My Worst Tournament Ever

I once played in a 6-round G/10 tournament where I lost all six games, but I was the lowest-rated player there so the result was disappointing but not unexpected. No, my Worst Tournament Ever was at the David Mote Memorial in Springfield, Illinois on March 3, 2018. I hadn't played an over-the-board rated game in nine years but I had resumed playing and studying chess about a year earlier and was ready to resume tournament competition. The time control was G/60 d/5, considered a long control by internet standards but fast compared to most OTB tournaments or the 45/45 control I use in my online games.

Game One

Narava, Gopala Krishna (Unr) - Eaton, Thomas T. (1352)

My first game matched me up against an unrated opponent. He was White and opened with the London System. At the time, I had never seen it before and didn't have anything prepared against it. I responded to the opening okay in terms of the moves I played, but I got way behind on the clock as my opponent blasted out his first five or ten moves in no more than a minute or two while I was trying to figure things out on the spot.

One of the problems with reading a scoresheet from an OTB game is that you don't have any record of the relative clock times which leaves out a lot of the full story of what happened, particularly when time trouble becomes a concern, as it did this time. I was being particularly careful to take my time and avoid blundering as this was my primary weakness that I was working on at the time. I blundered anyway on my 23rd move and I realized my mistake after I moved but fortunately he didn't see it, so the game went on.

Somewhere around this point (it's hard to remember exactly) I realized that I had less than five minutes left on my clock. I had to start moving faster or I would lose on time. The five-second delay is better than nothing but if I let my clock run down too much I would either lose on time or blunder the game away trying to avoid it. It was here that I made a terrible mistake. For those unfamiliar with the rules of OTB tournament chess, both players are obligated to record the moves of the game, but if your clock runs down under five minutes you can stop. I knew about this rule but figured it didn't matter very much, it only took a second or two to write down the moves so I just kept doing it. Bad idea.

My opponent blundered and gave me a winning position, but my clock situation was critical and like a complete moron I was trying to force checkmate with only a few seconds left but was still distracting myself and taking unnecessary time by writing down all the moves. I nearly managed it but didn't, and my clock ran out on my 34th move.

Game Two

My second game saw me paired up as White against an opponent rated 695. I thought this would be a fairly easy bounce back for me as players rated around that level typically make many very bad tactical blunders, just hanging pieces and stuff like that. So I figured if I was patient that would happen, I'd take the material and win. It didn't turn out that way.

Eaton, Thomas T. (1352) - Kafer, Tori Elizabeth (695)

My record of the game is not complete. I learned my lesson from the first game and when my clock fell under five minutes I stopped recording the moves. Even the last ten or fifteen moves listed above were reconstructed from my opponent's scoresheet after the game, but I didn't have time to get the rest because as soon as our game finished it was time for the next round.

So what happened at the end? I lost my last pawn and was in a lost position, and even worse my clock eventually ticked down to 0:02 so it looked like I would lose on time again if I didn't just lose on the board. But somehow I was able to continue making solid moves within the five-second time delay and eventually my opponent blundered her last pawn, leaving rook and king against rook and king. This is of course an obvious draw but because of my clock situation my opponent played on for awhile hoping I would overstep the time control. I didn't, and eventually the rooks were also exchanged so the game was drawn.

In terms of the relative ratings this was an awful result for me, but I was in such trouble at the end that I was lucky I didn't lose. My tournament went so badly that the fact that I was able to hold a draw in severe time trouble in a lost position against a player rated about 650 points below me was my most significant achievement of the day. Credit to my opponent, who played a much better game than would be expected of a player at that rating level.

Game Three

Narava, Akshith (963) - Eaton, Thomas T. (1352)

My next game started more or less immediately. I was Black and White played another London System. Needless to say I had not prepared a response to the London since losing my first game, so I muddled through again. I don't remember the clock being a significant issue this time, though I imagine I was behind on the clock just because the London allows the White player to bang out his first few moves immediately almost no matter what Black plays.

I lost the game on a blunder on my 26th move when I hung a piece. Unlike my previous two games where I got poor results but was more confused than angry afterward, this time I was mad. I did the one thing I was absolutely trying to avoid--an obvious, catastrophic blunder. As a Class D player I expect to blunder somewhere along the line in most games, but it's one thing to miss a two or three move tactic and quite another to just hang a piece. I thought I was better than that. I had one more round to play, but regardless of my last game my tournament was officially a disaster. I thought the recent work on my game had made me better, but the results were telling me I was getting worse. A lot worse.

Game Four

I had to play one more game. I was Black against an opponent rated 618 and faced yet another London System. I played Black three times in the tournament and faced a London in all three games.

Villa, Girish (618) - Eaton, Thomas T. (1352)

This time the game went more like I expected the earlier games to: my opponent made seemingly random moves and overlooked simple pins and forks. He gave me all his pieces so I took them, and eventually he resigned.

Epilogue

While the last round result meant that I could say I won at least one game, there was no sense of accomplishment because I didn't have to do anything. Just to top off the day, as I drove out of town to head home I went through a drive-thru where I was the only customer in line, waited fifteen minutes for my food, and found that they had messed up my order.

In a mere four games I lost 91 rating points. I hadn't even known it was possible to lose that many points in so few games. It's more than three years later and I haven't gained them back.

I did have some observations or things I could work on. One, I needed to either move faster or only join tournaments with a longer time control. Two, it's hard to notice things on a regulation board when you're used to playing online and watching a screen. Three, stop keeping score when I have less than five minutes left. Four, learn a defense against the London System.