A little background:
I know it’s silly to be concerned so much about ratings, but I can't help it. I finally managed to get my rating above the floor albeit by just 6 points. But I had the possibility of getting it even higher because I am currently playing in two local events:
Event 1 – Event ends Oct/17th
Game 1
Win 1250
Game 2
Win 1550
Game 3
Win 1900
Game 4
Win 1600
Event 2 Event ends Oct/18th
Game 1
loss 1900
Game 2
Draw 1800
Game 3 Loss 1733 - The game I am taking about.
When you are close to your floor the order in which the events get rated is important. For instance If I have 1 bad and 1 good performance. If the bad one gets rated first, I get to keep the points form the good one, but if the good one gets rated first I don’t. In this situation I have the latter case. (Event 2 has an official end date of 10/18 although I played the game yesterday)
Mistakes and other observations I made in this
game:
1) I got over-confident after getting a great position. Mentally, I had already marked a 1 in the win column pretty early in the game.
2) When confronted with an unexpected move (
20 ..Qe5) I panicked and did not look hard enough for a refutation. I should have done what Jose Gatica recommends in these situations - Walk away from the board so you can mentally adjust. With
21. Qd3 I am still winning. But this 2 move sequence
Qd3, Qd4 is very hard to find in time trouble.
3) Did not look hard enough for tactics
15. B x c6 wins.
4) I was taking to Jose Gaticca about me getting into time trouble often. The obseravation he made is that becuase I am not tactically up to par, I take too long thinking about tactcal posibilties (even then I miss things). To really improve I have to train myself tactically so the ideas come to me without having to spend too much time. To address this issue, I am currently reading a book that Tim Crouse recomended. The is book called
Understanding Chess Tactics . This book does a great job in breaking down tactical ideas.
5) What I was thinking just before/after the blunder.
"Can the Queen get out of the pin and cover all the knight escape routes" I didn't look hard enough and did not find
20 ..Qe5. So when he played it I panicked. What's ironic is that although there is such a square it still does not work becaouse of
21. Qd3, so my initial assessment was correct after all!
"There was such a square, now I am lost"
"I should have not played Nxb5"
"I should have just put pressure on the c pawn"
What I should have been thinking:
"Okay I didn't expect 20 ..Qe5, don't panic, calm down, look for a refutation" If I had done that I would probably have found 21. Qd3
The number of actual points I lose for this loss depends on the result of my round four game in the other event. According to my calculations:
Win 1854 1828 26
Draw 1831 1800 25
Loss 1818 1800 18
Column 2 Rating after good event
Column 3 Rating after bad event
Column 4 number of points this game cost.
Douglas M Forsythe - Organizer and TD
These are some of the tournaments I am looking at playing in:
I thought that the isolated pawn would be a liability, but I think that my active pieces compensate for this and White should be fine. I lost this game because of the move 17. Nh7, for a moment I forgot that rooks can move horizontally too!
First place winner 
chess social
Andrew Karklins 2311
