Reality Bites!

Last night I took my second stab at the St. John's Masters at the Marshall CC. When I played in September there were only 15 players including the house player. There was less then a 100 point difference between me and the next to last guy on the wallchart. Not that it mattered since he dropped out after the second round, so I didn't get to play him. I was shark bait for the experts who were losing to the IMs and GMs. This time there were 24 players including the house player. However this time there was a 300 point gap between me and #23. If I could simply win a game, I'd be a good candidate for the upset prize. Easier said, then done.

In the first round I played Boris Privman. I'm 0-11 against him. I actually had a good game against him. It would be my best effort of the night.

In this position Privman had just moved his king from f6 to e7. I had less then 30 seconds at this point, so I was blindly making moves. I played 47. Kf3. Several people including Privman thought I had good drawing chances with 47. Rc5. However Fritz came up with an even better idea. 47. e5 Rxe5 48. Rc5 Rxc5 49. Rxc5 Kf6 50. Rf5+ Kg651. Be4 Kh6 52. Rf8 Bxc6 53. Rf6+ Kg7 54. Rxc6 Rxc6 55. Bxc6. It took Fritz a few seconds to come up with this stuff. Even if I had found e5, I doubt I would have figured out the rest of it in the remaining seconds I had.

The remaining moves that I recalled were 47... Ra6 48. Bf1 Raxc6 49.Rxc6 Rxc6 50. Rxc6 Bxc6. It looks like I should be able to hold by staying on the b1 diagonal with my bishop, but his king can come in, and my passed e pawn isn't going too far. Eventually he was able to take advantage of my weak pawn structure, picked off the e and a pawns, and started marching his a pawn down the board.

So one would think after a near miss against the highest rated player I'd play all evening that I would be inspired in the next round. In theory that's what should have happened, but who said anything about me following theory? Reality check! Instead I got the bye and played the house player, Dolly Teasley. Everyone always gets a chuckle out of the Dolly vs Polly pairing. However there was nothing amusing about blundering a piece on the 9th move. Geez! I should have just taken the bye and saved myself the aggravation of losing so stupidly.

Once again Wright's Rule of Pairing comes to pass. "If there are only two women in a tournament they will get paired." Round three I play Iryna Zenyuk. This game was good knight-bad knight. Guess who had the bad knight? Though if you ask Iryna she probably say she had a bad night, having lost to a lower rated player in round two. I was holding my own out of the opening. This time I managed not to blunder a piece. I simply played too passively and gave her too much space to work with. At one point late in the game I look up and notice Grandmaster Yudasin watching the game. Too bad I couldn't read his mind, and get his analysis of the position. Though at that point perhaps even a grandmaster would not have been able to hold black's position.

Lately I've been getting into pretty aimless positions as black against d4. I do okay if I can play my Nimzo-Indian, but if they play stuff like the Colle or Stonewall I tend to muddle about. Both of my female opponents played d4 against me. Maybe I need to bring the Dutch Defense out of retirement. I actually used to play that in college.

In the last round I played Leif Pressman. The last time I played in this tournament I played him in the first round. This tournament was much stronger so he played Nick De Firmian instead of getting feast on shark bait. Even for a player rated 2192 there aren't easy games in a tournament this strong. After losing the first round he gets "paired down" to a 2113. That game is a draw. Round 3 with a half a point he gets "paired down" to a 2153. He was winning, and overlooked mate. Even high experts miss stuff. Finally he gets his true "down pairing".

I don't know if he thought this would be an easy match up for him, or whether he was just trying to annoy me. He went 27 moves without the clock going below the original 25 minutes. Time delay is a wonderful thing unless your opponent is making all his moves on delay. I didn't adjust the speed of my play to counter his blitz mode. I've had too many time scrambles with him where I came out on the short end of the position and/or the clock. Needless to say, I ended out with a significant time deficit. I messed up when I gave up my queen for two rooks, because I forgot he already had a piece. The best I was going to get out of the position was a rook for a knight and bishop.

