Hi Anand!: SCC September Tornado Round 2

Here we go again. All Photos courtesy of me. None of them were used with the permission of the people inside them. But don't worry, they got revenge on me a couple days ago at the October Tornado... The picture is of Anand Gupta facing the camera.

I know 3 Anands. The first is the fomer world champ, who reads all of my blogs and tells me how much he enoys them. The second is Vignesh Anand, who was one of the first people I met when I came to the Seattle Chess Club. He claims to be related to the "real" Anand. (Why call only the world champ the real one? It makes Vignesh think that he is fake!) And the last Anand I know was my opponent this round, Anand Gupta. Scary, right? Anands are pretty good at chess. I managed to beat Vignesh Anand in my last tournament, but could I beat his friend, who although was in the 800s, checkmated a 1500 in the last round and was ready to beat me now? I wasn't 100% sure. As normal, I had to pay attention to the facts (Something I hate doing) and use my flawed reasoning to decided how to play against him.

1. He is 800. I have almost a 1000 point edge against him. Shouldn't it be easy? But it didn't take too long to think of my horrible loss against an 1100 last November and a draw against a 900 last year in this event (Time flies!)

2. He won with a trap. I need to play a boring endgame. Then I can hope to win. The only problem is that in the opening I changed the object of the game from trying to play the best move to trying to trade off queens.

One thing that I pride myself on is that I play every part of the game equally badly. Pretty special, right? I'm 1800 in the middlegame, and the endgame, tactical and strategical alike. And 1200 in the opening. (I still want your Caro Kann prep Sammy, all of it!)

So I decided to make the game a drawn endgame, something I somehow managed to do. Generally kids don't tend to play endgames well. And that includes me. I can still use the anti-kid strategy against kids, because they are more kiddish than me. (Hope nobody wants to debate that, as 3rd graders call me immature a lot. Even the ones that I am supposed to be acting as a role model to).

The anti kid strategy is: play boring positions and wait for a blunder. Every game I have tried doing this it works. Half the time they blunder, half the time I blunder, and most of the time we both blunder! We are both anti-kid I guess. The strategy worked in this game, kind of. I love it when that happens!

Like last time, I'll give another try at being myself as well as Stockfish. Actually, I'll use Komodo. Stockfish threatened to give me bad moves if I used it too much. Before using the engine I analyzed the game without it and had a chat with it:

Joseph: Komodo, don't you feel honored to analyze one of my games?

Komodo: -2

Joseph: What is that supposed to mean?

Komodo: It means that I don't want to analyze your game. -2 means that it is horrible.

Joseph: But don't you hate Stockfish? 

Komodo: +2

Joseph: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Since I am Stockfish's enemy, can't we be friends.

Komodo: Mate in one (No)

Joseph: Be quiet Komodo, I don't want to hear the truth.

JT: Me, KO: Komodo  

Since no one has ever tried this idea with Komodo, I won't be expected to make it good, as I will be setting the original standards. Anyways, I analyze the game, then use Komodo and have it analyze also. 

Despite it not being a very impressive game by either side, I was able to learn a few things:

1. In rook endings activity is always key. I knew this, but not to the extent that you could just go crazy and hang all of your pawns!  The thing is that an active rook is so important that you end up getting the pawn back anyways.

2. 12.dxc6 gave away all of my opening advantage. I should have realized that the c6 pawn isn't going anywhere, and when stuff is being pinned that you don't have to take it immediately.

3. Although I proved to be able to win after a steady amount of mistakes by my opponent every move (by him missing a4), I should have put more focus on trying to gain an advantage in the opening. I think that I improved on this a little bit at the tornado the next month. Basically, I only go in complications if it involves me winning material.

4. I'm the only 1800 who isn't able to crush their opponent in the opening or middlegame. Everybody below 2000 always seems to get out of the opening with an even position against me. Very boring. Either I am ultra solid or just play worse against lower rated players. 

5. Time Management: I must say, this was due largely to the fact that my opponent moved so fast. He has only played a few USCF events and he is adjusted to playing G/30. But I need to use the extra time to think more. I know this stuff, but never fail in forgetting it when it is actually necessary. Knowldege is not power, because I never use it.

So after this win I had 1.5/2 Addison was trying to keep his agreement with me for the last round GM draw. But he lost his game against Sophie Tien. I realized that these little kids, despite the low ratings were scary! So I took Addison aside and explained:

We both need 3/3, of course. So I told him to beat your opponent twice and write "2-0" in the results. I'll beat my opponent once and draw him once. That way we will have 3 and we can do a GM draw in the last game. 

But oddly enough, Addison thought that I was joking! Ha. I'm the most serious person in the world! (And the least arrogant, the most humble, I never brag) I also never call Anyone stupid. Then again, I haven't met anyone named "Anyone" yet. But I'm meeting people with such crazy names that its bound to happen one day! Like Master Anthony He.

Upset at him for not agreeing to what evil schemes I was planning, I went out and decided to go picture taking.

Addison Lee robs and uses someone else's computer. Fortunately we caught him redhanded, so he agreed to not steal it.

A more respectable picture of my opponent.

Back the the event. My 3rd and 4th round opponents, Daniel Shubin and Sophie Tien both scored upsets. Daniel was up first. Before the game, I tried to scare him. "Mwhahah! I'm scaring you so much, right?", I asked him. He said nothing. "Well, get scared so that you won't play well. I don't want to draw you again". Again he said nothing. I drew him last time in the French Exchange. Very boring. 

In the last game, we got a really drawn position and entered a knight endgame and he was playing as well as me so I offered a draw. He accepted, and that minor setback costed me $200. So it wasn't really that minor, only a minor piece endgame. 

If your opponent draws you in a knight endgame, and you want to win, would you do that again? No. But I did. If your opponent draws you in a drawish opening, would you play another drawish opening if you wanted to win? No.  But I did. But if you play well, wouldn't you win anyways? Yes. But I didn't.