I hate it when that happens!: SCC September Tornado Round 1
I guess this is getting typical now, but I'll do my normal paragraph about the photos. I told somebody during the event that as long as I put this paragraph up admitting that I didn't have their permission, that then I could put their pictures up here. So, All photos courtesy of Joseph Truelson. One of them was used with permission of the person inside it. The rest weren't. If it prevents any lawsuits against me, then I apologize, but I won't do anything to change it. Except I didn't actually put any photos here, so this whole paragraph was nonsense.
Actually, here is a photo of my opponent.
"Break the Rules"? What kind of idea is that? Well, I'll tell you. It is the name of a chess book, and is the only one that I have needed so far to reach 1800. Every game I play I do it, whether it's by slipping a couple queens on the board for an immediate checkmate, or "accidentally" knocking my opponent's drink on the board a few times and claiming a draw by repetition of dropping their beverages. That is what I hate about online websites! There are no beverages. At first I thought that crazyhouse would be the same, I could slip a few pieces on the board, but then I realized that they chose the pieces that I could place. And even worse, v3 is immune to RAR! Terrible! Leading to some real problems for me to break the rules. But in tournaments I can still do it.
Anyways, I came to the SCC September Tornado proudly holding this book and telling everybody how I became 1800, by breaking the rules. Some people were impressed, while others were heartbroken. A truly amazing story! I hoped that this was a stern warning to my first round opponent: Play like an engine and you'll still lose to my "checkmate drop" After you castle kingside Ng6 and Qh8 placed on the board. After being begged by everybody for my signature (not sure what type of signature, it was either my handwritten one or my signature checkmate drop), I decided to take a look at the pairings which everyone watched as they were being made.
#2 seed? Behind Addision Lee? Or as I call him, Maddy Addy? (First we called him Madison, then Maddy, and now Maddy Addy). Hah! I am just as good as him, and I would love to think that I am even better. In fact, Addison had won one of the recent tornadoes, as the top seed, and now he was in the 1900s. Meanwhile, me after a terrible event, was rated "only" 1808. It only went down more in this event.
I am a minimalist. Why mention that? I do the minimum effort required to get the maximum reward. I was confident that I could draw Addision any day, but I didn't want to put any effort into it. As we sat down at our boards (Since we were the top 2 seeds we were next to each other) I asked him, "Would you like a GM draw?" I proceeded to explain. "Let's plan to win our first three games. Then we will play, let's agree to a draw so we can both tie for first and win a lot of money." But there were two problems with that strategy. The most obvious one was the problem that was right in front of us (literally!), the TD. He had underheard everything that I had suggested and said "We don't allow prearranged draws here". "But it's a GM draw", I attempted to explain. He laughed, but it seemed that my hope for an easy 3.5/4 was over. I hate it when that happens!
Either way, I'm sure that in Addison's mind, he was agreeing with my prearranged draw idea. Even if the TD didn't agree, we would just GM draw with the French or Slav Exchange anyways. In fact, we might even play both simultaneously! But problem number 2 proved to be a bigger problem for both of us (For some reason doing evil things like this is always so hard!). We had to win our first three games. Neither of us kept our side of the agreement. I also hate it when that happens.
That was a pretty good hook. Read my next blog to figure out what happened. Oh wait, I just relized I have to tell you about that in this blog. Oops! But I'm too lazy. I am too busy studying 274.Qd5+ in the Nadjorf Sicilian (The computer said taht with perfect play I would be up +.6 in the Najdorf after 274 moves! Yes! Also, I just found out that 1.d4 is eqaul, as after 90...f2!! in the Stonewall Dutch, the position is so equal that Stockfish rates it as .00000. It adds extra 0s for extra emphasis. Yep. That's how I spend my free time. So you have to wait forever for me to tell you about my events. I know that you hate it when that happens! I apologize to all of my readers, especially to Hikaru Nakamura, Magnus Carlsen, and Garry Kasparov (I know you all read my blogs for inspiration!)
In fact, chess.com recently told me that I get so many views that they actually put the number of reads in thousands that that the server doesn't break down. They also told me that they were getting too much RAR in their own Private mesagges. They will hold me responsible for all of the damage done, so guys, please stop spamming chess.com with RAR. They will get me in trouble. And I would hate that if that happenned.
So what actually happened in the first round of the SCC September Tornado? I played one of my buddies, Jacob Z.(The last name is too hard to spell), for the 3rd time. I first played Jacob last year in the same event, and playing White, I won a piece against his Pirc Defense, and was going on to win. But he didn't want to lose. So he got Owen Xuan, another kid, to harass me, talk to me at the board during my move, so that it would mess up my play. Sure enough, I blundered the piece back, played the worst endgame, and only drew him. Lucky Jacob! 3 months later though, I ot my revenge and beat him with the Black pieces. So I thought "This shouldn't be too hard". But it was too hard. I was playing terribly, and once again got a lucky draw with my terrible opening. Here is the game, with my comments (JT), made before looking at the engine's evaluations, and me trying to imitate what Stockfish (SF) would say about the position. Don't forget that Stockfish hates me!
About the Stockfish, I'm trying to copy what pete, a chess.com staff member, wrote a few articles on. You should go check them out, then come back here and tell me that I'm doing a terrible imitation of stockfish!
"Oh No!", I thought before he offered me a draw. I am losing this! Terrible! I hate it when...". But to my relief he offerred a draw. Later he told me that he was +1 or +2 according to an engine. (Actually, Stockfish only gives him a .25 advantage. I wonder what engine he's using...) Either way, that's the main lesson of the game guys. Get a high rating, so that even when they are winning they offer a draw! I'll never lose to another lower rated person again! I'll just wait for them to offer a draw if I'm losing. Still, I wasn't that happy with the game. He's a 1400! I should beat me! And easily too. However, I was able to reassure myself that this wasn't too bad. Vignesh Anand lost to a 1300! And Anand Gupta, an 800, upset a 1500 and was going to play me next round. To go more forward in time after going back in time, I had to play Daniel Shubin in round 3. But even worse, in the last round, I got to play someone who was ready for revenge for my lucky win against her last year, and she manged to upset Addison Lee in the next round. Some pretty scary opponents, even if they are much lower rated, right? Don't blame me for not beating all of these prodigies.
