The Chess Club's Birthday Bash...CASH!

Last Friday night my chess club celebrated it's 5th Birthday. I believe I had mentioned in a previous post that I was preparing and had made plans to play in the Open. I studied my repertoire and practised tactics and endgames until I thought I was as ready as I was going to get. This put me into wee hours of Friday morning. Then the unexpected happened. My spouse had just had some surgery and the site had become infected. She would need to go to the doctor's office first thing in the morning, like 6 Am. That meant I would have to be up at 5 o'clock to get a shower. No time for sufficient sleep. Maybe after the doctor's visit...it never came to pass.

I arrived at the Chess Club in a zombie-like state. How in the name of goodness would I be able to play chess? Hmm...free pizza. That is going to help. Oh, coffee! Maybe that would get me going? Birthday Cake!! That tastes good, but will the sugar sustain me or will I crash further after the sugar high? Questions with no answers.

The Open kicked off at 7 PM with the starting of the clocks. My first opponent was a guy named Kiran and he seemed to know what he was doing at first. However, I noticed he was unprepared for complications in the middle game; so I endeavored to make it as messy I could. I would go on and win this first game, but only after struggling to write the notation on the score sheet. My mind was not working very well and I had two competing disciplines to deal with...aggghhh! The next round started at 8:45 PM. I played my friend Dan. Last time we had met over the board he had the Black pieces, and went for the Sicilian Dragon set up. That time I missed a win at move 15 and that game ended in a draw. As luck would have it, he once again would have the Black pieces. I was waiting to see if he would try the Dragon one more time. The first victory in chess is to actually make someone give up their pet opening against you...by this standard I won. He opted for the Caro-Kann. The only time I played with this system was during my reading of "Tal-Botvinnik 1960" (I highly recommend this book). Great! How to proceed? I played my heart and lost. I believe that some improvements can be made to my play to increase my chances. My first suggestion would be try a different system within the Caro-Kann. The Next would be at sixth move. I played 6. Bd3 (which was logical), but theory says 6. Nxf6 is correct. There are other places where my play was less than I should except. Notably, both the move 9. Bd2N and 13. Bc3 are inaccurate and lead to my demise. Completely spent from that ordeal, I gathered more of the cake and ate myself into shape (perhaps if I kept on eating I would have a new shape). The last round started at 11 PM and my opponent's name was George. He played some wacky English set up with the White pieces that lead to a small, but steadily increasing advantage for me. We would play 50 moves before I delivered mate.

Everything was all said and done at 12:20 AM. My score of 2/3 was good enough to win some ca$h and give me a small boost in my USCF rating. The drive home was another adventure.