What is going on?
Seriously? An OTB tournament? During COVID? Yep. I got an email from USCF letting everyone know that an organization called Blakeman chess is putting together small OTB tournaments and one of them is in Columbia, Missouri! I can't tell you how excited I was when I saw that. A weekend tournament has been on my TODO list and I wouldn't have dreamed I'd get an opportunity at this time considering the pandemic. They're limiting it to the first forty participants and so I got my name on the entry list pretty quick. I've been very careful over the last year so I felt reassured when reading about the precautions they were going to be taking.
What am I expecting?
In the weeks after registering, I've been viewing their entry list online. There is a GM, a few IMs and NMs in the 1800+ section. I'm in the lower section of course and as of writing, I'm the lowest rated player in the field (there is one unrated player I did not count). It may be surprising but I do not care at all about that! I'm over-the-moon excited to play this tournament and the more I think about it, the more I try to determine where to set my expectations.
The format is three games on Saturday and two games on Sunday. They're 90 minutes per side plus a 30 second increment so these will be long games and exhausting days. It's really quite absurd but I'm doing it. Knowing how I play classical games (I tend to play very slowly and take a lot of time), I will probably be exhausted by Sunday afternoon.
I've played six official USCF games over-the-board in my life and those were in a one-game-a-week setting so this will be my first ever weekend-tournament experience with multiple games in a day. Similar to the first times I went to the chess club to play OTB games, I know there will be a lot of learning experiences for this tournament, a major one being endurance. As far as results go, I'm not expecting to do great. I don't see getting even 3 out of 5. My first OTB games were a learning experience in that regard: don't assume anything will be easy or the games will be simple. People are paying money and travelling to this tournament so they very much care about doing their best in the games.
Goals
I don't anticipate a lot of OTB games this year so I want to get as much out of this tournament as possible! As far as goals, so many things have crossed my mind. They've ranged from "gain ratings points" to "win more games than I lose." I've wondered if it's better to make wide-ranging goals that apply to every game or rather make a goal that I try to reach in at least one game. I don't know the answer to that but I think that I will set more general goals rather than specific goals. As an example, I'd rather set and meet goals like "get through every opening in a mostly equal and comfortable position" than "beat one +1600 rated player."
I've settled on "things to focus on" rather than hard-set goals. I'll call them Focus Points:
- Play the opening carefully (i.e. not by memory) and try to get to an equal and comfortable position after the first ten moves in every game.
- Always remember to think about my opponent's best moves.
- Don't get too down on myself. It's a long tournament.
- Take my time to Visualize, Evaluate, and Trust my abilities.
- Drink water and eat fresh fruit (Thanks reddit)
- Take nothing for granted, try hard in every move.
Preparation
As of writing, I have one month before the tournament. Here are all the things I'd like to do leading up to the tournament:
- Finish my current tactics project - I've been doing spaced repetition on 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players and as of today (Feb 4), I've completed the final set to get to 500 problems. I'll repeat that set a few times and then try to do all 500 over and over a few times. I can do most of this work during the weekdays.
- Work on longer calculation tactics - My tactics over the last year has included a majority of easier problems I solve over and over. I need more work in harder puzzles that I sit with for 10-15 minutes. I'll set up positions on a real board (using either the yusupov book or chess.com puzzles and spend at least 10 minutes on them)
- Complete my 30 games in 30 days in January and analyze my most common mistakes. Focus on those issues moving forward in my training games before the tournament.
- Play untimed games against computers and use a physical board. Playing bots isn't ideal but it's something I can do in the evening without being tied to my computer for an hour as in a timed game, if I have to get up to make dinner, it's fine. The position and bot will still be there waiting.
- Work on opening flashcards
- Review Bernd Rosen's Chess Endgame Training book - I'm anticipating at least one endgame, so maybe spending a few hours on this book will help a little bit to remind myself how to calculate simple endgames.
- Review Stean's Simple Chess for a refresher on simple strategy. Play through the games on a physical board.
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