the chess report
Nov. 8th, 2003 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
godreamSo I went to my very first chess tournament today. Played in the under 1000 rating, age 19 and under division, four games. Won two, lost two.
First game: I kicked butt. By the end I had an arsenal of two rooks and two queens all lined up to annihilate the other guy's king. Of course, being paranoid, I took WAY too long to get the checkmate set up -- were I better at chess I could have done it many moves ago.
Second game: My butt was kicked. The other guy used a bizarre opening I'd never seen, involving bringing the queen all the way over, then when I brought my knight's pawn up a square to threaten he took my king's pawn at e4 (IIRC), put me in check, then got my rook. Which flustered me, justifiably.
Afterwards my little brother told me this is a popular tactic on Yahoo Games chess (?) and I should have just brought my queen's pawn up a square to defend the king's pawn, since that was the only place there was much danger. Bah. This game was against the player who eventually won the tournament (and his rating rose to a thousand odd), so I feel less bad about it.
Third game: took ages, but I won. I mated with Queen at h7, supported by a bishop, which my stepfather swears there's a name for but he can't remember it. Almost had it set up earlier in the game using a knight for support instead but his Queen was menacing the square I wanted to put my knight on, so I thought I couldn't. (Turned out I could have, according to George. Bah.) By the time my opponent went ahead and made the move he knew would lead to checkmate, we had an audience of about half a dozen, some of whom stood around and discussed possible alternate endings afterwards.
Fourth game: My opponent had watched a good portion of my last game, so when I started getting too close to the h7 mate he recognized it and made moves to counteract it. I was winning -- I think I was up a rook and a knight and had a good position -- and then I made a mind-numbingly stupid move that allowed him to take my Queen. It was pretty much all over then, though I dragged it out. At the end when he was within one or two moves of mate I brought out a knight and a rook and started checking his King pretty much at random, till he finally managed to capture one or the other. At which point I admitted, "Okay, this is over now," and he pointed out "I think it was over a long time ago." Me: "Yeah, but I was having so much fun with my delaying tactics..."
So I ended up in fourth place, got a shiny medal for it. Would have been second (dangit) except for my utter stupidity in that last game. But oh well -- didn't suck too badly for my first competition. I ended up with a preliminary rating in the neighborhood of 817, I think. And to some extent it's probably a good thing I didn't beat that last guy, since my rating might be significantly higher if I had and then I'd have to play harder people next time. Um, that sentence was supposed to be optimism... where did it go wrong?
First game: I kicked butt. By the end I had an arsenal of two rooks and two queens all lined up to annihilate the other guy's king. Of course, being paranoid, I took WAY too long to get the checkmate set up -- were I better at chess I could have done it many moves ago.
Second game: My butt was kicked. The other guy used a bizarre opening I'd never seen, involving bringing the queen all the way over, then when I brought my knight's pawn up a square to threaten he took my king's pawn at e4 (IIRC), put me in check, then got my rook. Which flustered me, justifiably.
Afterwards my little brother told me this is a popular tactic on Yahoo Games chess (?) and I should have just brought my queen's pawn up a square to defend the king's pawn, since that was the only place there was much danger. Bah. This game was against the player who eventually won the tournament (and his rating rose to a thousand odd), so I feel less bad about it.
Third game: took ages, but I won. I mated with Queen at h7, supported by a bishop, which my stepfather swears there's a name for but he can't remember it. Almost had it set up earlier in the game using a knight for support instead but his Queen was menacing the square I wanted to put my knight on, so I thought I couldn't. (Turned out I could have, according to George. Bah.) By the time my opponent went ahead and made the move he knew would lead to checkmate, we had an audience of about half a dozen, some of whom stood around and discussed possible alternate endings afterwards.
Fourth game: My opponent had watched a good portion of my last game, so when I started getting too close to the h7 mate he recognized it and made moves to counteract it. I was winning -- I think I was up a rook and a knight and had a good position -- and then I made a mind-numbingly stupid move that allowed him to take my Queen. It was pretty much all over then, though I dragged it out. At the end when he was within one or two moves of mate I brought out a knight and a rook and started checking his King pretty much at random, till he finally managed to capture one or the other. At which point I admitted, "Okay, this is over now," and he pointed out "I think it was over a long time ago." Me: "Yeah, but I was having so much fun with my delaying tactics..."
So I ended up in fourth place, got a shiny medal for it. Would have been second (dangit) except for my utter stupidity in that last game. But oh well -- didn't suck too badly for my first competition. I ended up with a preliminary rating in the neighborhood of 817, I think. And to some extent it's probably a good thing I didn't beat that last guy, since my rating might be significantly higher if I had and then I'd have to play harder people next time. Um, that sentence was supposed to be optimism... where did it go wrong?
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Date: 2003-11-09 10:29 am (UTC)I think I could do the Friday night for the play, but I am not positive. TTYL!
~Dana