Big chess tournament in Agoura

In March, I played in a chess tournament in the Renaissance Hotel in Agoura Hills. In the past, I had not done very well in tournaments with large prize sums. I couldn’t find an exact reason for this, but I think it had to do with the fact that my opponents had been a whole lot more vicious and played at least 2 notches up while I just had done my normal. I recalled that often time I had been the only player sometimes yawning and everyone else had been in full concentration. That was, except when people were up a queen and two rooks, but that was another story. So basically, players in these tournaments are trying to win really, really hard.

I had not intended to play there because I had more than one school projects due the week after, also I had not played in a big tournament (see my definition for a big tournament in my last blog post) for quite a while. Since the tournament site was not too far from my home, in the early morning of the second day of the event, I went there to see the competition. When I was looking at the pairing charts on the wall, I suddenly felt a burst of energy and decided to play. The energy seemed to last when I started my game 30 minutes later. I felt like running a mile with a jump rope and walking a 400 pound Rottweiler with a very short leash at the same time.

Since the players were grouped by class, my section consisted of players mostly with close ratings. In the first game, I played a gentleman. We played the opening without surprises. Then I managed to create a weakness in his pawn structure and attacked a pawn that he couldn’t defend. After one hour, I was up a piece and traded down to endgame. Seeing no opportunities to fight back, my opponent resigned gracefully.

In the second round, I played a very strong boy in Southern California, around my age and rating, whom I had a negative record against. I felt that it would be another tough game for me because I knew my opponent had studied very hard in chess under his very strong IM coach and I had not worked much on my chess lately. I pushed the bad thoughts away from my head as far as I could which would probably be somewhere in the Sahara Desert. I focused on the game and played patiently, not to repeat my mistakes. I did not get a crashing win or even a win at all. Instead, after we used up almost all our time, we drew our game. I could see that the boy had made more progress since last time I had played him because he seemed to understand his position quite well.

By the time I reached the third round in the evening, I thought, “Hey, I’m doing okay in Agoura. This never happens, well, until now anyways.” In this game, I played a nice and smart gentleman whom I had played several times with mixed results. He is a doctor and his daughter, a very tall and very smart girl around my age, whom I am friends with, was also playing in the same section. I attacked my opponent’s kingside with pawn storms, and if such a term exists, piece storms. [Piece Storms – Piece Storms are similar to pawn storms, but with pieces. This does not mean pieces will become raining down from the sky, in the middle of the night with lightning, but it does include trying to run the opposing king’s head through with a fire spear. Not literally because that could set the fire detector off and force everyone to evacuate the building. Then, your clock will run out, you will be fined, and you will be indirectly responsible for the injuries of two firemen.] Anyways, I did what I knew I would do. I attacked his kingside and actually worked. Unlike my first round opponent, the doctor kept on playing in tough situation till the end. What a fighter! I guess old players never resign, they just got checkmated.

After I got home, I rested for the night, thinking,” I have 2 ½ out of 3. I have a shot for a prize maybe. 1 ½ out of 2 points tomorrow will do it…”

I jumped out of bed on the next day with the same mile-running-with-a-Rottweiler-a-lot-heavier-than-me-that-hasn’t-eaten-for-4-days feeling as Saturday. My fourth round was against a nice and quiet gentleman whom I had played several times before. I might have gotten too comfortable and was not thinking too deeply. The result was that I did not have a very good position, especially after my opponent had carefully worked out his moves. But the price he paid was that he had used up a lot of his time for those good moves. After 3 hours, my clock beeped and flashed red light on my opponent’s side. When we stood up I told my opponent that he had played a good game and might have made some trouble for me if he had had more time.

In the fifth and the last round I was a bit nervous. I was on table #1 against a strong high school boy from Arizona whom I had lost to last year. Coming into the round, he was the only player in my section with a perfect score of 4/4, so I wondered if I would be his fifth victim. I ignored this thought, partly because the word “victim” reminded me of mosquitoes sucking blood and transmitting diseases, Count Dracula biting you, or something along those lines. We made the opening moves cautiously. After several hours of playing, I achieved a slightly better position with equal material. My opponent offered me a draw because he need 1/2 point only to win the tournament. I thought for several minutes and declined the draw offer. In the final hour of the tournament, I launched an attack on his kingside and was positive it would work. It did.

With 4 ½ out of 5, I tied for first place in my section and earned my prize in this “big” tournament. The win gave me confidence. I was elated for the entire rest of the week.