So it was another 0-fer night. My lifetime record in this tournament now stands at 0-8. Outside the butt ugly loss against Dolly it wasn't such a bad night. The games were interesting, and against Privman I actually played well. On Chessloser's Blog he talked about not wanting to play in an open tournament where he'd get his butt kicked one round, and then kick some 900's butt in the next round. There was some spirited discussion about the merits of his thinking. As evidenced by my williness to pay for the privilage to qualify for the St. John's Masters, I don't mind the butt kicking. I'd rather lose to those guys then beat some clown who doesn't have a clue. Though sometimes I wonder do my high rated opponents think the same about me? I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question.

Small Chess Club Blues

The Internet sucks! Not really. I love the Internet, but at the same time I hate it what has happened to local chess clubs that have lost players to Internet chess. I belong to two local clubs in Westchester County. The Bob Peretz Chess Club meets on Mondays in White Plains, and the Westchester Chess Club meets on Wednesday in Scarsdale. Both clubs run USCF rated events on a regular basis, but the attendance has been slowly dwindling over the last couple of years. The Westchester Chess Club Championship drew 14 players. There was no announcement in Chess Life. It was simply email, and website traffic. All of the participants were players that drift in and out of the club during the year. 6 to 8 of players come almost every week and the rest come now and then.

The Bob Peretz Chess Club is currently holding its club championship. We have a free space at the White Plains YMCA, so we don't rental expenses anymore. Our Treasurer got the bright idea that we should hold the tournament as a Grand Prix with a Tournament Life Announcement in Chess Life. I figured we guarantee $500, but Alan wanted to do $1000. He figured we only needed 20 players at $50 each to cover the prize fund. Surely $400 first prize would attract some different people to the club, and give us some new blood. There are also some nice class prizes, and an upset prize.

I brought my computer to do the pairings, thinking we'd have a good turnout. Nope. On the first night we got 8 people. First round I'm paired against number 1. I was so bummed by the lousy turnout, and how much money the club was going to lose. I couldn't concentrate and walked into a mate on move 27. We do a "second" first round the following week to give people an option to start a week later without taking a 1/2 point bye for round 1. I sent out more emails. We got one more player the following week. I finally was able to get a 10th player so that I wouldn't have be giving byes.

Maybe I should have let there be an odd number. The 1300 who would have gotten the bye was my second round opponent, and I managed to lose a game where he blundered a bishop on move 13. This is the same kid who I've played twice in the last few months, and offered me a draw in an even middle game with lots of pieces still on the board. Both games I turned down the draw and he blundered away a piece a move or two later. Then he simply imploded after that. I remember after the second game I told him, "Don't simply offer a draw against a higher rated player in the middle game. If there's any play in the position they'll turn you down. Keep looking for play in the position." This also the kid who I "checkmated" when I was in check.

I guess he took my advice this time because he played aggressively as black, and despite blundering his bishop on move 13 just kept attacking. I think he plays better when he's not simply trying to draw against a higher rated player.



Starting on move 19 he just started shoving pawns down the kingside. I was a little concerned but felt that since I was up a piece I shouldn't have any problems. Keep in mind that this was my first game since my weekend meltdown at the Marshall, so my thought processes were still a little off. The other factor was I had found out earlier that day that I won a week's trip to Seville Spain to run in the Seville Marathon in February. (How cool is that?) So I'm thinking about how I'm going have to train to complete this marathon by the 5 hour cutoff, I'm thinking about the game, and I'm telling myself "You're up a piece, forget about the marathon for the moment, and try not blow this game."

I spent about 5 minutes trying to decide what I wanted to do with my rooks. Did I want to double on the f file, move the bishop and double on the g file, or have the rooks on g1 and f1? I decided I would play 24. Rf2 so that I could either double on the f file or eventually double on the g file after moving the bishop. I thought this move would give me a little more flexibility once I saw which way he was going to try to open up my king position. I thought he might play h5, but he pushed 24..f4. After 25. gxf4, gxf4, I had a major brain fart. My plan is to move the bishop off g2, attack the queen by moving my rook to g2, and then sliding the other rook over to g1. If he puts his rook on g8, I still have Rg2. I force the queen away and I can trade off a pair of rooks. (Trade pieces when ahead!) Great plan, except I overlooked 26...Qg3+! Oh crap! I can't play Kg1 to protect the rook. Suddenly I'm down the exchange, my king is exposed, his rook can grab the open g file and his queen is sitting on the seventh rank. Can anyone say "Up the proverbial creek, with no means of propulsion"?

