Tactics Tactics Tactics? Pt. 2 (Results)

This is my second tournament. My first tournament, last month, I went 3-0, winning the U1150 matches against mostly younger children, followed by a loss against ~1250 player from a blunder. So my official record being 3-1, I opened with a rank of 1101.

Today I played 3 matches in the "Open" division instead of the U1150 league. 

Game 1 is uploaded. My opponent, white, is a 1515 player. And I, on black, was an 1101. I lost the match, as you can see. I think my biggest mistake is once I recognized we were playing opposite side castles, I should've pawn stormed with my h pawn, my big mistake wold be moving my rook on h8 to e8 for the sake of supporting e6.

Game 2, was me as white, 1101, against an 876 player as black. We played the traditional Sicilian, and while I lost an early exchange, I was able to come up with a fun rook, pawn, king checkmate in the end game.  So victory! That game lasted 43 moves.

Game 3, was an absolute disaster. My worst game of OTB chess period. Nothing worth talking about, my 1453 opponent played the Colle Zukertort, I fell for some bad stuff by playing Bd6 (I'm black), he's able to get a pawn fork on my knight and bishop, and after a blunder of my Knight falling to a queen on the back rank at Ng4, I completely fell apart. Humongous blunders, just an example of nerves and terrible board vision. I played it out despite knowing it was lost just to try to improve myself psychologically and not feel defeated. That game lasted 26 moves.
 

My feelings are bitter sweet. I knew coming into the day I'd probably go 0-3, so going 1-2 isn't bad. I'm very happy with how I performed in the game I lost that I uploaded. My last game being.... such a horrendous disaster of mistakes that are so atypical of me is why I'm very upset. I could've gone 0-3 today and been happier if I played better, but that was just really bad.

After those three games, I'm not sure what I'll be rated in USCF. I was 1101 with 4 games played into my provisional, now I'm 5-2, both my losses to opponents pretty significantly higher rated than me. So we'll see what happens. My rank will be high when I'm playing like it, so there's no point to worry about how humongous the swings are at this stage when I'm not very good at chess. Great learning experience though. After every game I lost, I'd get lectured on what the story of the game was, what went right, what went wrong, how to improve. I learned a lot about the Zukertort from that absolute mental meltdown, and I feel confident that I had a chance to win in the game provided without making that RH>G6 mistake and just pushing to the king. I know there must've been some psychology involved in knowing I was playing higher rated players as black, so I'll have to get better grasps on my nerves. My board vision is still weak, I rarely play OTB, only online so that's something I definitely need to improve upon.

Time for... a metric shit ton of tactics. I'm so very disappointed in the last game but I learned a lot and I hope you enjoy watching this game.

Yeah, the usual play would be on the kingside, but after some inaccuracies on both sides your central action ended up pretty good. The knight on d3 and open f file gives you pressure on f2, and the kingside pawns can still be pushed down the board to open him up. I wonder if your opponent was a little worried

Opening white's c file (23...Bxd4) and giving white a pawn break (27...b6) made white's attack pretty much immediate though, but before that you stayed in the game well, good job.

Little lessons like this pile up and will raise your performance a lot. Sometimes the trouble in chess isn't that good moves are hard to find. Good moves usually look good. The problem is sometimes terrible moves look good!

I wonder if there's anything to 6.Bb5.

10.b4 looks like the way to go. 9...g6 'just getting out the pieces' kinda ignores that there's an opposite sides castling game going on. Even worse is that the g-pawn will probably have to move again since Black's most natural attacking plan is ...g5-g4 which attacks your h3 pawn. He probably had to go for 9...h6.

10.Ne5 Idunno about because I think it's better to attack the c6 knight with pawns but 11.de isn't good. You end up with a lone pawn on e5 and suddenly Black's weird development has sense to it now as the knight on d7 and a bishop on g7 can attack it. Also after 12.Nf3 h6 it looks like Black has targets to play against and White doesn't.

Maybe 14.O-O-O. I'm not really sure what to do after 14.O-O h6.

Not sure if you are commenting on the it in this fashion, but I'm black.

Oh ok my bad.

Well 7...Qe7 isn't something you want to do. It keeps your dark-squared bishop from being  able to develop. Sure castling queenside can be fun but you have to slow down your development to do it. Also even though there is a threat of ...Qb4 White can stop it with c3 so it's not really worth blocking in your bishop on f8. We can also see in the game that this move made it hard to find an easy way for you to continue in the game. So be careful when playing moves like ...Qe7. Only do it if there's a really good reason.

The problem with 9...g6 is that it's too slow. In opposite sides castling games it's all about attacking the opponent's king. Getting out the pieces is important yes but you want to be able to attack quickly so that you don't fall behind in the attack. So 9...h6 is better with the idea of ...g5-g4 attacking White's pawn on h3 and maybe opening a file to the king. Also your dark-squared bishop can get to g7 if it needs to but this way you are attacking too. It's interesting to note that even though the opening wasn't perfect, you still have chances to attack.

12...h6 as I noted is good and gets back to the plan of attacking the kingside. Also if the knight on f3 has to move you might just win the pawn on e5.

14.O-O h6! for sure. His king is on the kingside so it's time to open up lines against the king  so you can attack and this is the way to do it. Black should have chances to attack here.

So I guess the big thing to note here is that in opposite side castling games it's usually all about trying to attack the opponent's king. White's pawn on h3 gives you a "hook" or something to play against in the attack. If Black is able to play g4 he will be able to open a file against White's king and that's where a rook might want to go rather than on f8 as in the game.

Congratulations on winning at least one.  In my first OTB tournament I lost the first four and salvaged the 5th and last game.

In your first game, he shouldn't have castled opposite, but you didn't start the almost automatic pawn charge: instead of 14...Rhf8 it should have been 14...h6, 15...g5 and because he has to move a B and a N out of the way of your pawn charge, you'd have exposed his king!  Instead, he was able to get his pawns rolling at your king first!

Remember the following about opposite castling:

In the Keres and Kotov classic, The Art of the Middlegame, Kotov wrote the 2nd chapter, "Strategy and Tactics of Attack on the King," and it's the best 50 pages of chess I've ever read about planning attacks.  He says that castling on the same side means you generally have to attack with pieces, not pawns, because each side has to protect his king with pawns that are across from each other.

But castling opposite sides means pawns, not pieces, leading the attack. So, before you castle on opposite sides, there three things you must consider:

1) are your attacking pawns closer to coming into contact with your opponents pawns than his pawns are to yours?  If so that's good.

2) Do you or your opponent have pieces blocking the advancing pawns? Whoever has to move the fewest pieces out of the way has the advantage.

3) Do you or your opponent have pieces in front of your defensive pawn? Whoever has the most has to move them when the pawns pour forward and loses time to organize a good defense.

Your opponent had the most obstructions to his plans.