My most painful loss ever in Over the board chess!

Hi all

Disclaimer: If you don't like negative rants, this particular blog should perhaps be skipped!

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Are you sure you want to hear this: As Jack Nicholson has said:

https://youtu.be/9FnO3igOkOk

Are you are still sure you want to hear this? You can handle the "truth" - well I am gonna lay it on the line now. You asked for it!

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"Youth is wasted on the young" - George Bernard Shaw

This expression seems very true when I read people going on about one-day FIDE chess which often has the basic premise that if you aren't "invested" in something, then it has to be bad, frivolous, and a total waste of time. Apparently "pain is gain" and one should have a major time or pain investment in order to actually increase FIDE rating etc. You need apparently to spend an entire day playing a game of chess.

As a ranting side-note: Apparently also even for industries that essentially revolve around 1's and 0's like Finance companies in the City, all employees, need to go into work, on the stupid London Underground to give the appearance of "conscientious slaves" and can't just work remotely from home. Of course "Pain is gain", and "Appearances are everything".

Back to the main story. Apparently, it is bad to enjoy yourself and have fun. Apparently playing mindless bullet chess on the Internet is sinful - because there is a risk that if OTB one day chess exists in 4 years time (which I hope it doesn't) - then playing someone again who also just wasted their time having fun, could result in an equally accurate or inaccurate game. Perish the thought. It is not as if modern chess engines can find more mistakes than holes in swiss-cheese in even Super-Grandmaster one-day games. If you want accuracy, you can watch games at TCEC. As humans, we can never be as good as chess engines in terms of accuracy.

Edutainment videos on Youtube

Imagine all those hours watching "edutainment" channels like Veritasium, Thoughty2, "Half as Interesting", GOTO conference IT videos, etc which you could "waste your time with" instead of playing one-day chess. I mean okay you can acquire vast amounts of general knowledge which might be useful for being an interesting person, knowing things about life, the universe, and everything, etc. And all for free. I mean really - the ancient Greeks had the idea of being "Well rounded" when they enlarged their Olympic games to cover a wider range of skills such as poetry etc.

Demis Hassabis (a fellow Greek Cypriot), who left Chess as a junior to go and set up Deepmind, had an epiphany one day after being swindled in a 10-hour game. He looked up and around the tournament venue with all those people engaged in their chess games, and his epiphany was to the effect that:

"Chess is a waste of brains"

And then he retired from Chess, turned his attention to IT, and later set up "Deepmind" which later Google acquired for millions of dollars. His Artificial Intelligence technology led to great things like Protein Folding and many other applications - and even stronger chess engines such as Alphazero:

https://youtu.be/G-OmM%5FUWaEg
(My Alphazero playlist is at: http://kingscrusher.tv/alphazero )

It seems in chess circles apparently some people cry (as reported on Reddit chess) if they only have the FIDE CM title and are not at least an IM. Apparently, their complete lack of other educational angles and lack of basic IT skills, programming skills, etc is not as important as getting another FIDE certificate for their wall or ego or both. I am sure most employers in the real world will really care about FIDE Chess titles, and not say maths, general literacy, IT programming, or database skills. It's not like we are all carrying out portable computers nowadays more powerful than the old mainframes ... oh wait, maybe we are. Wait, are we in an IT age?

Back to the main story

Anyway back to the main story. Here is the tournament in question
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=85073&pid=14179

It had been going quite well to start with. I had drawn with GM Peter Wells in Round 3 - which was the first Grandmaster I have ever drawn with :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTCnQCiNB-k

And I also held a draw comfortably with an IM here:
https://youtu.be/hGvSJa8RZG8

Anyway here it came in Round 6:

Now you might ask why this was painful?

Well, a few reasons:

• The opponent had a habit of banging his pieces down as if to reflect really strong moves and contempt generally. It made the playing experience that day a bit less enjoyable. It was like a war on the chessboard in more aspects than I particularly enjoy.
• I had an overly rating-focused attitude for the tournament. This was over-clinical and over-cold in retrospect. Usually, I try and have fun with tournaments but for some reason, I built up too much expectation of FIDE rating gains based on previous rounds.
• The opponent was rated less than 2000 but had actually beaten IM Prosviriakovin a previous round
  (this is why norm hunters generally choose "closed events" btw). This meant I lost all rating point gains in all previous rounds which seemed to make 5 days of effort seem a waste of time. Being already tired from all the travel kind of exacerbated the negativity.
• I had been spending about 2 hours to get to the venue, and 2 hours to get back home in the evening (yes I think I prefer the US two games a day). My exhaustion levels had been progressively increasing day by day.
• I hate this increment time control stuff. Seriously I love the old way of just people running out of time and blundering horribly in the process. Chess used to be more fun.

