
My First OTB Tournament
So, as some of you already know, yesterday I played my first ever OTB chess tournament. It was five rounds, dual-rated 25 minutes each with a five second delay, and I played in the K-12 division, as I'm in 11th grade.
The first thing I found out was that it is considerably harder to use your "chess vision" on an actual chess board. (Yes, I have a chess board, in case you were wondering, I just don't have anyone good to play against.) I struggled to see things that would have been obvious if I was playing online. But I soon realized that the more I played, the better it got. I feel as though the more I do this kind of thing, the closer I will get to my actual rating level.
Anyway, here's the games. I kept a complete scoresheet of the first four rounds, but I didn't get the complete fifth game. I wish I had, but oh well. Also, they messed up the tournament record on the uschess website, so I am going by their pregame rating that I recorded on my scoresheets, not what it says their pregame rating was.
Game #1: Loss to 1005. I had black, and I was extremely nervous. I played a very bad game that I don't want to be on my record, but it is, so I'll show it. Also, I was a bit shaken afterwards, as it was quite a bit different experience than I expected.
Game #2: Win against 663. I came into this one much less confidently, but scored a much better result for my first win. A pretty normalish game by me, and my opponent blundered a queen, then a bishop and mate at the same time.
Game #3: Draw from a very losing position against a 759. I completely repeated the first game with the way I was thinking about my moves. I did a one move blunder of a knight, but I had been +2 and winning before that. I hoped for a draw here, but didn't dare offer it, so I offered to trade queens. He traded queens, then offered a draw himself! He told me afterwards that he thought I was winning even though I was down a pawn. I immediately accepted and thus scraped away half a point from the brink of destruction. Stockfish said +3.2 afterwards, but I didn't tell him that.
Game #4: Win against the only other unrated player. This one was uneventful, and I systematically won a nice game.
Game 5: Loss against 1626. I knew it would happen. I got paired with the strongest player there. Even though it was a loss, I feel as though this was my best game. I played really well up to the very end when I made one blunder in time pressure. My opponent had 4 seconds left on the clock when I resigned. He complemented me afterwards about it, saying that he thought that I played a really good game for my first tournament. I am inclined to agree. I don't have the whole game written down, but here's the part that I have:
That's it! Thanks everyone for looking, and as usual if you have any suggestions, please say!