Sigh. Another blown game. The funny thing was, it did not bother me as much as the game I blew on Saturday. I think maybe I had a chess hangover from the weekend, and my mind was too dulled to even care at that point. Perhaps I've mastered SonofPearl's Art of Losing so well that games like this just bring me to a deeper understanding of why I keep playing this damn game. Truth be told, I think I was too pumped up about winning the trip, to give a rat's ass about this particular game. Oh well at least I can rest assured that the upset prize in this tournament will not go to someone simply beating a player 100 points higher. This was good for 400 points.

One of the problems I have as a playing tournament director is after losing a game like that, I can't simply walk out and go home to mope. I have to deal with the rest of the games and getting results. The other problem is dealing with a small tournament spread out over many weeks. People have to reschedule games, people get sick, or have emergencies. The third round of this little 10 player tournament gave me more headaches then the 165 player scholastic tournament I directed on Sunday.

It started last week when one player told me he had play the 3rd round on the makeup date. The straight, by the book pairing would have matched him against the player who already had a game to make up. So I made a slight pairing transposition to avoid that problem. Monday I get an email from Dario's mom saying he's sick, can he play on the makeup date? The problem is he's paired against another player who has a make up game, so I look to see if I can make a reasonable switch. Dario has one point, and he's paired against the highest rated zero. I switch him to play another player from the zero score group. Actually the pairing was better because it got rid of all the ugly color problems. So I make various phone calls and get everybody rescheduled.

Then one of the players who is 2-0 calls. He has a family emergency, and can't come. His opponent has already left for the club. I really don't want to award a forfeit on board 1. I get to the club and have to explain to Isaac that John can't make it. Fortunately he is willing to play next week. Then I had a nervous moment when one of the other players hadn't shown up. I'm thinking to myself, "Did he misunderstand my email and think that he was playing next week, and not this week?" Finally he walks in at 8:30. He's a college student that comes up from NYC. He had missed the train, and had to take a later one. Catastrophe avoided! Despite all the chaos, I managed to win my game.



I felt like he had the better position early on, but I just kept defending. Eventually he wasted time, and then after he traded down I wasn't afraid of his advanced passed pawn. I had the squares covered, and it was weak. Eventually I won two pawns, and then squeezed out the ending. I like these types of games. I'm a tenacious defender, and I hate when the opponent plays boring "squeeze em" chess. Those types of games I end out fiddling around, and getting into time trouble. This one I was behind on the clock, but the time limit was long enough that it did not become an issue. I had lots of interesting things to consider which I think kept me more focused.

I Broke A Board In Half Today

No I didn't get pissed off after losing and smash a chess board over my opponent's head. Today I took a trial class in Tae Kwon Do, and I actually broke a board with my hand at the end. I've been kicking around the idea of taking some sort of martial arts for a few years. Even before starting to read Waitzkin's "Art of Learning", the idea of developing mental and physical discipline from martial arts has intrigued me. I had taken one semester of judo in college, and found the discipline and ritual of the class fascinating. However at the time I had too many other sports and stuff going on to really follow up on it.

I've had a number of my chess students over the years participate in Tae Kwon Do. My most hard working and disciplined students were the ones who also had great success in Tae Kwon Do. I had one student who I started working with in second grade. As a third grader he went 7-0 in the Primary under 800 section at Nationals. (His tiebreaks sucked so he ended out in third.) His rating peaked around 1500, and yes he's another one of my former students who's beaten me in a few tournaments. He's now a sophomore at Cornell and on the Tae Kwon Do team. (Damn that makes me feel old!)

This past spring I checked out a couple of the martial arts academies in my town, but either their adult classes were full or on my chess nights, so it was just one of those things that got set aside. Last Friday I was in a shopping center that has a Do Jang (Tae Kwon Do School) there. I've gone by it many times when they've had children's classes going on, and I had even asked about adult classes. However I've never summoned up the courage to give the trial class a try. This time as I went by there was an adult class of mostly women participating. I guess seeing all these women there inspired me to at least go in and ask about classes, and they sold me on trying a trial class.

So today I came and took my trial class. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was surprised by what we covered in this 45 minute class. By the end he had me kicking and hitting targets. And yes I actually did break a board in half. There was a lot to think about in terms of form, breathing and movement. My balance needs work, and I need to focus on technique.