My opponent seemed to have a great tournament well above his rating, as seen here:

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=85073&pid=149400

I think I was too rating-focused. I realise now, that basically, the better attitude for such events maybe this:

For the mercenary wanting FIDE points:

The "open secret" is that if you really want to try and gain FIDE points, perhaps try and play the "closed events" - "play the system" - before FIDE starts increasing the rules around these.

But don't be surprised if CM's thrash you most of the time online who actually have just played in brutal Swiss tournaments all the time. The problem with accumulating paper certificates throughout life is that sometimes you have to compete with people that actually do have skills - and may not have the papers behind it.

Value does sometimes count - not just the appearance of credibility. The same with degree certificates - some can get by on past papers - others actually read the books, and know more than just passing.

For the more casual:

• If you really don't want the super-pain of a loss in a one-day event, maybe try and stay closer to the venue if you can afford it.
• It is great if you have a pleasant game experience with an opponent (no kicking under the table, banging pieces, etc) and even do a post-mortem analysis with them after the game, and learn about their country's culture, etc. There are many things to learn from international FIDE tournaments which may not just be all about chess. Having this learning mindset for such tournaments is going to be a good thing generally.
• If you can't stay close to the tournament venue, then perhaps try and just make the priority of the event to learn more about chess and socialise with others. Things like underrated players will happen. You might also get swindled after 10 hours of play, etc. You can lose all rating point gains, wiping out gains on multiple days before - and if you don't have a wider agenda for a tournament, then it all becomes pretty pointless and futile. BTW quick plug here - my tactics course should reduce the possibility of being tactically swindled: https://kingscrusher.tv/chesstactics :) - Hopefully you can be the swindler with great tactical skill.
• Try and make a tournament a kind of holiday social and learning experience - not just about chess, but also learning about other people, their countries and cultures.
• Don't wear yourself out doing Youtube videos during the tournament or other heavy mental stuff - such tournaments do need preparation ideally for each opponent coming up
• It is easier to play chess when you are young and don't have so many other commitments. I did have a great time when I was around 18 winning the Lloyds bank Sponsored UK National Under 18. And playing in FIDE events such as the Lloyds bank masters. I remember watching the likes of Shirov or Morozevich winning some of those editions. These players have the same playing style as Mikhail Tal. Watching the demo boards at such events intensified the experience and made it more of a learning experience. Checking other games generally when not one's turn also made it more for the fun and learning as well.

As contrast, when I played in the Gibraltar tournament and took some painful losses, the overall experience of the tournament as a holiday was a greater priority. I also bumped into the great Boris Spassky (former World chess champion) who was the guest of honor that year I played in Gibraltar. And I also got to play Nakamura in the hotel bar:

https://youtu.be/Purz1YhHNDg

I really enjoyed the event overall despite losing some rating points.

I think generally if you have a more relaxed attitude towards tournaments, then if you do lose games, it doesn't really hurt so much. Generally, your overall staying power and enthusiasm and results for the tournament may be better.

Wider points about one-day chess compared to online etc

I do wonder if FIDE one day chess will be replaced more and more by faster time limits like Rapid chess. In the UK Adam Raoof generally organises a lot of Rapid events - which people do have fun, and can go back to their lives quicker after. For me, it seems there is a lot more free amazing "edutainment" content let alone Netflix series to watch and maybe learn some stuff, than just focusing one's entire existence around Chess.

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Takeaway points

• If you are under 18, enjoy your chess, and perhaps ignore this blog. I did enjoy one-day chess a lot more when I was younger. Nowadays I just love online chess.
• One day chess can be brutal if your objectives for tournaments are too "clinical" - e.g. just around gaining FIDE rating points. Go into tournaments for the learning and social aspects seems a lot better overall. It creates a nice layer of "independence" if things start to go badly. You can still try and enjoy the non-chess aspects of tournaments if nothing else.
• If you treat tournaments more as holiday events or social experiences just to meet people, it may be better even for your chess results and wider learning experiences
• Maybe other qualifications are good and life experiences - not just FIDE titles
• Maybe one shouldn't feel guilty enjoying oneself watching Youtube videos or playing mindless bullet - maybe you did a few hours of work earlier in the day, and treat it as a reward
• We are all on this big rock together in outer space for no particular reason it seems - passing the time. “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” – Marthe Troly-Curtin
• "The thing that I should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security." —Bertrand Russell (The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.)

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Hope you enjoyed this blog :). Any likes and follows are really appreciated. Also, I also have some interesting chess courses at https://kingscrusher.tv/chesscourses to check out.

Cheers, K