Actual Rating Anxiety

The Hollywood ending to my post Imaginary Rating Anxiety about attempting to cross 1600 in my first OTB league season would have been crossing 1600.

So you can imagine the disappointment I felt when I crossed 1600 in the first game I played after I published.

Whilst the first article was about the number next to my name being important only to me, the number became terrifyingly significant as the league season drew to a close. My club picks teams based on players' internal rating.

A place on the newly promoted Team 3 was up for grabs, could I take one of the spots?

It was going to be tight.

GAME 11 - 20

After a rocky start in my first ten games, I had managed to claw my way up to 30th in the league table. But the higher up the table I climbed the stronger my opponents were. I started to get some challenging opponents for my level. In fact I didn’t face a single opponent under 1600 in my next ten games.

I actually wrote a detailed breakdown of each game but decided that that article just wasn’t very interesting and that the narrative of the race for the Team 3 places was more exciting.

Here are the highlights from those bouts: I crossed 1600 on game 11, I continued my incredible form getting 3 draws against 1800+ opponents and a win against a rating pear. This brought me to a peak rating of 1672. Then I got knocked around a bit losing 3 games to tough opposition, with a final draw against another rating peer.

And now to the exciting bit.

THE RACE FOR TEAM 3

I initially thought that my club picked their teams to compete in the Dutch Chess League based on the league table in which I sat 23rd at this point. But when I found out players were picked not on league position but on rating, the rating anxiety became real.

For context our club sets player ratings at the start of the season according to players KNSB (Dutch Federation) ratings at that time. KNSB ratings are roughly equivalent to FIDE. But the internal ratings were not updated mid-season when both FIDE and KNSB adjusted their ratings to account for inflation. So for context we are talking about the old numbers here.

The situation after my second ten games had myself and five other players within a handful of points of each other in the mid-1600’s, with one exception which we will get to. There was a bit of a gap above us and a bit below. This meant that two players in the running were going to miss out on a spot on Team 3.

Five players. Three spots. Four of those players were part of the “Yusopov Group” that meets at my house every Sunday. Four of those players were my friends. All of us really wanted to be on the team.

What followed was psychologically brutal for all of us.

We all wanted the spots.

We were all friends.

And we were going to have to tear each other apart to get them.

BRAM THE EXCEPTIONAL EXCEPTION

There are eight players on each team. The first five spots were practically confirmed before the run-in with the lowest rated player in the mid 1700’s. The trailing pack fighting for the other three spots were all mid 1600’s with the exception of Bram.

Spot 6 Simon - 1673
Spot 7 Nikos - 1673
Spot 8 Steve - 1647
Missing Out Ono (me) - 1631
Missing Out Bram - 1566

Now one of the things that makes this so interesting is my good friend Bram in the missing out spot. Bram was my opponent from game 6. Remember him? 1900 Chess.com, lost his first seven, yes SEVEN league games in a row. And since then?

Won 12, Drawn 1, Lost 0.

Bram got his shit together and has become an unstoppable cement truck just ploughing his way through the chess club, flattening everyone in his path. He picked up some big scalps on this run too, beating the 2022 club championship runner-up along the way.

So it is assumed Bram is going to keep climbing and will take one of the spots. But he faces two big challenges - he is in a race against time - there are only five games left and... Bram’s wife is due to give birth in just over a month. So providing he can keep his form going and his wife can hold the baby in, he should make it, but they are both big ifs.

As you can see from the text I recieved below, Bram is a chess player and has his priorities straight.

GAME 1

I’m going into this feeling like it’s a must win.

I’ve got the black pieces against Simon. He was one of my three defeats in my first ten games.

I’m stressed out before the game because I’m so tired. Coming up on dinner time, I explain to my son that I know he wants to play Lego with me, but he’s just going to have to deal with a couple of episodes of Bluey so I can sneak in a wee nap.

That sorted me right out.

My wife asked why I was so quiet at dinner. I explained the importance of the game to her.

That it was win at all costs.

She rolled her eyes. Apparently I think every game is win at all costs.

So here is why it really was win at all costs:

If I lose, Simon gets close to the 1700 mark and probably becomes uncatchable - he’ll make the team. If I lose I’m going to slip back perilously close to the cut off and the shadow of the oncoming cement truck that is Bram.

The atmosphere is a bit weird before the game. Simon’s my friend. I want him to make Team 3. But I want to be on the team with him too. And here I am knowing that to keep my own chances alive I need to take the certainty of his making the team away from him.