What does this have to do with chess? I think the focus that it takes to master the various forms and movements in Tae Kwon Do will help in the focus I need to master positions I encounter over the board. It will be interesting too see if it helps me stay focused down to the end. I signed up for a year. I start next week. We'll see where this all takes me. Now I guess I have finish the Waitzkin book. I got bogged down once he stopped talking about chess.

It may have been coincidence, but I had a very good game tonight. My opponent was attacking like crazy, but I defending well. He made a few mistakes giving up the tension he had built. I stayed calm, and avoided little cheap shots. This was my first win after my Saturday meltdown. I had lost 5 games and had one draw since Saturday. Getting past the mental block of blowing a won position, and staying on track was important to me emotionally.

Tomorrow will be a good test. It's the monthly St. John's Masters at the Marshall. This is the tournament for players rated over 2100, but players lower then that can pay a qualifier fee and try be the top score on Thursday night. This time I managed to win a game on the night I paid the qualifier fee. In September I was the only one who paid, and I went 0-4 in the Thursday event, and followed up with another 0-4 in the masters tournament. Stay tuned for my report.

Stopping A Potential King Kong II

Last week when I wrote about my first round win in the Marshall Amateur Team tournament I mentioned in passing that King Kong beat me again. But then again since the post got zero comments, I guess no one was paying any attention. What? Are my wins too boring to merit discussion? Or is losing more entertaining? One blogger who I can't remember (senior moment) mentioned after posting a few nice wins, it was time to get back to analysis. But before I entertain you with another loss to King Kong, here is a moment of redemption.

When I played in the Friday Quads in October I got matched up against Mike, a kid from one of my lunch time chess classes. To put it mildly, I played like a f#$%-ing moron. This is the final position after White's 18th move. Unfortunately I'm Black in this lovely position. Fritz can't help but to point out how toast Black is.

One thing that is good about Mike, is he's a very sweet kid who doesn't show people up. He did not make a big deal about it. When it came up in one of our classes he did not humiliate me by saying how quickly I lost. He wasn't even the one who brought it up. One of the other kids from that class had played in the same tournament. He was the one who mentioned it when kids in class were discussing how good Mike is. Mike has a 1600 rating. Maybe when he passes me, I'll let him teach the class!

Nice kid or not, I still wanted payback. Also I don't need another 10 year old to become "King Kong II". Once somebody starts beating you a few times in a row he starts to think he has your number. With these kids, I want an unlisted number!



I have to admit I feel fortunate to have won this game. He got the better of me out of the opening. After 15 moves all my pieces were sitting on the first and second ranks. Visions of Godzilla started appearing in my head. I traded off pieces to free up space. Also I was trying to work on the isolated e pawn and his doubled pawns to the queenside. I had a moment of panic when he played 28...Rd1+. I'm thinking "Oh, crap I have to play Rxd1, and I lose my queen!" Fortunately I got my composure back and played 29. Kh2. After the queens were traded we had a flurry of pawn captures, where I was able to win a pawn. The other thing that was working in my favor was a significant time advantage. He had less then a minute so he didn't have time to find the best moves. When I attacked his rook with 33. Kg1, 33...e3 was probably his best shot. Having the passed pawn on my third rank would have been annoying though Fritz still gives White a bit of an edge.

For a change I was not the one in horrendous time trouble. I was able to reap the benefits of my opponent having 10 seconds left, and missing the ugliness of 35...Bh7. 36. Rb8+. It was only a matter of time before I win the pinned bishop, and can march the a and b pawns up the board. That would become unnecessary as he flagged on move 47. I dodged a big bullet with that win. The big test will come the next time I have Black against him.

A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

I think I'm getting senile. This is the third Thursday out of four that I have forgotten to put something in my "Don't Need a Set Chess Bag". I'm sure most of you are asking yourselves "What in the hell is a Don't Need a Set Chess Bag?" True confession time! Despite the fact that I play a game where over 95% of the participants are men, I do very woman-like things such as having multitudinous purses and bags for various occasions and purposes. Any of my male readers who are married or have a female significant knows what I'm talking about. They know better then to ask "Why do you need another purse dear?" (Male readers may be redundant, since according to Chess Tyro there aren't many female chess bloggers.

