2003-02-01 - 11:36 p.m.

One good game, one bad game

Day two started at a leisurely pace - the first round didn't start until noon. Nevertheless I wound up being in a hurry and almost being late for the start of the round.

Game 2: Fidgety Little Boy (1,640) vs. Uberhamster (1,930)

The previous round, I was playing on the second board, this round I was playing on the very last board. The division of my score group left me at the very bottom of the top half, so I was playing the lowest rated player in the Open.

My opponent was the nightmare of every adult chess player - an intelligent-looking little boy with a Russian last name. While it's nice to encourage young people to play chess, losing to kids is no damn fun. My opponent looked to be nine or ten years old, wearing a bright orange sweatshirt. Before starting play he gave me a very cold, limp little hand to shake.

As I looked at my bespectacled little opponent I thought: "Great. I'm playing chess with Harry Potter's younger brother."

As the game began, I discovered that this little boy had a problem - he couldn't sit still. He seemed to be constantly doing something, generally it was biting his fingernails and playing with his gum. For some reason his twitchings seemed to annoy me and affect my concentration, and yet I was loathe to actually say anything about it. Especially irritating was the sound of him sucking on his fingers as he bit his nails. I was grateful that we were using his set, not mine.

However, my annoyance led me to make a hasty move just out of the opening, and before I knew it, I was a whole piece down for very little compensation. Against a player of equal or even lesser strength, being down a knight for a pawn is a sure loss.

While this made me mad, in a strange way it also made me feel better. I was no longer worried about losing the game, because I was already lost! At this point all I could do is make the win as tough as possible for my opponent. I started playing faster, and making better moves.

After I lost the piece the little boy, who was already playing very fast, picked up the pace of his play. He was obviously looking to finish me off quickly. However, he was giving me too much rope, and before ten more moves had passed I had an attack against his king. With a little difficulty he could have sidestepped the attack and kept his extra material, but instead he traded one of his rooks for one of my knights. I now had a rook and a pawn for two pieces, so I was only down a little material.

The kid just couldn't seem to coordinate his pieces, while mine were closing in for the kill. I actually found a couple of really good moves, and started shoving my pawn down his throat. I then spotted a combination that looked as if would end the game, and I was right. I won another piece, and he resigned looking at a mate in six or seven.

Game 3: Uberhamster (1,930) vs. Old Out-of-Towner (1,840)

My opponent this round was an older fellow from out of town rated a little below me. There's no gentle way to put this - I played a really bad game. This wasn't like the first round, I wasn't playing a master I was playing someone I should have been able to beat. I even got a good position, but I just self-destructed. I beat myself while my opponent was a bemused spectator.

He played the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian, a very complicated variation. I spent a lot of thinking time thinking about what sort of moves I was supposed to make according to opening theory, when I should have just tried to see what looked good to me.

At one point I became obsessed with a certain continuation, and I spent so much time looking at it I felt I had to play it. The fact was that there were several different lines of play open, but my brain seemed to be stuck in a rut.

A few moves after we entered into the continuation that I'd been thinking about, it was obvious that I was in trouble. I won a rook for a knight and a pawn, but it was obvious that my rooks couldn't do much against his centralized pawns. He just kept pushing them forward until I resigned.

So after three games I just had one measly point. Still, I thought that I could have a decent result if I won my last two games, the following day.