Tournament Preparation

I was away for 4 days and busy catching up on lessons when I got back, so haven't posted in a week, sorry!

With no OTB chess at the moment in New Zealand as we are at Covid Lockdown Level 2 (in the South Island where I live - the North Island is at a higher alert level being 3). We can play club and tournament OTB chess at Level 1 only currently.

That aside, there isn't much organized chess down here in Invercargill, something I am involved with remedying behind the scenes.

So, in order to keep up with competitive chess, I have entered the Asian Amateur Online Chess Championships - these take place in early to mid November - I'll be playing in the Open section, 9 rounds of 15 + 5 chess over 3 evenings, good timing for NZ! so games at 9pm, 10pm and 11pm daily for 3 nights.

The event is being organized by the Asian Chess Federation - New Zealand is part of Oceania which falls under the ACF for chess purposes.

It is open to under 2100 FIDE rated players, with no titled players higher than FM allowed.

Should be fun! or should that that Should be fun....

I have 5 weeks to prepare so working on a plan as I type.

As I am constantly coaching and have been for a while, I am happy with my basics, and with some advanced students I also feel happy that I am doing some good quality game analysis every week.

So what do I feel I need to work on over the next month and a bit?

Openings:

I have recently been learning and testing the Slav Defence. I play a number of openings against 1 d4 - the Dutch and the Chigorin as well as the Queen's Gambit Accepted - now adding the Slav to the mix.

I need to complete my opening work on this opening and the variation I intend to play.

Against 1 e4 I play the Alekhine with the French as a backup. There are still a few variations where I need to learn some very specific lines / move orders - that will be next on the list.

As White I use the London Jobava and the London System proper. I'm quite happy with where I am at with these openings, but will brush up a little on some specific lines.

Middlegames:

A lot of my coaching is based on the middlegame, tactics and strategy/positional ideas, so I will keep that going and up the number of puzzles I do daily.

Endgames:

Not a strength of mine, something I need to work on constantly, and also something that I can only do so much with in 5 weeks. I have a very aggressive style of chess and actually reach very few endgames. Nothing specific planned here, for now.

General

Lots of sleep and rest heading into the event itself, eating and drinking properly during the day so I have high energy levels at night will be the challenge.

I'll refine this and add some specifics, but that's the idea for now! Will keep you posted.