I have my regular chess bag that I take to tournaments and chess clubs where there are not sets provided. This bag has my tournament set, roll up board, a chess clock, assorted writing instruments, and a pair of reading glasses in it at all times. My Don't Need a Set Bag has another clock, key card to the Marshall, another pair of reading glasses, and my subway card in it, but no chess set. This is the bag I take to the Marshall and to WCA since both these venues have sets and boards already set up. Items that go back and forth between the two bags are my Mon Roi, iPod, and a little notebook that I keep results, final times, and sometimes some train ride analysis.

This system works out pretty well for me. I don't have to drag a set and board to places where I don't need them, and I have a clock in both bags so I don't have to worry about that. I get myself in trouble when I'm recharging either my Mon Roi, or my iPod. I also get in trouble if I move the clock from my Don't Need a Set Bag for some reason. Three weeks ago I left the Mon Roi at home because I was charging it, and forgot to put it back in the bag. Everyone kept asking me "Where's your scorekeeping thingy? Did it break?" Despite using it for almost a year now, I still remember how to keep score by hand. In fact I think my hand written notation has improved. Go figure!

Last week I very carefully made sure I had put the Mon Roi in the bag, especially because I had managed to forget on it Monday night, had to notate by hand again, and had severe time management issues that were acerbated by having to write. So that Thursday I sit down for my first round game, pull out my trusty Mon Roi, reach for my clock, and it's not there! I forgot that on Tuesday I had attended a chess team season kick-off party, and brought the clock for blitz and bughouse in a different bag. Just my luck. The week I forget my digital clock is the week Steve is not there with his supply of digital clocks. My opponent didn't have a clock so we ended out using one of the club's old BHB analog clocks. Frank Brady had just donated some brand new digital clocks to the club, but neither the manager or I knew how to set them. I have enough trouble setting the Chronos for anything besides what I have stored in memory! Playing with no time delay ended out being a non-issue because I got mated on the 26th move. Ouch!

So yesterday I very carefully double checked my bag to make sure I had everything I needed. Clock: check, Mon Roi: check, Reading glasses: check, note book: check, metro card: check, card key:check, chocolate:check, sandwich:check, snacks: check, reading material for train ride: check. All systems go. Get in the car to go to my next class, and half way there I realize I forgot my iPod. No turning back. No music to drown out the noise. Hopefully John Jacob Jingle Heimerschmidt would not be the music de jour. So what else did I manage to forget besides the iPod? The stylus to the Mon Roi. No stylus? No problem! I used a pen. No, I didn't write my moves down the old fashioned way. I just used the pen as a stylus.

Next Thursday I will not forget anything! Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, so I can be thankful that I won't lose any chess games on that day.

Knightmare on West 10th St.

The hardest thing about playing after a crushing loss is trying to forget about it, and move on. So even though I got to sleep on it, and try to start fresh I have trouble leaving it behind. It doesn’t help that I now have to play the higher rated 11 year old son who I’m 0-4 against. I don’t consider him one of those proverbial monkeys on my back. He’s young, out-rates me by almost 300 points and will probably become a master in the next few years.

All the studying of tactics, openings, endgames etc, does not prepare you for the battle of your mind. How one rebounds after a horrific blunder is probably worth a class. I can think about one instance where the inability to bounce back after a crushing loss cost me 67 rating points in one tournament. I know there have been others. That particular incident from 1989 stands out, because I had mate in two. I had worked the whole thing out, knew exactly what I needed to do, and was expecting the opponent to resign. I had walked away from the board, gave a friend "thumbs up", sat down, and when he didn't resign I forgot the moves. I lost about 12 moves later. I came back the next day and lost both games. In a tournament where I was the number 3 player I went 0-4. The only reason I didn't lose more points was because they had just put 100 point floors so I could only drop to 1845.

Often when I write an entry for my blog it takes several days before I complete it and publish. This I started on Sunday night, and here it is Tuesday. I mention this because tonight Paul Hoffman was at the Marshall Chess Club for a Q&A and book signing. I bought the book and started reading it on the train ride back. In the first chapter of his book KING'S GAMBIT: A SON, A FATHER, AND THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS GAME he talks about the same subject. "The world's top grandmasters are successful in part because they are able to recover from devastating losses. Every player, even Gary Kasparov, collapses in the odd game, but he has the inner strength to pull himself together and not let defeat unduly interfere with his subsequent concentration and performance."

