How to Rapidly Lose Rating Points and Other Chess Hacks

The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made.

– Savielly Tartakower

Hello, my fellow rapid players, and welcome to another edition of the Osaka Papers. The Chess world is full charlatans professing to understand how to gain rating points. Perhaps they will expound chess wisdom such as:

"Calculate forcing moves first..."

"Develop your pieces..."

"Stop playing the Botez Gambit..."

Well, if imparting knowledge in this fashion actually worked, we'd all be masters by now. So, I've decided to try a different tack: How does one go about losing rating points?

My most recent OTB experience should suffice in giving great examples of the do's and don'ts of losing rating points.

Don't Study for a Few Weeks

The Chubu Rapid Open 2023 took place in the city of Nagoya, Japan on Sunday August 20th. A rather small tournament with only 23 participants, consisting of 5 rounds, it was FIDE and Nationally rated with a time control of 25 minutes + 10 seconds.

So, how did I prepare for this event?

That's right, I didn't. 

My preparation time coincided with my vacation, hence instead of studying tactics and reviewing my openings, I was in Canada, drinking whiskey and eating Canadian bacon. 

Thus we have our first hack on how to rapidly lose rating points.

Don't study, prepare or put any effort into maintaining your form.

 Before we move on to any more of my rating losing chess hacks, how about a few pics to prove that any of this actually happened.

Let Your Clock Run Down

Blitz chess kills your ideas.

– Bobby Fischer

In the first and second round of the tournament, I drew both games. I understand that there are chess bloggers who recount such trivialities, but luckily for you, I am not one of them...

Let us begin in the third round where I faced my friend and nemesis.

Melody Takayasu is a  former women's champion of Japan and arguably the strongest female chess player in western Japan. More importantly, she holds an undefeated record against me at all time controls. One of our games actually lasted 5 hours and was over 120 moves long...I still lost...O_o...

Anyways, playing white I was pretty confident, surely I have improved over the last 2 years, maybe today would be the day I finally beat Melody...

Despite a few inaccurate moves the position was dead even, the engine even opined that we had played at 91% accuracy, not bad for a rapid game. There was only one problem...I was reduced to increments and had to forego writing anything down in order to blitz out moves, at which point my ideas DIED.

First I played an illegal move, picking my knight up while in check, which granted my opponent an extra minute of time, then I allowed a fork of my king and rook, at which point I resigned the game, as there was nothing left to be done.  0 - 1

If you want to lose rating points be sure to play a highly accurate game, only to let your clock run down until you have to blitz out your moves.

Give Up All Hope

To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game.

– Savielly Tartakower

In the penultimate round, playing Black, I fell into a common opening trap. White was able to temporarily sacrifice a piece in order to open up a double attack on on one of my bishops. How did I react to this calamity? Well, as the above "Tartakower" foretells, I lost the game...

Black is losing, but is not lost. Can you find the most testing defense? 

Hint: Best to start things off with a check.

And there you have it, this brings us to our third rating losing hack.

When you make a mistake give up all hope and play a risky maneuver instead of calmly calculating through the position.

Only Win Inconsequential Games

It is not enough to be a good player… you must also play well.

– Siegbert Tarrasch

With my hopes and dreams in taters, I still had to play one final game. I was matched with a member of my local chess club. Unfortunately, although I felt a played well, the game was inconsequential, my goal had been to score 3 points out of 5, with only 1 point after 4 rounds this was now impossible.

The game does however show how to play against the Rousseau Gambit, the sad brain child of man whose greatest claim to fame is getting obliterated by an 8 year old Paul Morphy.

So, there you have it, the last of my chess hacks for losing rating points.

When the tournament is already decided and your opponent plays an unsound opening, now it is the time to play your only good chess of the day.

The Results

The A and B Class Winners

The Open Winners

Postmortem

And that was it, that was how to rapidly lose rating points and other chess hacks. Yet, there may be a few of you out there reading this who don't want to lose rating points, but instead want to gain rating points. Well, then it's simple just do the opposite of me...

Prepare for your OTB tournaments, with daily practice.

Don't let your clock run down when playing quicker time controls.

Don't give up all hope when you make a mistake.

And never leave your best chess for inconsequential games.

As always, thanks for reading and feel free to share these chess hacks with your friends down at the Library or Local Bar.

Cheers, SheldonOfOsaka.