The challenge of moving up a level in tournaments

There comes a point in your chess career where, for better or worse, you realise the competition has gotten very strong and you must get serious to match them. You see, for the past two years I've been playing over-the-board chess tournaments in the lowest section, usually for players rated under 1200. It's been a very successful experience, as I gained rating points in every tournament, yet didn't have to drown myself in study.

But as you get stronger, so do your opponents. After my Galway success, it was time to leave the under 1200 section behind and move on to the next level. Let me tell you, moving section is a major change.

I decided to take part in the Drogheda Chess Congress from the 3rd-5th of June and for the first time, I joined the 1100-1500 section. I was initially worried that I might be massively out-rated, but interestingly, 20 of the 24 players were rated between 1000-1200. A big advantage of the higher section is that players ratings are more established and reliable, so there's no risk of facing an unrated prodigy who destroys you and your rating.

Time trouble for him causes problems for me

https://lichess.org/study/c327QwER/OM2BaaG9#0

My first opponent had an ICU rating of 1109 but a FIDE rating of 1503, which certainly sent mixed signals. When the game began, my opponent moved e4 and I responded with e5. Strangely, my opponent stared at the board for a whole minute before he made the next move, as if he had never seen e5 before and had to calculate this unforeseen development. By move 3, he was already five minutes down on time.

When he decided on move 9 for opposite side castling, I knew it would be an interesting game. Now the race was on as we both launched pawn storms on the opposing King. But I was feeling confident because my pawns would arrive sooner. On move 16, I took the pawn in front of his King, but surprisingly, he didn't take back, instead he left my pawn in front of his King for over 20 moves. 3 moves later, he again didn't retake my pawn, showing that if you can retake a pawn, you don't have to do so immediately. I was two pawns up, but had no way to defend them, so I had no real advantage.

As my attack ran out of steam, his picked up the pace and I was soon in a very tricky situation. I was lucky to only lose an exchange and traded Queens before his attack became overwhelming. By this point my opponent was in serious time trouble with only 5 minutes on his clock, while I had 50 minutes left. This problem only got worse and by move 33, he had less than a minute.

The position seemed even to me (the computer says I have a major advantage which I didn't realise) so I decided I would just play quickly and then he would simply run out of time. This almost worked, he made move 34 with only 4 seconds on the clock and move 35 with only 2 seconds left.

Ironically, his shortage of time became a problem for me because I was moving too quickly and made mistakes. On move 34, I threw away my advantage and taking pieces off the board simplified the position for him. Then on move 38, I made an absolutely horrendous move and voluntarily trapped my own Knight. I was only thinking about moving quickly and wasn't considering the position. Even with his time trouble (he made move 44 with only 3 seconds left), he was up a full Rook and won the game.

No draw - fight to the end

https://lichess.org/study/c327QwER/qCscwIxU#0

One concept I still haven't gotten comfortable with, is the idea of playing for a draw. I always try to find the best move in the position and push for a win, even though sometimes it is better to be defensive. In my round 2 game, this caused me problems.

We opened with an Exchange French and my opponent surprised me by voluntarily damaging their pawn structure on move 9, which did give them an open file against my King. He quickly took advantage of this by winning an exchange on move 14, but to my surprise, the computer gives the evaluation as 0.0 (presumably because of my strong bishop). Opposite side castling gave me room to attack and I had plans of Bishop to h3 with check to possibly win the Rook and get a back rank mate, but the right moment never came.

My opponent pinned my Bishop to my King on move 24, which benefited me more than it hurt, because it tied his Queen down. There simply was no way for him to bring his Rook into the game and my Queen danced across the board, helped by his weakening of his pawn structure. I hadn't decided yet if I wanted to play for a draw or a win. Material was even but I had three Kingside pawns with nothing in front of them. It felt like I had him on the run, so I decided to keep pushing and get my pawns into the attack.

