4th BongCloud Classical Chess Tournament

I finally attended an over-the-board chess tournament. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and played some good chess. I finished with a performance rating of $1297$ and ranked 41st out of 83 players. I was competing for the top rank in the unrated section but I missed out with two losses in games 4 and 5.

The 4th BongCloud Classical Chess Tournament was held on the 2nd and 3rd of July at the Party Hall (Old Building), Builders' NGV Club in Koramangala. The pairings were decided by a Swiss system with everyone playing six rounds. Matches were played with the classical time control (30 minutes + 30 seconds increment from move 1)

Round 1: No Good Moves

I wasn't too worried with the Advance variation in the French, because I'd played it quite a lot of times on LiChess. I was sure of my moves until 8. Qd2; I knew that the right move to play was 8... Qxb2. But it was the first game and I didn't want to take any chances after 9. Rb1 Qa3 giving the black rook an open file. To make matters worse, I invited 10. Na4 by playing 9... Bc5 because I was anxious to castle quickly. After a few quick exchanges and white dubiously deciding to block the light square bishop, I felt the position was drawish. I wanted to put my knight on c4 and threaten to win a pawn, and didn't see that 17. Kf3 opens up the bishop again. I blitzed out 17... Nc4?? and realized I hung my knight.

I recollected my thoughts and attempted to find some counter-play by closing the open d-file with my bishop but the white knight had too much mobility and easily took my queen-side pawns. White's endgame technique was extremely clean, at one point playing 40. Bb6 to cut my king off from the entire b-file. Three connected pass pawns were too much, and I resigned. Even if I'd sacrificed my bishop for two pawns and went after the e-pawn, I'd be too slow to stop the a-pawn from queening.

What struck me most was how accurate white's play was. Once the advantage was established, both the position and the opponent allowed me no counterplay. There were multiple times when I felt like there were no good moves left for me to play. I had a couple chances out of the opening which I didn't take, and this would help me in my next game when I again played the French.

Round 2: Blunderfest

This was one of those games where everything happened. Drama on the board and off the board. I was playing another unrated opponent and I thought I had the chance to equalize after my first round loss, playing with the white pieces. I was late to the board by a few minutes because I couldn't find a pen that worked and my opponent looked quite huffed. Fortunately, she hadn't started the clock yet.

I started with 1. e4 and we went into my favourite Ruy Lopez. After black chose to play the Steinitz defence with 3... d6, I was feeling quite good because I knew it wasn't favourable for black. Still nervous, I postponed d4 by a move and played 6. Re1 to solidify everything. I felt very confident(always a mistake) after 8... Na5 and immediately played 9. Bd3. After 19... Bxf3, I wanted to take back with the pawn and then I saw a potential attack on the black king if I lined up my queen and rook on the f-file. As soon as I took with the queen, I saw that I'd left the b3 square undefended, and the position was back to equal. Now the black knight has a great outpost on the d4 square and would annoy me the entire game.

And here the game went haywire, black played 22... Bg5 and forgot to hit the clock, I was thinking and my opponent made another move. I called the arbiter and he had to explain that not hitting the clock doesn't allow you to keep playing moves. I was quite shaken out of my thoughts and I played a bunch of bad moves following this. Mostly abandoning my king-side attack plans on a whim and going for 23. Rea1 and then hanging all my pieces with the dumb 24. Rb1?? Thankfully, black didn't see the move and went back to d4 which allowed me to grab a pawn with 25. Rxb6.

And then after I played 29. Rb5, I felt like the position was won, but I forgot to hit my clock and my opponent started berating me loudly about it. I'm not even sure if that's legal, but anyways. I tried to box in the queen with 30. Qc2 which is a blunder if black plays f5 and opens up the f-file. Thankfully, black didn't find the moves and apart from move 35 where I was about to play c5 and get mated on the backrank. I made life unnecessarily difficult for myself by letting the queen get to the other side of the board with 41. cxd6?

I then played a bunch of moves that seemed very confusing to me as soon as I played them. Starting with 43. Bb5?? which ensures that black can take a draw to playing 45. Kf1?? and allowing myself to be mated with the queen and pawn. Finally on move 46, I was completely oblivious to the mate threat and would have taken with the rook had my opponent played 46... Rxa7 with black winning with 47. Rxa7 Qf2+ 48. Kd1 Qc2+ 49. Ke1 Qe2#. However, black hung the rook, and I converted with a sigh of relief and got a pretty checkmate in the center of the board.

Round 3: French Bishops

With the black pieces, I was determined to attack with the French defence and get an early advantage. I was playing a rated player, so I was cautious but the nerves were gone now. The French Defence, Exchange Variation was on the board and I played my preferred Qb6. White gave up a pawn with 9. b3?? and things were looking quite comfortable for me when white played the dubious 10. Nbd2? in a hurry to develop all pieces. When white played 18. f3?? I wanted to put the knight on e3 but I also felt like I could finish the game much faster if I exchanged pieces.

White trapped their own bishop with 22. f4 and I took a pawn before playing the expected f6. At this point, something unexpected happened. My opponent started sobbing, and I was completely taken by surprised. I had no clue what to do, so I stared at my opponent for a while, and then realized my clock was at 13 minutes and ticking. I started exchanging pieces and took out a rook and a knight. Then I coordinated my pieces with 29... Be4 and waited for white to make a move. My idea was to queen with the d-pawn after exchanging queens.

