How We Think -- In Action Chess Tournament Yesterday

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I played 6 action chess games (Game in 30 minutes per player) yesterday. I won all 6, so I must have done something right. So, here is a review the games and how my thinking seemed to go.

First, I traveled to another city and found myself playing one of my own club mates. Well, as there were only 10 players in the tournament I ended up playing 6 of the 9 available. It was almost inevitable.

Game one: We played an opening that we had played dozens of times before at the local club (a Pirc Defense, Byrne variation) and I think he was a bit tight because he played an unusual move or two early and I pushed forward when he wasn't ready to retreat. This actually cost him a piece very quickly and soon after he lost another without seeing that it was happening. I'm happy with my thinking in this game. I was thinking in terms of patterns, where the pieces should be played for maximal effect and safety, and didn't have to think logically very much. I stopped on one or two moves for a while, but most of the game went very smoothly. His (uncharacteristically short) loss was due far more to his tightness than to my abilities.

Game two: This game was much more tense as my opponent developed actively (a Nimzo-Indian Defense, Rubinstein variation with Nge2) and held a safe position without trying to force anything. I tried to gradually place my pieces where I could pressure his position to force him into unwanted exchanges. He exposed one pawn a bit on the queen-side and that gave me a target. On the other side of the board I used a free piece to maneuver to pressure another pawn (directly in front of his king). This plan was partly opening pattern and middle-game logical thinking -- to find the targets and pressure them. He immediately felt the pressure and tried to push back. In the next few moves some exchanges happened and he let me have a pawn for some good piece activity and then he offered a draw. But, he had overlooked a small problem in his position. I chased one bishop, which he retreated, and then I double attacked another undefended bishop and the weak pawn in front of his king. He was going to be checkmated or lose the bishop, so he resigned. He simply didn't see the potential threat and when it occurred he had no defense. I'm very pleased with my thinking in this game as it involved both standard patterns and some maneuvering to probe weaknesses, ending with a couple of tactical moves.

Time for some lunch and a chance to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Game three: This was (already) the big match-up with the second-highest-rated player. It was a nice game (Najdorf Sicilian with 6. Be2 e5) with a few difficult trade decisions, which I think he might've done better on, and I gradually took a small positional advantage. But, it cost me some time to get there and he was holding on pretty well. He also was trying to play quicker to make the time differential a big factor. I decided to change the position of a bishop and forgot it had been required to defend a pawn. So, he snapped up the pawn. I simply kept applying pressure which gave me equality and then I sped up play with some determination to watch him try to figure out what to do and to not lose on time. Well, he had a tough time deciding what to do and it cost him time. My play was easier, so I just maintained my advantages as well as I could and fought his pieces as he tried to activate them. This process took him a lot of time. In fact, he couldn't activate his king and that let me neutralize his play. Then, I traded off one of his pieces and completely destroyed his pawns. This is when he more or less panicked and let me win his pawns. He was finally down to my time and still taking long on each move. Finally I was ahead two pawns (!) and he ran out of time. I'm not sure how much time I had left, but it was around 30 seconds. This left my nerves jangling for a while. He was very unhappy, but it was just a tough chess game. My thinking in the game was solid throughout except for the poor timing to change bishop position which cost the pawn. My recent practice playing faster probably helped me stay clear-minded when the time ran low.

After that game I wished I had time to calm down!

Game four: I played a lower-rated player who felt a great deal of strain during the game, but who managed his army rather well and safely. I, on the other hand, was not in a perfect state of mind. I wanted to play safely in one way, but aggressively in another. In the end I achieved neither to my satisfaction. I wasn't feeling very intuitive, but I did manage to use logic to compensate. I had the black pieces and didn't really get equality from the (English) opening. But his pieces weren't ideally placed and he was very fearful. Against a master I would've been worried. Well, I decided to fight where I had to and he made a mistake. He was perhaps trying to calculate too many irrelevant variations (as he explained to me afterward) and simply let me take a pawn without recapturing. Then I was able to construct a plan to build on that and everything went smoothly. Using logic helped through the more difficult parts of the game. Intuition was really failing me, perhaps because the positions I got weren't very familiar. That was probably one of my mistakes: not playing familiar positions where intuition could play a bigger role. But then, maybe I didn't play familiar positions because my intuition wasn't leading me there. Which failed me first the chicken of the egg (intuition or familiar positions & patterns)?

Game five: My opponent in this game (Philidor's Defense) hadn't played tournament chess for 25 years and was having great difficulty. He lost a piece on move 9 and another on move 17.

Game six: Except for game 3 this was my most intriguing game. I don't know my opponent, but he played the opening (Alekhin's Defense, Larsen/Miles ...c6 variation) very well. At one point he could've traded bishops to have a fine position and instead he retreated a knight which let me trade two minor pieces to give him doubled pawns (a weakness) and to give me a queen-side pawn majority. After that I aimed to trade rooks, so my pawns might move forward more safely. He didn't seem to realize the danger of this and simply allowed it. I think my thinking was more logical in this game since I hadn't played any tournament games with this variation. In fact, I had perhaps played one or two casual games with it. So, without a lot of memories and only study material in mind I played a normal developmental pattern and really only analyzed moves once we got beyond that. He seemed to have done the same except that when that moment came he made a mistake...and then others. At one point he offered a bishop trade and offered a draw. First, I wasn't going to accept a draw when I had the positional advantage (even a small one) and second he had just blundered a piece away. The game lasted only a few moves more. However, I feel this player has great potential. Again, I was quite happy with my move choices and logical continuation of the opening pattern and (for the most part) calculations.

So, for the tournament had ups & downs, but I was able to manage the rough spots pretty well and played a couple of excellent games. I don't think I was in danger of losing, though a couple of games were quite tense for a while. My thinking varied from excellent, even in time pressure, to blankness until I could logically work out a plan.

My prize? $ 70.00 !!!! Woo hoo!  :-)