Unfortunately, my advantage was an illusion and my opponent ended the reign of checks with a Queen trade. But their blunder of a pawn on move 45 gave me hope - could he stop the march of my pawns without sacrificing material? The answer unfortunately, was yes.

There was a ray of hope as I pushed my f-pawn. I realised that if my opponent took on f7, I could use the Bishop to pin his Rook to his King and win the game. I was so excited that I eagerly pushed my King forward on move 61. But in my rush, I also moved my King forward, so when the Rook captured the pawn, I was in check and my plan fell apart.

Even at this late stage, a draw was an option, but I was playing for a win. We had been playing for over three hours and I was drained, which is probably why I didn't fully consider the situation. I was sure I could win the a-pawn and then promote my pawn for victory. Suddenly, I started seeing ghosts. On move 67, I saw my opponent could sacrifice their Rook for my Bishop, allowing the King to win my pawn and escort his pawn to promotion. It seemed I had no choice but to sacrifice my own Bishop and push the pawn for promotion. Afterwards the computer showed that this sacrifice didn't work because I could get my King back in time to block promotion.

I tried to play on, but his Rook cut off my King so I had no way to advance it. I tried to hold the line, but he slowly brought his King around and their combined force was too strong. After the longest and most exhausting game of the tournament, I resigned.

Call an ambulance - but not for me

https://lichess.org/study/c327QwER/RweQI0Xp#0

Round 3 opened with a London and I launched an attack with my Queen, putting pressure on the backwards c-pawn, but despite my efforts, I couldn't win it. I fell victim to a Knight fork but got some counterplay, leaving the opposing King with little defence. After the game, my opponent said he thought I deliberately sacrificed the exchange, but this is not what happened, I was just lucky.

Before I knew it, my opponent had a strong attack going. So strong in fact that the computer says I am completely lost. This was the opinion of my opponent too as he got over-confident and hung his Rook on move 36, confident that mate couldn't be stopped even down a Rook. However, Bishop to f6 saved the day for me, because although White gets some checks, there's nothing decisive and my King can run to safety.

Although I was winning, the game wasn't over and I had to be careful not to allow any counterplay. I kept the pressure on White's King and tried to force a Queen trade. White dodged this and got some checks in, but eventually I was able to hide my King behind a wall of pawns and the White Queen could no longer defend the King.

I really don't like draws

https://lichess.org/study/c327QwER/OOs4YLPi#0

A common theme in my games from this tournament is that several of them could have been draws, but instead I played for a win. My opponent on the other had drawn every game so far and played defensively. The first 30 or so moves were quiet positional play as both sides probed the opponent's defences without making any risky moves. In another situation, I might have been happy with a draw, but my score was 1/3 so I wanted a win.

For this reason, I started playing aggressively, (especially with the move 28 pushing of the pawn in front of my King) and refused to trade Queens. On move 34, I made the crucial blunder of Knight to e5 and realised I couldn't just move back as Black could take on h3 and blow open my defences. The Knight was also dangerous and it seemed like all my options were bad and would weaken my defences. I decided pushing the pawn was the least bad option. It meant my Queen was aligned with my King, so Rook to c2 would dangerous in the future, but I figured I would have time to get to safety.

My opponent responded with a tactic so impressive I wasn't even mad it cost me the game.

Black immediately played Rook to c2, losing the Rook, but then allowing Knight to fork the King and the Queen on e3. As my Queen was pinned to the King, there was no way to avoid it. It always hurts to lose, but I had to admire my opponent for finding such a devastating tactic.

Going Kamikaze

https://lichess.org/study/c327QwER/dfEsfgsh#0

Normally in a tournament, after losing a game you get a weaker opponent, but given the strength of the section (and my relative weakness) I had strong opponents regardless of my results. Even though I lost my last two games, I had to face the strongest player in the section (who was also on 1/4). Considering their strength, I decided to play a defensive Semi-Slav and let my opponent attack me. For the first 20 or so moves, we shuffled our pieces back and forth in a mostly closed system, where I felt no urge to try and break through.

