Playing OTB Again for the First Time

Wow. That was interesting. I went to my local club to try out over-the-board chess for the first time since I was a teenager. I started back at chess a year and a half ago, but I don’t have any close friends who play and I avoided the club last year because of the pandemic, so I've had no opportunity to play over the board.

You’re in. Next!

I arrived early so that I could get the lay of the land. The only thing the organizer wanted to know was if I was a member of the Chess Federation of Canada. I am, he found me, and just like that I was in. With nothing else to do and people just milling around, I spent some time playing with one of the clocks to figure out how it works, since I'd never used one before, and then watched one of the pick-up games that was going on. Luckily, this club, like I imagine most clubs in Canada, provides the chess sets and clocks, so no need to bring anything. I know that's also a thing in Europe, but not in the US.

Normally, from what I gleaned from the club's 1990s-era website, the weekday evening session is one rated long game in some tournament that runs over several weeks. Long games are currently 60+30, but they are usually 90+30. I was prepared to play a long game if that's what was on offer, but instead, since it was the first night, they were playing rounds of unrated 10+5. It was incredibly fun.

Game 1

I was the second lowest rated player there based on a provisional quick (think rapid) rating from a tournament I played online when I first got into chess. I think because of that rating and despite there being lots of unrated players, I ended up being paired on board 2 for my first game against the second highest rated player that night, a national master.

I was white and played the Vienna Gambit. It worked well. My opponent was at least thinking and I took them all the way to the end (meaning that I had no pieces left, they promoted to win, and it wasn’t a sudden, unexpected checkmate). At one point, I suddenly realized that I was down two whole pieces. I don’t recall where they went and there’s no handy move list to check out the tactics that were used because quick unrated games aren't recorded.

Game 2

The second game was black against someone who said they just liked to get out of the house. The opening was some variation of the Italian. By the middle of the game, I didn’t see a clear path to winning. They had mad pressure on me. I almost offered a draw. Right at the end, they hung one of their rooks before losing on time. I’ve heard of flagging, but the clock we were using, a DGT 2010, had a big flashing flag that really drove home the point.

Game 3

The last game was white against someone who I’d overheard say he had a 1900 CFC quick rating, which is much higher than my 900 provisional quick rating from over a year ago. They played the French and I went for the exchange variation to avoid a closed positional game. Other than accidentally giving them a piece for free, it went fairly well. I didn’t take them as far as I did the NM, but they said that I hadn’t played badly other than giving away the free piece.

I decided that it was late enough and I’d take my 1/3 record. Not bad for my first foray into OTB chess.

Some thoughts

The crowd

The crowd was interesting. It was a full house. There was no one there that really looked like me. The categories seemed to be retirees or older dedicated chess players, a bunch of people in their twenties almost all men but there were a few women, and a bunch of kids with their parents. Everyone seemed happy to be there, interested in the game, and respectful. In fact, I was surprised at how respectful. The TD and NMs were treated with a deference that was nice to see and completely at odds with the sort of toxic crap you see in in-game chat online (if you forget to turn it off).

Playing in 3D

Playing in real life was a bit surreal. It wasn’t as bad as I expected from a board vision point of view. At the same time, I’ll have to get used to doing analysis from an angle. I didn’t make any obvious blunders, but I didn’t feel as comfortable calculating in 3D in real life as I do in 2D online. I’m certain that’s just a matter of practice.

Etiquette prep helped

The videos and blog posts I’ve watched and read on etiquette were really handy. I got used to using the clock much more quickly than I expected. I got caught by the touch-move rule more than once, but never in an accidental or apocalyptic way.

Here’s one of the videos on in-person etiquette for chess that I found really useful.

https://youtu.be/nyEePPb4at0

Next steps

I will return. I had absolutely no anxiety or stress even in the really hard games. It was just fun and interesting. I’ve got two weeks to try the club out before I have to commit to buying a modestly priced membership. I will likely do that. I’m on the fence about the seven-week tournament that starts next week. It does have an under 1600 section, but I know that I’m going to have to miss at least one week and, as I said, it’s going to take a while to get used to playing in 3D. The club also runs a weekend afternoon session with 10+5 unrated, similar to this session. Maybe I’ll do that and pick up the next tournament.

Photo by Curtis Gregory Perry on Flickr