The Black Bird Strikes

Hello again! After another successful tournament, I am here with another article. I have never written an article of this type, so this will be a new experience for me. Let's get right into it.

Tournament Summary

It was played with a blitz time control, and I decided I would not rely on algorithm usage for this tournament as it is difficult to always follow a constant line of thought when you don't have enough time. The first 3 rounds went smoothly, but in the fourth round, I missed a tactical sequence allowing my opponent to take my queen for 2 pieces. Luckily, seeing that I just took my opponent's bishop, he instantly recaptured and missed the in-between discovered check. After winning that shaky game, the competition was tough. The games lasted longer, and I was playing against higher-rated players (my blitz rating is much lower than my classical rating). But I managed to stay undefeated, gained more than 50 rating points and won the tournament.

Training...

My training mostly featured game playing. I played more than 20 blitz games the day before the event. Apart from playing, I brushed up my opening lines the day before the event. I used slightly tricky and non-convectional lines with white and my normal repertoire with black. Practicing puzzle storm helped me with quick pattern recognition which is vital in blitz.

• Openings with the white pieces - Morphy gambit against Sicilian, Vienna game against King's Pawn game, Mainline against Caro-kann
• Openings with the black pieces - Caro-kann, Queen's gambit accepted

If you are interested in learning any of the above openings, send me a message on Lichess and I'll be pleased to share my fully analyzed PGN files with you.

Playing strategy

As I said before, I wasn't using an algorithmic approach for this tournament. So the thought process was based on positional feel. If I felt like the position required calculation, I would calculate for about 5-6 seconds. If I felt like I should pressure my opponent on the clock, I would play faster. If I felt like the position required positional decision-making, I would consider the positional factors of the position. It takes time for this kind of random thought to come to a level that would give fruitful outcomes. That is why I am looking for an algorithmic approach with my fellow believers. I don't want learning chess to be this difficult. But blitz chess is different. It requires the chess knowledge to be in your bones rather than your brain. Luckily for me, the knowledge and experience I had accumulated by playing chess for the past years paid off in this event.

What I learned from this event...

• Focus - Classical chess requires you to focus for a long time, but it doesn't have to be consistent. But blitz is completely different. Blitz doesn't require you to focus for more than 10 minutes, but your focus has to be consistent. Time is of the essence and all your focus has to be directed towards the game to find practically good moves faster. Keep your mind disciplined and be in a state of peace where no other thoughts or emotions enter your mind.
• Pattern recognition is more important in blitz than it is in classical. In classical, even if you haven't seen a certain tactical pattern before, you might come up with it over the board through calculations. But in blitz where you don't have time to calculate deeper, knowing the tactical patterns can have an immense impact on your gameplay.
• The less focus you have on the reward, the easier it'll be to reach it. Your focus should be directed towards the path to success, not the final fruit. In other words, "With one eye fixed on the destination, there is only one left to guide you along the journey" (Robin Sharma - The Monk who sold his Ferrari). Even in my last game, I knew I had to negotiate with myself to only focus on the game in front of me rather than thinking about what I would be doing when I won. I was extremely hard to negotiate with, but I succeeded right before the round started.

Final thoughts...

This is an event I enjoyed the most. I met a lot of my old friends, we had fun, the venue was great, and most of all, I learned a lot. These kinds of events are a huge boost to my confidence, and they inspire me to continue my hard work. That's it for today, and see you in my next article!