Tournament report Day One (Rounds 1 and 2)

Yesterday was the kickoff of the Delray Beach Open. I am currently participating in the under 1800 section and we got to work early in the morning at 11:30. Looking around the room it reminded me of what I've told myself in the past that chest tournaments are full of scholastic kids and older gentlemen and depending on who you play really shaves the type of game you're going to get. For reference, later on the tournament time limit was 2 hours for each player with a 5-second delay on your clock. No increment is added so you can only lose time but never add time.

Game 1 (1700 Opponent): Sitting down for game one. I ended up getting the black pieces against a higher rated opponent than me. It was a nice only gentleman that ended up coming late to the game and right as he sat down he played 1. g4 the grob attack. Now earlier this week I started studying a course on the slav defense from the guys over at chessgoals.com and I'm happy that I decided to study one of their chapters that said off beat opening moves. I have probably only seen the grob attack a few times from online play with most of those games just winging how I respond to this opening. The course I was studying had a great response to this opening and I ended up getting a winning position heading into the middle game. The problem though with only studying and opening and not playing it a lot over the board or online is that you don't really get to develop the skills and how to close the game out once you get an advantage in a certain position. This holds especially true for when you're not playing with increment. I had to spend a lot of time on moves in the middle game trying to develop a plan forward, even knowing that I had a winning position. More than likely. This caused me to have some severe time trouble at the end of the game and eventually slipping up and dropping my queen with 7 seconds left on my clock. I'm excited to share this game with you guys on YouTube once the tournament is over and I have time to put together a video. It would have been nice to start off the tournament with a win but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. (4hr+ game time)

Game 2 (1350 Opponent): Heading into round two, I only had an hour in between matches because of how long the first game took. I knew I would have the white pieces and ended up sitting across from a gentleman, probably in his forties or '50s. I of course opened up with 1. e4 and much to my disappointment, my opponent responded with 1...g6. I'll be honest this response definitely put me on tilt through the opening 10 to 15 moves of the game, especially after coming off a loss which I know I should have won. It's very interesting how tournament chess is extremely different from online chess. People don't pay money to come to these tournaments in order to get blown off the board by a sharp opening line. Here I've studied all sorts of gambits and responses to the Sicilian defense or too 1...e5 or even the French defense and the karo Cann. But I had not put any time into my study against 1...g6. I had a vague idea of a setup that is decent against this opening response, but I ended up playing a bit tilted and playing one F4 too early in the game giving my opponent the possibility of gaining an advantage. Fortunately for myself, my opponent did not take the initiative and gave me time to consolidate my pieces and put them on the squares in which I could start an attack against his King. A late game blunder by my opponent allotted me to win upon and head into an endgame in which I thought could possibly be drawn or the best case scenario I would be pushing for the win. It was a rook and pawn end game in which I had a one-on advantage and was able to convert it in the end. And this game. I was also able to use my opponent's clock against him as he ended the game himself with under 3 minutes to go in a position where he was trying to hold desperately for a possible draw.

We head into Sunday taking a bye on the third round in order to go to church and we'll be headed back for round 4 later this afternoon. So look for a tournament report tomorrow morning on that game and YouTube videos starting Tuesday covering all the games from this tournament.

Tournament score after three rounds: 1.5/3

2 comments