So I guess perhaps I was being overly conservative in my assessment of the importance of psychological inner strength. So how did I rebound from Saturdays' crushing loss? I sucked. It didn't help that on the 7th move I made a dumb queen move that cost me a pawn on move 8. So not only was I angry about Saturday's game, I was angry at myself for making an error that I've made in previous games. On the 23rd move I lost another pawn. By move 35 we're in a rook and pawns ending. He has reached over for the black queen and set it down in front of him. That just got me more aggravated since my doing it the night before preceded my meltdown. Seeing him do the same action that I did in my game against his dad just reminded me of how cocky and unfocused I had been the night before. So here he is being the cocky little kid, but unlike me he doesn't screw up the won ending.

As we traded down he kept fiddling with the black queen sitting in front of him. I'd like to think that it wasn't intentional on his part, but the more he did it the more I was seething inside. Jay thought he was being obnoxious, but I'd like to think it was the twitchiness of an 11 year old kid. He gave me back one of the pawns and I was hoping perhaps I could hold on for a draw, but it came down to a classic Lucena Position. He played it perfectly, building the rook bridge to finally block my checks.

After move 64 we reached this position:

Jay thought maybe I could draw by "passing" with Rf7, but he simply will check on d4 and still set up the bridge. The game actually continued 65.Kd2 Ra2+ 66.Kd3 Ke1 67.Re8 Kd1 68.Rf8 Ra3+ 69.Kd4 Ke2 70.Re8+ Kf3 71.Rf8 Kg2 72.Rg8+ Rg3. Knowing that stopping the pawn would cost me my rook I resigned. At this point my rage is boiling over, and all I really want to do is throw pieces around, burst in tears, scream and go find mommy. Little kids can do that because they're children, and children can't always handle losing well. Even grandmasters can have major meltdowns, and get away with it because they're grandmasters. However, 50 something B players can't do that sort of thing without people saying "what a jerk!"

I suppose that's why internet chess appeals to certain people. They can curse at their screen, throw their mouse around, pound their fists, or any thing else they want to do. The opponent isn't going to know what's happening on the other side. For me, I want the human contact, even though in situations like this I might be better off hiding behind a screen name where I can be just another somebody in cyberspace.

It's funny how such anger can mess with one's thought processes, and make it hard to see what is really happening in a particular position. In the last round I'm black against Joe Felber rated 2000. I've known Joe since 1976 when we both were living in Baltimore and attending some of the same tournaments, but this was the first time we actually have played each other. I was still in a totally foul mood from the morning loss that was not helped with being given the wrong salad dressing when I got lunch, and Aleksandr continually coming over to see what I was doing on my computer between rounds. "I vant to be left alone!"

So here I am still in a rage, barely able to think straight, and trying to appear calm. Anger can really cloud one's judgement. We reach this position.

I'm thinking Joe has a killer move, and that if he makes it I might as well resign. I'm seeing phantoms, and as he's thinking about his move I keep looking at my watch and thinking "If he plays 25. Nf6+ I'm going to get crushed, so if I resign I can make the express train, and get home in time for the online hearts tournament." The more he thinks the more I'm convinced I'm going to lose. It turns out 25. Nf6 is nothing, but I didn't realize it at the time. Instead he played 25. Nd6. That move is annoying, but I hang on, and in the process pick up another pawn.

The anger has faded, but now it's been replaced by fear. In this case the fear of blowing another game. It doesn't help that people keep coming over and watch the game. Aleksandr keeps coming over, and standing too close. I keep using hand signals to tell him to back up. Finally I tell him, "Stay back. You're standing too close." I don't mind people watching, but when they hover next to my right side I find it annoying. I think it's because I want my space where I have my scoresheet. Also I almost feel like he's bringing me bad luck. He kept coming and watching my game against his dad, and then I lost to him in the morning round. I don't recall him watching my first round game that I won. Though that game I was sitting on the bench against the wall. Sitting there one does not have to worry about spectators being on one's back. (Note to self: Next tournament take sit on the bench even if it means switching the board around.)

Here's a classic case of nothing to fear, but fear itself.