I said in my last post that I liked to look my opponents in the eyes, but I really didn’t want to look anywhere near him in this game. I decided to reserve my death stare for opponents I didn’t know so well.

Anyway, despite knowing he’ll probably read this I need to give my honest thoughts on the game.

I think I benefited from my own reputation in this one. I’m known to be solid and boring and good at endgames relative to my rating peers. That’s Ono. And Simon might know me and my chess better than anyone at the club. And I wonder if that is why in the following game, after my usual theoryless opening disaster, Simon played Nxf7 on move 11.

It looks like it spices things up, but I didn’t buy it. We ended up in an endgame that Simon was arguing was better for him due to his passed d-pawn. I evaluated it as better for me due to the number of weaknesses white has, my extra piece and the fact the passed d-pawn can be permanently blockaded.

I won this particular argument.

In other round 33 news, Bram (the cement truck) ran over Steve in a sharp opening.

Nikos lost to a tough opponent.

Things were starting to tighten up with just four rounds left to play.

Spot 6 - Simon 1655 (-18)
Spot 7 - Nikos 1654 (+16)
Spot 8 - Ono (me) 1651 (+20)
Missing Out - Steve 1629 (-18)
Missing Out - Bram 1584 (+18)

GAME 2

I walked into the club and two of my friends, Leon (who is too high rated to be part of this drama) and Bram (the aforementioned cement truck) are smiling at me in a way that's quite disconcerting. I frown at them. I hang up my jacket. I take my water bottle out of my bag. I check the pairings.

Fuck.

I’m playing Bram.

I’m playing the cement truck.

The game was, like our first game, absolutely wild.

I’ll include the whole game below.

There was much more going on than it seemed. And I felt like I had my head on the chopping block for most of the game. But Bram put his axe down on move 25.

He offered me a draw.

I was confused.

I’m down a pawn.

Winning isn’t easy, sure, but it has to be tried. I have a clock advantage of 35 minutes to Bram’s 20 sure, but there seems little risk in continuing. Am I that feared in the endgame?

Surely not.

And, I have a rule.

I never ever accept a draw offer.

I think turning the draw down gives you a psychological edge. And so when he offered one. I almost immediately rejected it because that's my rule. But my position was rubbish, so I paused. I sat and I thought about it. I realised a draw was about the best I could possibly hope for. I could consider h5 and h6 but f6 at some point cut short any ideas of me creating a passed h-pawn and any hope of counter play.

I stopped the clock. I shook his hand. I took the draw and immediately told him that even though I was worse I wanted to keep playing.

He told me he was pretty sure he was about to throw up.

That explained the draw offer.

Who says there is no such thing as luck in chess?

So we skipped the post mortem and I got a nice text in the morning detailing exactly how Bram had thrown up on the way home.

With other results working in his favour, Bram had still crept closer to the Team 3 spot.

And I had been saved by some dodgy prawns.

The big lesson for me in this game came in the opening. I was out of book on move 3, and I wish I could say that was the first time it had happened since my previous post. Time and time again I was getting worse positions out of the opening or spending a lot of time when my opponents were clearly still in book.

So over the next week I got really into openings. I bought a Chessbook Pro membership and used it to craft my own custom opening repertoire. I made my choices on Chessbook in conjunction with GM Keith Arkell’s repertoire, Stockfish, the Lichess Database for my rating band and my own personal preferences to craft a custom indestructible repertoire and I grinded.

Using Chessbook, I decided that when I came to the line Bram played against me (known as the Lazard Gambit) I made the same choice as I did in the game, despite it being a poorer choice acording to the engine.

By taking the free pawn with Nxe5, stockfish evaluates the position as +0.7. Playing my choice stockfish says the position is +0.1.

However the logic behind not taking the pawn during the game mimics my thinking now. If I take the pawn my opponent is still in book, he probably has a Chessable course on it. And I’m all alone holding my extra pawn in one hand and a confused look in the other.

The statistics in the Lichess database somewhat confirm this. My move cxd4 has a higher win rate for white than taking the pawn does. I imagine this has to do with familiarity for the player with the black pieces when the pawn is taken rather than the evaluation.

Finally by playing cxd4 Qxd4, dxe5 - the queen trade is almost guaranteed statistically and that is where my strengths lie relative to my rating peers.

For me, my opening choices should get me into a position I am comfortable in and understand rather than one which offers the greatest advantage according to the engine.

