're bleeding off pawns.

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable evening and better than sitting around surfing the internet or watching TV. Also, used the Chronos clock tonight and it is a very nice time piece.

Chronos Chess Clock Touch

2010-07-22T23:14:00.000-05:00

My digital chess clock arrived today. I mentioned previously that I was impressed with using the clock. Well, I'm still impressed but learning to set the monster is a bit daunting. The 47 pg manual goes into great depth. With the excellent video from Chesshouse on Youtube, I figured it out and have several presets on the clock and am ready to go. Back in the day, playing with my analog clock it was always interesting to hear the clacking of buttons as turns changed from player to player. With this clock, if the beeper is off there is no noise. Very nice.

I'm starting to get back to playing on FICS. I have always thought it was a nice active place and have had no problems getting a few games there. I'm finding I prefer at least 5 minutes games and very little increment. That seems to be enough time to consider a bit what is happening on the board and hopefully evade the most grievous blunders. I think the endgame pawn calculations are frustrating as the time slips away.

Well back to adjusting the Chronos so its ready for play on Sunday evening.

Back at the board.

2010-07-20T22:14:00.002-05:00

I played chess casually over the years but never real seriously although I've built a small collection of books and read bits and pieces of most of them.

However, two weeks ago I attended the Austin Chess Club and played in a tournament. The first since '95 when I had played in a handful. However, I live only 10 minutes away from a club and I'm going to be a bit serious and play with the serious intent of improving my game. This blog will, I hope, be a kind of bread crumb trail of my experiences and thoughts along the way.

Played my first quick chess at the club the first night there. 6 rounds of G/15 and 3 sec increment. First interesting experience was the new to me clocks. I have a typical chess clock that you simply set the hands and let the clocks run down till a flag falls. These "new" clocks are all digital and manage the increments that I had only experienced in online chess to manage lag.

It should be noted that my current rating is 1289. This makes me a fairly weak player. USCF defines that as a Class D player. So there are 6 levels above mine. I'd like to lessen that number a bit over time.

That first tournament, I did not keep a score sheet so nothing to evaluate really after the tournament except my feelings. I won 1 game of 6. So the feelings were not that charitable concerning the results. However, I really did enjoy the competition.

This week I joined a 4 rd Swiss with game in 90 minutes with 60 sec. increment. I lost rd 1 to a very affable guy rated 1656. We played an entertaining game until I blundered a very drawish position away and was immediately punished. In a later post I will offer up an analysis to try and learn a bit from the result. Will be breaking out the opening books (Korn's MCO in particular) to see my early mistakes and unintentional novelties. So 3 rounds to go over the next 3 weekends.