2023 Winter Open

This past weekend I played in the Winter Open put on by the Minnesota State Chess Association. Going in to the tournament I was not very optimistic. I ended 2022 with a section win and a new peak rating (1591) in November but my start to 2023 was going poorly (including literally forgetting how the pieces move at a crucial point in a game). I decided I needed to get organized.

Identify Problems

Thinking through my past weekend tournaments I identified a few things that had cause me problems:

1. Finding myself rushed in the morning and missing breakfast
2. Mental exhaustion after a long day of games on Saturday leading to collapse on the second day
3. Getting too wrapped up in results and letting mistakes throw me off my game

Get Organized

• Logistics: I spent some time a couple days before the tournament to plan out the logistics. Working backwards from the start times I made a plan for when to wake up, what to have for breakfast, when to leave, etc. I made a grocery list and filled my chess bag with healthy snacks.

• Mental game: What I love most about chess is the puzzle nature of positions and how every game ends up taking a different path. Sometimes in tournament play I can get caught in a negative mental spot (exemplified by thoughts like “why can’t I beat this person”, “how did I miss that move”, etc.). To combat that I resolved to adopt a attitude of curiosity and discovery.

• Down time: I packed headphones so I could listen to music in down time between rounds. Honestly, I don’t know why I’d never thought of this before for local tournaments.

Tournament Report

First round (0/0): I get the black pieces against a lower rated player who I’d played once previously. He launched an attack, which I was able to defend. I ended up sacrificing a pawn to force trading off some material and leaving us each with a pair of rooks, a minor piece, and several pawns. My rooks were more active and he resigned a move away from checkmate.

Second round (1/1): I get the white pieces against a provisionally rated opponent (1199P8, defeated a 1600 in the first round). I try to play my game but the position gets messy and he pulls out some nice tactics to win a two pawns. We end up in an endgame each with a queen and a rook. One of his two extra pawns is a central passer. We maneuver and end up repeating a position. After the repetition I offer a draw which he (understandably) declines. I manage to capture two of his pawns for one of mine and build a fortress with my king, rook, and remaining pawns in the corner of the board. Since I already offered the draw I was hesitant to offer again and we played another 20 moves or so before drawing by threefold repetition.

Third round (1.5/2): My first two games have taken about 6.5 hours, there’s less than an hour until the third round starts, and my brain is fried. I went to the tournament director and asked if I could still request a half point bye for round 3. He gave it to me since the next round hadn’t been paired yet.

Fourth round (2/3): I get the black pieces against a 1400 player who I’ve faced twice before (two draws). I make a game-time decision to mix up my opening taking us into new (to me) territory. Things get complicated, he sacrifices a rook for a pawn, we trade off a bunch of pieces and end up in a rook vs rook and pawn endgame. I try to find some tricks but we end up exchanging down to the kings and end in a draw.

Feeling good about the tournament (though expecting to lose a few rating points since all of my opponents were lower-rated). Looking at the standings I see that my second round opponent is in clear second and playing for the section win in the final round.

Fifth (last) round (2.5/4): I have the white pieces against a high 1400 player. We’re both at the board early and chat for 5-10 minutes. Again I try to play my game but end up in a messy, unclear middlegame. I push my queenside pawns trying to open something up while he loads up an attack on my kingside. I don’t see a way for his attack to work (but there are a lot of variations and I’m not sure I’ve calculated correctly) so I keep going with my plan. His attack starts with sacrificing a piece for a pawn and after additional exchanges I’m up basically a full rook. He resigns at mate-in-one.

Final result: 3.5/5, +15 rating points, 11+ hours of chess, no losses, and I rescued a draw against the section winner (who added 279 rating points going 4.5/5 games).

Conclusion

Overall I was pretty happy with how things went and I think the extra planning payed off. My next tournament is coming up in a few weeks and I’m planning to look through my games to identify some more chess-oriented things to try for that one.