I'm seeing ghosts again. I didn't want him to play 46. Rxd8, because I was afraid after I play 46...Rxd8 that he'll play 47. d7. What I was missing was the pawn is pinned to his queen. So instead of making a hiding place for my king with 45...h5, I play Rxc8. The game continues 46. Qxc8+Kg7 47. Qc3+ Qf6 48. Qc6 Qe6 49. Qc3+ Kf8 50. Qh8+ Qg8 51. Qe5 Qg7 52. Qc5 Qf7 53. Qc3 Qe6 54. Qh8+ Qg8 1/2-1/2 I was too afraid to let him chase my king out so I repeated the position.

Emotions are a tough thing to control. Maybe I wouldn't be so affected by them if I played chess on the internet.

Not The New York Knights: Round 2

The next round we played the team called Alec Ostrovskiy. The team consisted of Alec Getz and Anotoliy Ostrovskiy. Anotoliy is the father of another talented kid named Aleksandr, hence the team name. Alek was playing on a different team with Irenya Zenyuk. They are the top rated team. Anotoliy and I have played two times with a draw and a loss. He was the house player at the NY State Championship who took me apart the round I got the bye.

Jay beat Alec fairly quickly so it came down to my game. It was very drawish, and that’s all I needed for us to win the match. He had the bishop pair, but I had a centralized knight so I thought I had very good drawing chances. We eventually traded off the dark squared bishops. I was a little nervous because all my pawns were on light squares, but my knight was making it hard for him to try to get behind my pawns. Eventually he traded the bishop for the knight. I think he was hoping I’d take with the b pawn giving him the outside passed pawn. I knew that lost, so I wisely took with the c pawn.

I was really pleased with how I was playing up this point. I was counting squares right for possible pawn races. I was finding the right square for my king when I had to back off. My first opportunity for a potential pawn race I counted and determined he would queen two moves ahead, so I knew I had to retreat the king instead. It’s amazing how much easier it is to calculated these endings with time on the clock. (Note to self: Play more slow tournaments!)

So we reached this position.

I looked at several different possibilities such as Kd4, followed by Ke3. I calculated the pawn race if I push c4 and he plays b4. I promote one move earlier, and get to check on a1 forcing his king to the b file. Qb1+, and I skewer the queen on b8. Seeing that this variation is simple to count and wins, I push the pawn to c4, and then do one of those annoying things that cocky little kids do. I reached over and got a black queen for the anticipated promotion. I'm doing mental somersaults in my head. I'm so pumped because I'm going to be 2-0 in a tournament that I'm one of the lowest rated players. My opponent pushed b4, just as I had anticipated. I think I used about 2 seconds of the delay and immediately pushed c3. This move is a major mistake. All I have to do is play Kd4! I had around 40 minutes left and my opponent had around 10 so there was no need to make the move so fast. Instead of playing the anticipated b5, he played Kb3! At this point I have a major meltdown. I’ve thrown away the win with my hasty pawn push. I still have a draw after 49…Kd4. 50. Kc2, Kc4, 51. b5, Kxb5, 52. Kxc3, Kc5, 52. Kd3, Kd5, 53. Kc3, Kc5.

I’m so angry at this point that I can’t even see Kd4. I put the black queen back on the other table, knowing that I had been presumptuous to take it so soon. I just start shaking my head, and tapping my Mon Roi stylus on my hand. I get up, I sit down. I couldn't believe I did such a stupid thing. In my rage I push b2??, and walk out of the playing room. This move just loses. He takes the pawn on c2. I have to give up my hard earned opposition to go chase down his pawn. The rest of the games goes like this. 50.Kxc2 Kc4 51.b5 Kxb5 52.Kd3 Kc5 53.Ke4 Kd6 54.Kxf4 Ke6 55.Kg5 Ke5 56.f4+ Ke6 57.Kg6 Ke7 58.f5 Kf8 59.Kf6 Kg8 60.Ke7 Kg7 61.f6+ Kg6 62.f7 12 moves later with him on the verge of promoting and no stalemate possibilities I resign in disgust. So instead of going into round 3 against the top rated team with the same 2-0 score we have 1.5. Instead of me being on the top of the world with a 2-0 score, I'm 1-1 and mad as hell. If it had been game/30 and I had 4 seconds left then I wouldn't have been so pissed off. I would have been able to blame it on time pressure, and moved on. I had 40 freaking minutes!! Total loss of focus.