So that was a lesson from this game which I used to help build the rest of my repertoire. It also turned out to have some interesting consequences for the next game.

In other results Nikos won. Simon was sick and stayed home. And Steve drew.

Spot 6 - Nikos 1664
Spot 7 - Simon 1655
Spot 8 - Ono 1651
Missing Out - Steve 1631
Missing Out - Bram 1587

GAME 3

I’ve spent the whole week on Chessbook building and drilling a personalised repertoire. I feel fantastic, like the biggest gap in my knowledge is finally being shored up. Forget the opening principles, I’m packing theory now. And whilst I might be three-and-a-half years late to the opening theory party, I get it now.

Opening study is clearly the crack cocaine of the adult chess world.

And I’m hooked.

I sank more hours into chess study that week than any previous week ever probably. I’m going through lines on the toilet, between lessons, during lunch, I’m running them in my sleep. I can’t get enough.

So I sit down full of confidence to my next game.

I’ve got black. d4 on the board. I play the semi-tarrasch. And so we’re in a semi-tarrasch. I blast through the opening in seconds, fresh from a week of memorisation. I don’t need to think yet. Brain disengaged. My hands are playing the moves for me.

Muscle memory baby.

I’m unstoppable.

And then I stop.

Hold on a second.

The semi-tarrasch, unlike the straight-up tarrasch (to which it should clearly be renamed), is an opening designed to avoid having to play with the IQP, and my repertoire (which I had picked myself) had no lines in which I ended up with one. So you can imagine my confusion when I finally engage my brain on move 7 and realise I’m about to have an IQP. It’s unavoidable.

I’m annoyed. I don't like playing IQP positions on this side.

I feel cheated. Hours and hours of opening work and here I am fucked out of the opening again, in classic Ono style. Ah well, maybe I need more than a week to fix three and half years of opening neglect.

Lesson learned though. Learn opening theory. But never stop thinking. I could have actually had a big advantage in this game out of the opening, if I had realised I was no longer in book after the mistake my opponent made on move 6 with Qxd4. But I wasn't thinking, I was just doing.

Like I’ve had to do in many games this season I fought back from a bad opening position to a drawn endgame. But unlike some of the other games I didn’t hold this one. We had a 4v3 on one side of the board. Knight against bishop. I had the bishop and my opponent had the extra pawn. He had the on paper advantage in these two factors, but I was holding.

Unfortunately my untangle from the opening had cost me time. My opponent had me sweating, playing on the 10 second increment against his 40 plus minutes. Fair play to him. I held and held and held until I blundered. I alllowed a fork which forced the minor pieces off into a lost pawn endgame.

This was a brutal one. To claw my way back. To survive and survive until the point where I was basically out of danger and could simply sit and wait.

And to make matters worse, results elsewhere didn’t go my way.

Another win for the cement truck. And incredibly Nikos had the reigning club champion and league leader begging for a draw which he took even though the win was within grasp. I don’t blame him though. A big result. Simon lost. Steve drew.

Nikos 1674
Simon 1645
Ono 1639
Steve 1631
Bram 1607

GAME 4 + 5ish

It’s hard as a writer to write what comes next. I want to deliver the dramatic finish. But I have to deliver the truth, which isn’t always as dramatic as fiction.

Bram’s wife gave birth.

Congratulations buddy.

Game four comes around.

I lost.

Steve lost.

Simon lost.

Nikos, got another draw not off of the club champion, but off another 2000ish player who had won the club championship several times.

It ultimately left me in Team 3.

But there was one round left to play.

Bram wasn’t playing on account of his newborn. Steve wasn’t playing on account of a wedding.

And they were the only two people who could catch me.

So to make Team 3 all I had to do was... not lose. But then it occured to me I could guarantee not losing by... not playing.

A draw or win would’ve seen me hold my place.

A loss and I was out.

What would you have done?

Scotland were, on the very same evening taking on Switzerland in Euro 2024 - my country's second major tournament in my lifetime.

So I could've played chess, or I could've watched the game.

I won’t tell you what I picked.

I’ll only say that next season, I’ll be playing for Team 3 in the Dutch League. I squeezed in on the bottom board - board 8.

And that is all that matters.

Next Season

I'm still going to be throwing out my usual posts from time to time, but over the next season I plan to write a bit more about my games - particularly the games I'll be playing for Team 3 next year. It's going to be exciting to play real competitive chess against other teams and I can't wait to share the stories, triumphs and tribulations with you here.

So look out for those posts.

Thanks for reading.

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