Tournament Chess IS HARD!

Welcome to my blog! Back to tournament recaps, as I've been playing a bunch over the summer. So it's important that I don't fall behind! Nothing hurts more than running into someone at a tournament, and they say "nice blog", and I'm behind by 3-4 tournaments. To be clear, what hurts is how far behind I fall, not the complement!

To recap, over Memorial Day weekend, I played in the Texas State and Amateur tournament, and posted a horrendus tournament. I lost two games to lower rated players, drew a floored 1600, and won three games, but that wasn't enough to properly recover the rating damages. My rating dipped from 1744 to 1707. I was thankful to win the final two games, as I (still) have not been below 1700 OTB since my junior year of high school... I just graduated college.

In the past, I would have been super frustrated, wanted to quit chess, and stopped playing tournaments for months until I reignited the chess bug. However, I've learned that bad results happen, it's all part of the process, and as easily as you can have a bad tournament, you can also play well, and win those rating points back! 

And I was able to recover some of those points at a local quad a couple of weeks later. I scored 2.5/3 vs 1936, 1565, and 1075, which brought my rating back up from 1707 to 1727. I didn't post those games as it's G/30;d5, so the games are extremely unpredictable... but nonetheless, it's a good result! 

So the weekend of June 24th, I made the decision to play in the Dallas Summer Open, hosted by the Texas Chess Center. Okay, let me rephrase that. I didn't make the decision the same day of the tournament... but I decided to play the tournament which would take place that day! 

So I was looking at the pre-registration list develop. I attached it to demonstrate my point, but boy was it hard to find the pre-registration list for a tournament that already happened! (actually, not really... it was a google sheet, so I went to my google sheet viewing history XD)

Anyway, the pre-registration list was looking something like this:

I don't know why Texas Chess Center doesn't just delete the players who are withdrawn... but neither here nor there, what I was noticing is that there were 24 players (in my section) set to play in round 1... and I was the 13th seed. How swiss tournaments work is the top player in the top half plays the top player in the bottom half, and it works its way down. So #1 would be playing #13... yeahhh... I'd potentially be getting the top seed, and given that the top two seeds are IMs, there's a good chance that I get an IM round 1! And sure enough, that happened!

For some reason, I didn't get the #1 seed like I thought (who knows... last minute registrants/drop outs could always affect the pairings). But round 1 vs IM Craig Hilby (2478 USCF) is an insane pairing. 

Being one of the first games out (from the Open section) because I lost is always slightly embarrasing... but it was a good learning experience against an IM. It had been months since I properly studied the Italian, but I don't blame the opening on the loss. It was more the lack of direction in the middle game that lost the game. 

After round 1 and lunch, I was paired in round 2 vs Shriram Rajasekar (1620 USCF). It would be good to get a win and go back on track! 

So the story doesn't end there. Yes, the final position above is drawn according to the tablebase, but I wasn't able to prove it in time pressure (why I didn't notate the rest of the game). 

Adrenaline was running HIGH after that game. Getting a decent opening, thinking you blundered, missing O-O-O, having a worse position, equalizing, messing it up again, getting a drawn Rook endgame that you have to prove, losing it, but getting a miracle stalemate. Tournament chess is HARD! I believe that game was the second-to-last game to finish in the playing hall, so I had little time to recover.

In round 3, I was paired vs Shriyan Vuyyuru (1492 USCF). Parings aren't going to get better after starting 0.5/2, and drawing a slightly lower rated player.

We got the long-awaited win! It was a difficult grind vs a tough opponent, but I was happy for the most part with how I was able to convert. 

In round 4, I was paired vs Raymond Junyang Jang (1621 USCF). The stage is set. If I win, I probably gain rating. But ultimately, the focus should be on the game first!

A bit of a frustrating way to end the tournament, and this is the game that prompted me to title the blog as such. But honestly, I wasn't too mad, as my opponent found ways to come back from a losing position, and generate counterplay. It was impressive.

-17 is not terrible... could have been much worse. Since then, I've played another G/30 quad, where I lost to 2025 (shoutout @LSChess!), and beat 1566 and 1584, and raised my rating from 1710 to 1726. So from those two tournaments, I only lost one rating point. What comes of my next tournament (which already happened) is to be revealed next blog. Sooo... if you want to be surprised, don't look up my most recent tournament performance!

Thank you so much for reading! Whew, I am relieved that I wrote this... it is almost midnight where I'm at, but why not go ahead and post it...