2003-02-02 - 11:43 p.m.

Chess is Hard!

Today was the last day of the tournament, and last days always start early, so they can end early. This allows out-of-town players to get an early start heading back home, and it makes sure that players that have to work the next day won't be up to all hours. However, as things turned out I had a very long, grueling day - I wound up getting home much later than yesterday even though the rounds started 2 1/2 hours earlier.

I got up early, but Lily was already gone - she had gone to work much earlier. I got breakfast at my favorite local diner, got a Sunday paper, then made my way to the tournament.

Game 4: Bearded Lawyer Guy (1,830) vs. Uberhamster (1,930)

Although I had only one point for three games, I had assumed that by winning both my games this last day I could be within reach of one of the lesser class prizes. When I saw the pairings for this round, I realized that I was being foolishly over-optimistic: I was playing on the bottom board. There were too many people ahead of me for me to have a shot of getting a prize: three out of five was not going to get any money here.

So, losing that last game was the end of the road. Oh well.

My opponent was someone who was familiar to me - I'd played him many times before. He looked sort of like a hippie with his tie-dye T-shirt and full beard, but I knew he was a successful lawyer. His rating was about 100 points below mine, but our lifetime score was much closer than our ratings would indicate: only 5 1/2 - 4 1/2 in my favor. In other words we were pretty evenly matched, in fact I think we were pretty similar stylistically too. Frankly the difference in our ratings is not a matter of talent - it's simply because I devote more time to chess than he does.

He opened with pawn to king four, which was unusual for him. I felt confident with his choice of opening - the drawish Exchange variation of the French Defense. However somehow things went awry shortly after move ten and I found myself on the defensive. I always seemed about one move away from getting my pieces untangled. I would catch a glimpse of daylight, then he would find a new move to bedevil me.

It's funny, but after I got home I looked at the game and according to my computer one of those "devilish" moves was a blunder that lost a pawn. Too bad I didn't see that at the time.

Something else that my opponent and I have in common - we tend to get in time trouble. As we approached the time control at move 30 we were both running short of time, and the advantage shifted over to me. We had a double rook ending and my rooks were far better than his. I won a pawn, then traded off a pair of rooks. Time began to get short again as I won another pawn, but he had a passed pawn on the kingside.

We were both down to less than five minutes when I traded my rook for his dangerous passed pawn. We now had an ending where I had three pawns for his rook. It was technically a draw, but I knew it was much harder to play for the side with the rook. We started blitzing furiously and he misplayed it - I was able to get a queen. We had just seconds left and I was a couple moves from checkmating him when his time ran out.

It was a sloppy, dirty win, but it was a win. The problem was - we'd used just about the maximum amount of time. The next round was due to start in about 40 minutes and I was tired, and I needed to get something to eat. Luckily there was a Subway practically right next door to the playing site so I was able to get some food and rush back to the tournament.

Game 5: Uberhamster (1,930) vs. Long Island Guy (1,880)

My last round opponent, as I found out later, had come to the tournament all the way from Long Island so after the game he had a long drive home.

The game drifted into one of my favorite variations, but it was one I nearly always play as black. I've had problems playing against variations I like in the past, but this time I just decided to play moves that I found annoying as black and see how they turned out. This particular variation was very wild and tactical, so at least the game wasn't going to be dull.

We went into a line I was familiar with, and I had an opportunity to do something unpleasant that someone had done to me once. In this line black usually gives up a pawn to have a more solid pawn structure and a safer king. Instead, I sacrificed a pawn as white to mess up black's pawns. In the game I was thinking of, I'd refused the pawn sacrifice, but here he accepted it. This made a shatter wreck of the pawns in front of his king, and just a couple of moves later, he looked to be in real trouble. He then took what I felt was his best chance - he sacrificed a piece for two pawns to completely open up the center of the board, which was where my king happened to be.

I accepted the piece, and then immediately offered a queen trade. He went into a long think that put me pretty far ahead on the clock. He eventually decided to exchange queens, which left me with what I felt was a won game.

Of course, having a "won game" is not the same thing as actually winning. He continued to twist and turn as I slowly improved my position. He was almost out of time as we approached the first time control. In the scramble I missed a near-win, and he made the time control with bare seconds to spare.

In spite of the fact that the queens were gone, the game was very complicated. In a situation that was a strange mirror of the last game, I kept making moves that I thought would put him away, and he kept finding a way to wriggle out. I started taking long thinks, and he caught up and passed me on the clock. He then made a move checking my king and offered a draw. Suddenly it looked like I was in trouble - he could pin one of my rooks against my king with his bishop. I looked a little deeper and saw that it looked like I was still winning, but it was tougher and there was some danger that I might lose. I was very tired and having a hard time thinking clearly. I thought about his draw offer until I had just two minutes left, then I agreed. A draw is better than a loss.

I looked at the game later, and I had been right: I was still winning, even at the very end. However, I was so tired that almost anything might have happened.

Once again, I was the last person to finish his game. I was utterly exhausted. Even more annoying, the tournament director had dismantled all his computer equipment and I couldn't get a copy of the results for the chess column. Grrr. I had meant to ask for a copy before the last round, but I was just too busy and they hadn't remembered. Oh well. At least I didn't have a long drive home like my poor opponent.

I finished with 2 1/2 points out of five, a break-even tournament. While not a ghastly result, I was still going to lose about 14 rating points. Once again my problems with thinking clearly and running short of time persisted. Well, I didn't really prepare for this tournament that much, but it's still frustrating. I was also very tired, with a lot of work ahead of me - I had about 100 scoresheets from the tournament to go over.