Chicago Chess Center 5th Jane Addam Day 1

The Jane Addam's tournament was my first venture back into otb (over the board) chess. It was a two day tournament hosted by the Chicago Chess Center.

I participated in the U1300 section. To be honest, I felt my rating was higher that what it was when I last got it rated (852). But I wasn't sure how much higher. I debated signing up for the U1500. But I figure for my first tournament back, might want to play it safe.

The tournament for the U1300 section consisted of 6 rounds over two days. Each game was a 60+5 format.

Saturday

I was super nervous first day. Stress from work prevented me from getting enough sleep. And nervous prevented me from eating as much as I should. But I went into it optimistic. I knew I was going to try my hardest, but just told myself that as long as I left the tournament with a rating improvement, I could call it a win.

Round 1

The first round I actually got a bye. Luckily, they let members of different sections pair up for rated matches if they received byes. I got paired up with someone who was from the U1700 section. Luckily I didn't know this going into the match. Otherwise, I would have been much more nervous than I was.

My opponent opened with e4. With black I have been finding success with the Caro-Kann. Things went smoothly out of the opening.

Reviewing the engine, I had a couple of inaccuracies. But at my rating level I am shooting for no blunders, so I am fine with that. My mistake came at move 11, when I went with 11. ..Qb6.

The engine didn't flag the blunder until move 15. But my idea that led to the mistake started there. My goal was to relieve myself of the pin from Bg5. I figured that move would put me down a pawn. But I thought my queen could pickup pawn on B2 later. This put my queen into dangerous territory. And after 15. Be3 Qc3 16. Rc1 ended the game. The pin allowed him to pick up the bishop. After that, it was a slow squeeze to end the game.

It was a good introduction back into the otb play. And my opponent was super nice, offering to do a post mortem.

You can see my full analysis with inline comments on chess.com

Round 2

I went into the secon round with more confidence. I had one game under my belt, and I had the white pieces.

Similar to the first game, things went smoothly through the opening. My oponent took a more passivie position fianchetto-ing the bishop. I was able to develop freely in the center.

The first mistakes were on move 7. I pushed 7. e5 to threaten the knight and open up the file. Hist mistake was dropping back the knight with 7. ..Nfd7. I think he assumed I would take the pawn instead of the move 8. e6. After going through the engine later I was happy to see it was the best move. He would be forced to take or let my pawn get to the 7th rank. And after I would have a check with the Bishop and it would be on a strong square.

From there the moves I had all felt natural. A couple moves I was proud of were 11. d4 and 17. Qd4+. 11. d4 mostly because I feel like it adheared well to the opening principles. I expanded in the middle while simultaneously threatening the knight on e5. I also opened up the file for the black bishop. 17. Qd4+ because I knew after the bishop trade, it would allow me to get my queen on the h file for another check. The engine flagged it as the best move.

From there it was pretty standard for both sides. No major mistakes. I only have logged up to move 28 because I started getting low on time. but from there I started pushing pawns. We traded off rooks. Eventually I got to a point where he didn't see a way for me to get a promotion based on sacking my bishop and distracting his knight. I was up a queen at the end, but he made me prove the win by playing it out till the end.

Full analysis on chess.com.

Round 3

Round was one of the toughest of the event for me. Lack of sleep and not preparing enough food wise drained me.

Similar to the other games, my opening wa solid. I went with the Caro-Kann which has been my standard recently.

The first bump in the road was when my opponent played 10. Bxh7+. I didn't see the sack. I contemplated taking the bishop, but after the queen would end up taking my bishop on g4, I wasn't able to calculate further as to see if there was a forced mate. So I took what I thought was a safer route, and just side stepped, and played down the pawn.

From there my opponent slowly kept pressing. I made a couple more mistakes. Luckily my opponent did as well when he took my knight at 21. Nxh6. I think he would have been better off with Bxf5. This would have ruined my pawn structure.

He made a second mistake when he sacked his bishop on 25. Bh7+. I could tell his plan was to pick up the knight after it was pinned with his pawn. I don't think that he realized that I could push the g pawn, and be completely fine with my king using his pawn as a shield.

From there I was able to push my g pawn through. He had several opportunities to capture with his h pawn. He also opted for pushing his h pawn past my g pawn. He made one more mistake when trying to run with his king, by blocking the rook from threatening the g pawn. From there I was able to go 36. Kg2 g3. From there I was able to get my pawn in, and I just had to much bearing down on the king. I was able to force a checkmate with the promotion.

Full game analysis on chess.com.

Final Thoughts

I was super happy with my first day. I lost the first game, but it didn't go towards the tournament standings. So I was at a 3/3 going into the second day. All my oponents were super nice, so I was looking forward to going into day two.

I will follow up with another post on day two soon.