Online Practice Paying Off at Washington International Blitz

Hi chess friends,

At this point I'm generally on hiatus from competitive play. I have a toddler at home and don't sleep enough to play well or generally have enough free time for most tournaments. That said, a friend of mine convinced me to play the blitz tournament last week that was held just before the larger Washington International tournament. I didn't know what to expect, but I had been playing well in my blitz games on chess.com and working with a lot of the Mastery lessons so I figured I should be in decent shape. 

The tournament was rated for blitz by both FIDE and USCF and followed FIDE rules. The directors were kind enough to remind everyone what those were. Nowadays you get two illegal moves before you're forfeited in FIDE events. You can't use an upside down rook to indicate a queen... Fortunately, none of those issues came up in my games. The event was five double rounds, so we played each opponent with both colors. Here's how it went and my thought process throughout: Please keep in mind I wasn't notating these games so it's possible that the moves I'm giving here aren't 100% accurate.

Rounds 1 and 2 against WCM and USCF expert Sheena Zheng:

I was paired down in the first match and got off to an clean 2-0 start. In game one she fell into one of the most common opening traps I get in blitz.

If you're interested in this opening trap, there's some coverage of it in GM Ben Finegold's lesson on the Chigorin Variation: https://www.chess.com/lessons/winning-with-the-chigorin/winning-with-the-chigorin-part-1.

I didn't play the rest of the game well, but I eventually converted the extra pawn. In game two I gave her an isolated pawn early on, but I did have one worrisome moment where she could have traded the pawn with a small advantage.

Here black should have played d4 with a good position. I forgot that my intended Nb3 in between move wouldn't work because she could just capture it. Fortunately, she missed the opportunity and I eventually won the d5 pawn and converted the ending into a win.

Rounds 3-4 against FM Jason Morefield.

Game three was sloppy by both of us. I actually didn't realize that he had transposed two moves in the opening until later that night when I was wondering how my position was so bad after only five moves. I lucked out and he ended up only winning one pawn in an opposite side castling position. After a lot of back and fourth he bailed into a rook endgame where I was up two pawns. It wasn't a clean conversion, but eventually I won. 

In contrast, round four was one of my best games of the event. If the opening appeals to you, I'd recommend coverage in a couple different series. IM Keaton Kiewra covers the specifics of the variation here: https://www.chess.com/lessons/how-to-play-the-trompowsky/how-to-play-the-trompowsky-attack-2-c5. I also think I may have found an intuitive and strong pawn sacrifice in part because there were similar sacrifices in WGM Tatev Abrahamyan's course here: https://www.chess.com/lessons/how-to-play-the-trompowsky/how-to-play-the-trompowsky-attack-2-c5.

It was a sharp game, where a pawn sacrifice gave me an initiative that I never gave up.

Rounds 5 and 6 against IM Sahil Sinha

At 4-0 I found myself on board one against new IM Sahil Sinha. I'd drawn him before in our one slow tournament game. This time I somehow achieved great positions out of the opening as both colors. I don't remember the exact moves of these games well enough, but to give a taste, this was the opening in round five.

White is completely tied down in the final position above and I eventually traded into a winning king and pawn ending.

I don't remember enough of game six to show any moves, but it was a fun game. I somehow managed to get the position below with white, or something very similar.

White has total domination and I eventually won.

Rounds 7 and 8 against GM Mark Paragua (Where things go off the rails)

After a perfect start, I completely failed to keep things up in this key match. Round seven was a typical game between a GM and a lower master. I was slightly worse for most of it and then fell too low on time to put up much of a defense.

Round eight was my big missed opportunity of the event. I played another variation from Keaton's Trompowsky course (https://www.chess.com/lessons/how-to-play-the-trompowsky/how-to-play-the-trompowsky-attack-2-e6 if you're interested) and quickly got a winning position. I then made a terrible blunder to throw it all away in one move. I'm not good enough to expect to go ten blitz games without making some serious blunders, but this was very unfortunate timing! Here's the critical part of the game.

Rounds 9 and 10 against FM Justin Paul

After the last match, I was unlikely to get first place. I played a poor opening in round nine and never equalized as black. Fortunately, I pulled myself together and ground out an Exchange Slav win in a rook ending in the final game. I think I was a bit exhausted at this point and didn't remember the games well enough to document them. Justin now has the distinction of being the first student that I taught in a camp, club or private lessons to beat me in a rated game. I'm not too worried about it. He's rated similarly to me in both slow and blitz chess, so a split wasn't a bad result.

At the end of the day I tied for 2nd with GM Kaufman, behind GM Paragua. I was a little disappointed that I blundered away an excellent shot at first place, but I'm pleased with the result overall. It was great to see that my online practice and study translated effectively to a real tournament. This was my first over the board event in nearly a year, but based on the results I'll need to look into getting back out there again soon.