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So, after 5 rounds I had 3.5 points and, taking into account the the line-up, decent chances for overall victory. But at this very stage I had to face two juniors who have somehow magically improved their skills by a few hundred points for this event. I have played recently against the first of them and haven't noticed much chess skill on his behalf. However, in this tournament he performed overwhelmingly well.

Usually Dvoryadkin plays 1.d4, so I was surprised after seeing 1.å4. It became clear that he is trying to exploit the fact that I have become too predictable lately playing the Dragon all the time. The only question was: what did his coach show him?

In this well familiar to me position I took a long think:


Black to move

I am sure he knows the variations after Nf5 and a queen sacrifice (11..Nf5 12.ef Bf6 13.Nd5 Qd5 14.Qd5 Ne3 15.Qd2 Nd1 16.Qd1 Be6, etc.). White is better there. Maybe I should play the computer-style Nf3? This is an interesting idea, but White still has some advantage. Ok, let's try to keep things complicated by opting for Nc6.

I would also like to note that I forgot the lines with Nf5 without the queen sacrifice as I didn't go over my opening prep for quite a long time.

At move 15 the following situation occurred:


Black to move

Psychology came into play here. I have been analyzing this position for White and keeping track of dubious continuations for Black. Therefore, it was very hard for me not to blunder by recalling the wrong line. After all, instead of trading twice on d5 with a more or less equal endgame, I made two awful moves in a row: 15…b5? 16.Bb3 Na5?? At this point White had to make the first decision in the game. Winning was 17.Qb4!, underescoring the lame knight on a5 and overall discoordination of the Black's pieces. My opponent didn't see it and settled for 17.Nb6?

After a few exchanges:


Black to move

If you ask a chess engine's evaluation, it will tell you that Black is doing fine. However, any strong player will notice that Black doesn't have a sensible plan, while White can create serious problems for his opponent by simply pushing the pawns on the kingside. Probably, if you play like a 3100, this can be saved. However, for a human holding this position is a tough experience.

I wasn't defending well enough and ended up in the following position:

 
Black to move

Black looks strategically lost, but I have demonstrated a clear lack of understanding. Wishing to get my king to the center without being attacked by White's pieces, I played Rd8?. After an exchange of rooks Black has no chances whatsoever - White marches up with the king and pushes the pawns. 1-0 in just 9 moves. 

In the next round I was paired against another junior rated just 1872. A friend of mine warned me that he doesn't know anything about chess. His latest tournament result (1 out of 6 against a 1900+ opposition) also didn't look intimidating. However, at this event he went on to beat players rated  2012, 2198, 2139, 2010 and has shown very mature and precise play. Given his indifferent face during the prize-giving ceremony (he won the tournament) and all the recent paranoia revolving around cheating, even I became suspicious. Who knows, who knows...


White to move

In this position I became a victim of my chess stereotypes: I was expecting to play Rf3-g3 and g5, sacrifice a piece on h6 and launch a successful attack. A more experienced player would have been concerned about the fate of the light-squared bishop and would have tried Bd1-Bf3-Bd5. A tactical shot for Black (Bd3) is not really a threat since the pawn on d6 will fall after that. Instead I played Rf3?!, allowing Black to seize the initiative.

In a few moves I felt that my position has become seriously worse:


White to move

Here White had to put up a last stand after 24.g5 Rf1 25.Rf1 Qf1 26.Kh2 h5 27.Bd1 – no joy, but the game goes on. This variation seemed so disgusting to me that I played an even worse move -  24.Qc1? and lost rather quickly.

For those who enjoy watching helpless people get kicked with iron boots:


White to move


28.Bf2? [28.Rg3 d5-+] 28...Re2 29.Re1 Rfxf2 30.Rxg6 Qf7 31.Rxe2 Rf1+ 32.Kh2 Qxg6 33.d4 Qh5+ 34.Kg3 d5+ 35.Re5 Bxe5+ 36.dxe5 Qxe5+ 0–1

To be continued…

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According to both common wisdom and studies, the chess mastery of a player strongly depends on the number of games he has played in his life. Let’s take a look at the list of some of the top chess talents in history – those who became GM before age 15 and proceeded to cross the 2700 mark.

 
A few quick observations:

1)      The numbers can’t be directly compared since players had different initial ratings. For example, Caruana obtained an initial rating of 2032 and crossed the 2700 mark after 837 more games, while Ponomariov started at 2350 and improved to 2700+ in 376 games. Of course, Ruslan must have been playing in strong non-rated tournaments to make it to 2350, but there is no publicly available data on this.

2)      Caruana’s and Carlsen’s initial ratings were close: 2032 and 2064. Carlsen took 200 less games to improve to 2700+ than Caruana: 637 vs 837.

3)      If we calculate the median number of rated games it takes a top chess talent to reach 2700, it will be about 650 (between Carlsen’s 637 and Bacrot’s 684). Therefore, if you are not 2700+ and haven’t played that many games yet, you have an excuse in the form of lack of experience.

4)      Anish Giri seems to have the best ratio of games/result. In just 488 games he went from 2112 to 2701 – quite an impressive achievement. However, what matters is the final result, not the means via which it was achieved. Obviously, the study/play ratio is not the same for the players.

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