Day Four in Foxwoods, An Action Story
Submitted by
TimMoroney on Sat, 03/22/2008 at 9:51pm.
Day Four came along today and brought a friend with him. A black-hooded, robed figure who said my chess tournament was on the list he was carrying, or some equally silly nonsense. He insisted I call him "Sir," and would have no further discussion about it. I tried to convey to him the sentimental importance that my tournament held for me, but he was not deterred by my emotional plea. And so, the two gentlemen grabbed up my tournament, read it its Last Rites, and strolled off into the sunset. Except Mr. Sir. He not so much strolled as... floated. Don't people just stop by for tea anymore?
As you may have determined from the colorful little story above, my results from todays games left something to be desired. However, there were some important opening lessons learned which I should never forget again. Which brings me to my favorite method of learning -- slowly weeding out the mistakes, one by one! One mistake I'll never make again, here... Two more mistakes I'll never make again, there... and, by process of elimination, "Ah, brilliantly perfect play Mr. Moroney. Not a mistake to be found! Here's your Grandmaster title."
Round six was against Vincent Heinis (FIDE 2184), who was far more deeply insighted about the opening line than I was. A central pawn break and tactics ensued, in which he was to be favored. He didn't allow me any counterplay and finished the game rather smoothly from there.
Round seven saw me face-off with scholastic player Michael Thaler (2140). I was bound to have a game with him at some point, as we have been playing directly around each other for the past couple of tournaments. Our pairing slots happened to fall into place this time around, and I was set to go with my second outing as Black for the day. He played my own King's Indian Attack against me, so I decided to counter with the line that has always annoyed me most in the line. I succeeded in distracting him from kingside play long enough to make my queenside breaks, so theoretically my opening was a success. However, it was a very strange occurence that after achieving the main goal of the line I was left with no final breakthrough! I had penetrated the queenside, occupied the holes, taken up the only open file, but couldn't finalize anything. I spent 40 minutes on one move fully coming to terms with this last fact. He was able to buildup his kingside strike at his leisure and then, as the ultimate form of humiliation, left the kingside to rock on loosed hinges, forced me to abandon my queenside residence and broke through on my own wing!
No wins today, then. I now rest at 2.0 of 7.0, and await the bottomfeeders in this shark pool. Sad to say I didn't bring any swimming trunks, either.
But not to be all doleful and drab, here's an uplifting story of how I overcame adversity to win my round last night!
It all started when I received my pairing for the round, proceeded to find my board, and began to rehearse my upcoming chess performance. A softly-spoken, middle-aged gentleman came and took his seat across the table on the board next to mine. It was also the board with a lower number than mine, which declared his higher stature and standing in the event. In any case, a clear sign came that I must be growing my hair too long, because he leaned over the table and quietly inquired, "Are you Jennifer Liu?" ... No. No I am not. Unphased, the man went back to setting up his chess board. His opponent, a young lady by the first name of Jennifer, then came and took her seat.
During the tournament I have grown to feel a certain comradery with the people sitting along my side of the table, and have secretly cheered them on. In this particular game, however, the pressure was being placed on me to maintain our side's performance. The girl I had been mistaken for had been caught in a very passive looking King's Indian Defense and was struggling, while the man on my right side had just swallowed his own blowdart in the Poison Pawn Variation of the French. Add to this the animosity I already felt from the man across the table who believed me to be his female opponent. All in all, I think I was lucky to walk away with my personal identity intact, let alone a point for the wall chart.
Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day, for me and my side of the table.