Solid Chess: SCC July Quads vs. Trevor Jung!
On Sautrday July 9, 2016, I was ready to play in the SCC July quads. The venue was the great Seattle Chess Club, and I have to thank the TD Fred Kleist, who was always so upbeat and helpful (unlike me!?) for holding this small but yet great event. I'd played a bunch of chess games between the Washington Open and this event, studied a lot of openings, and read How to Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman. While with many players whenever they try to try some new strategy their rating goes down for a while, with me it goes up. Why? Because I learned a number of things since the FIDE Junior Invitational (The last event where I saved many lost positions, except all my blitz games)
1. Always have a plan. In many of those games I blitzed out 5 moves and then didn't know what to do. I got messed up, and only when I was dead lost did I start to try and win. But luckily now I always have 3-5 moves planned out so if my opponents do nothing I know how to use those moves.
2. Chess is basically about creating active pieces. This is pretty simple. By activating your pieces and making them do more than your opponent's you have the edge. The game is about the pieces!
3. Chosing moves before calculating. This strategy has been really useful. It works in most positions, but especially in forcing sequences, an organized thought process saves time and sees more moves.
Still though, I would say I made a few mistakes in this tournament. I didn't use nearly as much time as any of my opponents, and against higher rated opposition that could have made a huge difference.
Other than that, I was quite happy with how I played, the moves all had clear direct purposes, and by having a plan in all positions, I was able to outplay my opponents.
And now the game:
My first round opponent is worth a mention. Trevor Jung, who I often refer to as "Trevory" or "Jungy" will be going to MI (Mercer Island) Chess Club next year. He's going into 9th grade. I've always tried to joke around with him, being that we are from the same island, by saying things like "If you don't say anything back you will hurt my feelings", and "Stop being so quiet like me" (I'm not quiet (who cares about typos)). But he doesn't respond sadly enough, and while he does smile much of the time, is always busy reading some novel, not about chess! (Probably why his rating hasn't improved much for a long time, he hasn't bothered to study and he's been inbetween 1500 and 1700 for 3 years).
Either way, his rating of 1695 carried some weight, and now, like every chess article when somebody annotates their games, I have to list all of his accomplishments so everyone is impressed I won, or so that I am impressed I won. (Probably the second is more accurate with most players, who doesn't want to think that they are great!)
So now to make myself feel better: My opponent, the talented 14 year old Trevor Jung, is a sharp and good chess player, ready to inflict damage, even against people that live on the same island as him. This prodigy beat an expert in his last tournament, the Washington Open, and has won several quad events. And against me, he was ready to win. Not only was he likely annoyed by the annoying me, but we were both competiting to be the bored one (board one) for Mercer Island High School, but after this game he will have to be bored too (board two).
Here is our highly uninteresting (even to the players who played it!) first encounter. Amazingly, I didn't lose my notation, and even more amazing, I made no notation errors! Wow!
This may have been one of my best games (yes, I don't play very impressive chess if this is a great game by me), but after move 10 I played nearly perfectly, increasing my advatage with every move. I finally play solid chess! During the event I would randomly say "solid", which seemed to annoy a few chess players, but that was a good term to describe my play in this event. I didn't make any blunders.
I'll (probably) post the other games soon, when I have the time (or more like when I feel like it!).
