2003-01-31 - 11:43 a.m.

The Tournament Begins

This weekend I played in a tournament. I haven't been doing that so much recently, but this event was less than a half hour away, so why not?

The trouble is that I seem to be in a perpetual state of rustiness. I deal with chess a lot, but the gap between serious games is just enough so that I seem to be having a big problem playing well on a consistent basis. Usually by the time I'm warmed up and playing decently, the event is over.

This tournament was spread over three days: one game on Friday, two games each on Saturday and Sunday. There was an "Open" section as well as sections for players rated under 1,800 and under 1,400. My rating is over 1,900 so I had to play in the Open, but it wasn't high enough for me to be in the top half of the players in that section. However I felt I had a decent shot at the class prize money for players rated under 2,000. What the heck.

Game 1: Uberhamster (1,930) vs. Local Master (2,219)

I was in the bottom half of the field for the Open section, but I was very near the middle. So, as a result in the first round I found myself playing a master on the second board. My opponent moved up to this area from New York some years ago, and I found him a very likable person. He seems to have this Buddha-like detachment and always walks around with this little Mona Lisa smile on his face.

Anyway, he played a variation that I hadn't seen for a while, and I couldn't remember what the best moves to play against it were - another symptom of my "rustiness." I wound up getting a position that I didn't like much, but on later consideration was playable. However, my opponent managed to improve his position while I foundered, unsure of what to do. By move 20 I was lost, looking for wild tactics to save myself. I gave up a rook for some vague chances, but nothing much developed. I resigned not too long after the time control at move 30.

Well, after all my opponent was a master - it was almost a statistical certainty that I was going to lose to him.

However, late in the game, while my opponent was thinking about how best to shut me down, I felt myself getting angry. I wasn't mad at my opponent, who was a pleasant, agreeable guy - I was angry at myself. My thinking was so disordered and chaotic, it seemed that if I found a good move it was strictly by accident. I was also chewing up such large amounts of time to produce moves that hardly seemed worth half the time. It seemed like there was some sort of barrier that was preventing me from applying my brains properly to the game. Was it the tension of the tournament? Some sort of psychological problem? Or was it simply frustration at being faced with a problem that I didn't have the tools to solve?

Regardless of the reasons, I was going home with no points, but there were still four rounds to go.