Then I blundered and lost the exchange. This was frustrating as it seemed I would lose yet another game in a tournament that seemed to go from bad to worse. I decided to launch the most aggressive attack possible because I had nothing to lose, so I might as well go out swinging. My plan was to sacrifice my Bishop by taking on g2 and then retaking with my Queen, giving me hope of a repetition. White defended and something in me snapped so I decided to go full kamikaze mode. I sacrificed a Bishop for free (a decision the computer hates and puts White on +8) and went all out on the attack.

My plan was simply to harass the White King with my Queen and Knight until I could force a draw. Surprisingly, it started to work and I won back a Bishop, as my opponent fell into serious time trouble. He had only five minutes left on his clock and we were in one of those positions where you can hardly tell what is going on. The computer says White has a crushing lead, but when you're playing that position after three solid hours of chess where two of his pieces were hanging, it's hard to know who is really ahead.

On move 47, my desperate play finally paid off as the eval bar swung drastically from +14.5 to -5.4. In fact, I was shocking close to winning by checkmate. I missed the winning tactic, but when the dust settled, I was somehow no longer losing but actually ahead by a pawn. Could I stage the greatest comeback to win the game?

After hours of desperate, manic attacks, I decided to play one quiet, safe move to stop the a-pawn - and immediately the lost the game. Practically any other move is fine, but that one move allowed my opponent to force a Queen trade and promote their pawn. After yet another exhausting and grueling game (when I finally resigned my opponent pretended to collapse from exhaustion), I once again lost.

Using pawns to strangle my opponent

https://lichess.org/study/c327QwER/EgPGjrdI#0

Every game in this tournament was a marathon battle that could have easily swung in a different direction - except this one. To my pleasant surprise, this was a relatively quick and clean victory.

I began with the Alapin Sicilian and was reminded of a similar game where I advanced my two pawns to smother my opponent and win quickly. Why not try that again? I began by doubling his pawns and then pinning his e-pawn. His King had no space to move, so if I could get my Knight to e7, I would force him to sacrifice material to prevent mate. My pawn on d5 was in the way of my Knight so I pushed it to clear space. I expected him to take it, but when he didn't, I incorporated it into my attack.

Now I got my Knight to d5 with check and due to the pin on his Queen, I was about to win a piece (in less than 15 moves). I was happy to trade off pieces including the Queen and then use my Rooks to attack his pawns. F5 on move 25 was a fatal blunder which exposed his King and allowed me to fork his Rooks. My position was so dominant that I didn't even need to immediately take the Rooks, I could grab a pawn on my way out. After the tough games I had so far, it was a serious morale boost to win so quickly.

Conclusion

Since I began playing competitive chess two years, I have slowly increased my rating and gained points in every tournament. This is actually the first time I have lost points in a tournament, dropping 19 points with a performance of 1046. While this is not a disaster, it is still a shock and shows that I will not endlessly improve without hardwork. I am no longer playing in the lowest section, so I will need to up my game.

My main thought about the tournament is how exhausting it was. Apart from my last game, my games averaged about three hours and I was frequently one of the last to leave the playing hall. Each game was mentally grueling and took a lot of out of me.

The second and most surprising feature was how much the games swung back and forth (again except for the last game). In other tournaments, usually one player would slowly build an advantage or there would be one decisive move. But in 4 out of 6 of these games, play swung back and forth and the result easily could have been different. I should have won my first game and could have drawn my other losses (I also could have lost my first victory). Considering how tough and close the games were, it is disappointing to only end up with 2/6.

On the one hand, it's reassuring that I am clearly able to play at this higher level and have winning chances. In a different roll of the dice, I could have easily had 3/6 or even 4/6. On other hand, the fact that I let such opportunities slip away shows that I still need improvement.