Sunday, March 30, 2014

Chess and me

Like many others, I learnt to play chess young when I was 9 or 10 years old. I used to play casually with other kids who knew very little about chess other than the basic rules. As the first move, a4 and b4 were as common as e4 and d4; Rooks were exchanged for bishops without hesitation; In almost all my games, scholar's mate was attempted by either side. Though we eventually figured out how to ward off the mating threat, queen's early development was not frowned upon or exploited.  Let me stop here, you get the idea.
I never got a chance to formally learn chess, but love for the game was somewhere deep inside my heart.  About 10 years ago, I was new to the United States and used to surf the web obsessively to kill time.  I tried to revive my interest in chess by searching for good chess books.  Based on a recommendation in a forum, I bought Jerry Silman's "Re-assess your chess".  I read through the book. I don't remember getting lost reading the book.  For someone with a basic knowledge of chess rules, it was an interesting read but I don't really think I really understood the advanced concepts like bishops vs knights, and controlling the center.  I also remember playing a few games in Yahoo! chess, and getting whipped royally trying to establish my pawn chain and convert my "bad" bishop to "good" bishop.  And then I stopped trying again.  I still had the book and used to pick it up for a quick read from time to time, but didn't really start playing chess seriously.
And then about 2 years ago, some chess enthusiasts in my company started a chess club and organized a casual, G20 intra-company tournament. I signed up for it and that really got me hooked to the game once again.   I was particularly inspired by my friend and colleague Ashik who also played in the tournament.   Ashik is a tournament player rated around 1800 back then and was too strong a player for others to beat (he is even stronger now inching closer to a National Master title).  He won the tournament.  Based on his insights and guidance, I bought a couple of books.   After another year of reading the books on and off, I decided to start playing online about a year ago.
I signed up for chess.com and ICC membership, and started playing there.   Again, I wouldn't say I was playing regularly.  I was playing on and off, and doing tactical puzzles on my phone regularly.  I also participated in a couple of one-game-a-week OTB tournaments, but dropped off after  2 or 3 games.  Last month (Feb 2014), I decided to take the plunge and participate in a traditional OTB tournament.  This was again thanks to Ashik, who suggested that we play as a team in an OTB tournament where we could represent our company.
This was a 2-day, 6-round tournament and I would say this was my first real tournament.   Thanks to some G30/G45 online games in chess.com where I had some decent success,   and the books I have been reading, I completely overlooked the hard work and preparation that OTB tournament demands, and went in to the tournament with very high expectations.  My world came down crashing, as I lost 5 out of 6 games.  My only win was against a 700+ player, and I lost to every other opponent.  Though they were all rated above 1300, I did not expect to lose so many games.  In many of those games I was caught clueless in the opening, and a couple of losses were quick and humiliating.  I did play one game really well, though I was outplayed in the endgame with my clock running out. I will write more on the first tournament in the next few blog posts.
My perspective of the game changed totally after this tournament, and after a few days nursing my injuries,  it slowly dawned on me that this game is very different from what I originally thought it was.  I realized it would require  a good mix of studying, and playing to become a successful tournament player.    A lot of practice, preparation, perseverance, and hard work is needed to get there.  So here I am creating a blog exclusively to track my progress. I will be posting my  games here with my analysis and will be sharing them with my friends and online chess forums.  This is primarily for my own improvement/reference, and  to get some good feedback from the great chess minds around me.

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