From the 18th of September to the 26th of September I participated in the U1850 section of the Vienna Championship. I started playing chess online about 4 years ago, however I never got around to play in an OTB event, so this was my first OTB tournament.
My expectation
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from my play and the tournament in general. I have followed a lot of OTB tournaments, but I didn’t now how tournaments for club players are run and about the atmosphere in general.
Another thing I was unsure about was how I would deal with the transition from a 2D to a 3D board. While studying chess in the weeks leading up to the tournament I used a real chessboard to make the transition easier but I was aware that I still missed things which I should see. I was also very much looking forward to playing with a real classical timecontrol (it was 90+30 with 30 minutes added after move 40).
The tournamet
Round 1 wasn’t off to a good start, because I tried to get way too much out of the opening with black and ended up being much worse. But my opponent never took my hanging pawns and got his king trapped in the middle of the board at the end, so I got an unexpected first win. The second round was the opposite, I played well early on and had a much better endgame, but I couldn’t find a way to break through. In the end I carelessly pushed my king up the board and lost a rook, because I stopped thinking for some reason.
Here I played 1.Re6?? I only thought about the replies 1...Bxe6+ and 1...Rf4+
but my opponent simply played 1...Rd5+ and I resigned
My opponent didn’t show up for the next round, so I had more time to forget about my loss and move on. Rounds 4 and 5 were very tough draws for me where I had a much worse position at some point during the game, but I was glad to hold on to the draws.
After round 5, I was on 3/5 but I wasn't happy with my play. I was too cautious and missed too many moves of my opponents. So I thought a lot about my tournament so far and decided that I should play more aggressively in round 6 to win a game again. My initial attempt at an attack didn’t lead to a real advantage, but it weakened my opponent’s king and in the end I manged to win the game because of the weak king. I was very happy with my win and in round 7 I played my best game of the tournament.
After the wins in round 6 and 7, I was in shared 3rd place, 1 point behind the joint leaders. I played one of them in round 8 and drew, even though I should have lost a pawn but my opponent didn't take it. In the final round my opponent overlooked that he had hung a pawn and resigned immediately after.
In the end, I finished in 3rd place of the U1850 section. Overall I had a great time at the tournament and will definitely play more OTB in the future.
Conclusion
I am happy with the result, but my play could have been better. In general, I have learned a lot of things and found some issues with my play in general:
- I don’t feel like I go deep enough into critical positions
- I spend too much time double checking my moves
- I don't think enough in much better positions
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