MAN! Am I serving up some sloppy chess. The kind you try to put on a bun and it falls all over the place. Eventually you get to sink your teeth in but you hope you have enough filling left to fill your belly.
During round one yeasterday I used what I call the potato chip defense. Because of the odd hours they had the rounds (10:30 and 5 ) I tried to eat well in the morning. By 1PM my stomach was digesting itself and creating disturbances. Luckily I had some time on my clock. The hotel was serving up sandwiches right outside the room. I wolfed down a tuna sandwich and went back in with my bag of chips and diet coke Crinkle Crinkle... CRUNCH munch munch munch ...I sacked a bishop for the position... woops sorry about the crumbs.... CRUNCH munch munch munch... Long story short my oponent was running into time trouble ... and dropped his queen right as he made time control. He "exploded" out of the room. " Can I buy you a coke?" I offered... " I had you .. I can't believe I let it go... " He responded.
Enough with the food stories. 4 rounds down ...2 wins and 2 losses. Wins are against 1660 and 1450 ( 10 year old) player. While the losses are againt an 1820 and a 1650 player ( a 14 year old) . Two more rounds to go.
I am finding myself coming out of the opening fairly strong and I either don't know how to turn it into an advantage or I can't quite figure out how to exploit a weakness with a given position. It seems like whatever I do .. it turns to sloppy joes and I am left scrambling for a draw and losing the initiative ( or the game).
I need to figure this out before the world Open... Bah!
BP
2 comments:
It's time to graduate to Reassess your Chess from MDLM. Once a player learns tactics, he needs to pick up strategery.
Thanks TC. I have a copy of Silman's HTRYC and am re-reading it. The first time through it was really difficult to retain a lot of the material and the nuances he talks about in each position. Now I am reading it again and I realte a little more to using some tactical scuttle to achieve a favorable imbalance can be of benefit. Its applying this in OTB play that comes not so easy. There are a lot more factors involved... noises outside teh hall ( two of the days had an adjacent scholastic event happening... kids coming and goign... babies crying... doors slamming). I'll get there.. I think.
BP
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