Overall, I felt it was a game with very few mistakes by me. It also helped that my opponent wasn't entirely comfortable with the position after my Qb6 and chose to play the bad b3. I converted the winning position quite cleanly and didn't take any chances. But going aggressive in the French, which is not really a great opening to play, would come back to haunt me in game 5.

Round 4: The Sicilian Refuted

After two consecutive wins, I was feeling quite good about my chess and went into the final game of day 1 with the white pieces against another rated player. Once black played 1... c4, I thought for a while and went for the Smith-Morra Gambit which is the only reply I know to the Sicilian. I made the same mistake I made in game 1, and I held off playing Qb3 until after castling. But the opportunity was lost after black played d6. The e-pawn was hanging after move 13 and black played Kf7 to cover it. I realized that and decided to attack on the queen-side by pushing my pawns. In a tame position after move 17, I decided to tempt white into blundering h5. I played 18. h4 and then came h5.

I went in with the knight and won a pawn and a rook for a bishop and a knight. I spent some time calculating the checkmate sequence after 23. Nd5 and assumed that black wouldn't exchange the knight based on the way the game went so far. As expected, the queen moved away and I went for 24. Nc7+ after which checkmate was straightforward.

I felt like this was my best game of the tournament so far, I played good moves, and had enough time and confidence to bait the opponent into mistakes. It also felt good to play the Smith-Morra gambit in an OTB tournament and be rewarded for the pawn. End of day 1. 3 out of 4 possible points, and I was second in the unrated section with the same points as the person in first place.

Round 5: No Time To Castle

It was day 2, and I was nervous again, for a multitude of reasons. First of all, I was playing to win the unrated section now, with both my closest rivals playing much stronger players than I was playing. Second, my opponent came twenty minutes after the games started but I wasn't allowed to start the clock until fifteen minutes passed because he'd been in some accident. That definitely didn't help me focus, and I played the French, Exchange variation again, determined to attack.

I was in trouble early on with 7... a6? and 8... b5??. I should have castled before pushing my pawns but I felt a baseless sense of urgency. White loaded up on my light-square bishop and I started playing strange moves like 11... Nd8? to add further protection to the bishop. The main problem here was that I was severely under-developed and I was at least 3 moves away from defending my bishop. White had enough time to play 13. Bd3 and push the f-pawn before I got my pieces out. On move 16, I just had to play Re8 and things would've been fine but I lost my head and played 16. Nc6??

The rest of the game was like a repeat of Game 1. White gave me no chances at all, and very quickly exchanged the rest of the board until I resigned. If I learnt anything from the three black games I played and the three different ways I played the French Defence, it is that the French is mostly a drawish opening and it is upto white to lose the game rather than for black to win it. If black is to win, wins come from slight advantages rather than any great positions.

Round 6: Oh Capablanca

The last game of the tournament and I found out beforehand that I was out of contention for the unrated prize on tiebreaks, and that I was playing a 1950 rated player who for some reason had a lesser score than me. The Caro-Kann was on the board and I instantly thought of Juga's song, "Oh Capablanca" while I was playing the moves.

Inspite of the huge rating difference, I played the opening very well. Or how I like to think of it, my opponent was waiting for me to make the mistake rather than particularly try to attack me. The isolated d-pawn is black's main weakness and my first mistake was to remove the dark-square bishop because I wanted to keep my bishop pair on the board. Next, 16. a4 was a mistake, and I should have played Qd2 and put a rook on d1. After 16... Red8, I realized my mistake and tried to compensate but the game was gone by then.

I tried to mate the black king on the weak f7 square but I was stopped on every attempt by some very good defence. Unlike games 1 and 5, I didn't feel helpless and figured I had a position where I could fight for something.

Handshakes & Scoresheets

It was a very fun experience, playing my first OTB chess tournament, and while I made mistakes in games 5 and 6, I felt like the first game was very much lost by me. Everyone I lost to patiently explained my mistakes to me and I had fun talking to all the people I could. I'll end with some observations I made because no blog post of mine feels complete without a bullet list.

• Online chess is fun, and accessible and all, but over the board chess is a different beast altogether. I've started analyzing my online games with a physical board now just to leverage that extra focus and indecision.
• My inclination to attack or defend in a particular opening depended on the result of the previous game and this cost me at least one win with the black pieces.
• There were 6 games, and 5.5 limp handshakes from my opponents. Okay.
• My opponents were surprised when I said, "all the best" to them before a game, and "good game, thank you" after the game. They looked even more surprised if I did it after I lost.
• When in doubt, call the arbiter.
• It's fun to walk around while your opponent is thinking. But everytime I went to look at a game, I just couldn't make any sense of their position. I was way too focused on my game, so I was just pretending like I understood something.
• I still don't know how to set a chess clock even though I asked two different people about it. They just pressed a bunch of buttons in quick succession and looked at me like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
• Some players do this thing where they hover their hand over the board and wait for a while. I don't know if this for effect, or if they're actually hesitating, but it sure is amusing.

Until next time, I guess. May all your pawns queen!!