A great experience @ Thomson CC Chess Club on 31 Aug 2018

So I was covering Mr John Wong, a very experienced local chess coach at Thomson CC chess club. I happened to end work early, opening up earlier than the usual opening hour at 7:30pm. Was surprised to see a chess player from Siglap South CC also joining the Thomson CC chess club. As a young kiddo and new player, I believe he is maximising chess time for his development. Which is good.

After going through the game with him, I was surprised to be identified by a group of teenagers. Apparently, they identified themselves as students of my chess friend and coach, and was told to come here to play with me to gain some experience before the upcoming tournament. Naturally, I obliged. The games aside, I think my friend has coached these kids well. Above all, I was really happy to see the enthusiasm in them. They even lamented that they should not have started playing/learning chess at the late age in secondary school. They just remind me of myself, only that I started chess at an even later age. I was also sharing some tips I have, especially on to target his biggest problem at the moment: lack of experience with non 1.e4 openings =)

I am also quite honest about my own abilities. In terms of hard skills in chess, I am not someone you should learn from (at the moment, I self-rank my opening play as the weakest, followed by endgames and then the middlegame -- and even my middlegame is not "great", it's just not as weak compared to the weaker and weakest phases in the game). But I do feel I have some things fellow beginners can learn from, especially on chess psychology / mentality, "matchup" and the likes.

As usual, I do not identify my opponents but myself. I've learned that some of them do look at my blog to review their games (sometimes they did not record their games). Am glad to be of help/service to fellow chess players, however little it may be =)

Game 1: Kiddo vs newbie_learner



Learning Points / Thoughts:

• If you choose to specialise an opening, you really need to know it well. I understand the kiddo has not met 2...c5 so much, so hopefully, he brings this to his coach to find out how to play against it. I think just play 3.e3 and continue will do. At least, this would be how I treat this.

• I love my choice of 9...Qxc5 instead of 9...Qxf3?! If you know a move is bad, instead of insisting on making the bad move, better find an alternative solution!

• The finish-off was not clinical, but from the point of denying counter-play, I think I did decent.

Game 2: newbie_learner vs Teenager



Learning Points / Thoughts:

• As you can see, my opening play is really not great. 5.h4 is not that good and some flexibility seems lost.

• Overall, I am pleased with the way I applied logic in choosing my moves.

Game 3: newbie_learner vs Teenager

Vast improvement after the coach's guidance. I believe I reached a lost position, just bluffed my way through in the end =) 

Learning Points / Thoughts:

• Really cannot survive long enough to play a proper game without any opening knowledge. Maybe it works at an elementary level of play. But after a while, this just stops a player from making meaningful progress.

• On the bright side, at least I can recognise a problem after making the mistake =) 

• I think it makes sense for me to take a break from the training league. I hope to play good (or at least better) games with some fixing of my glaring shortcomings in my play, especially in the opening phase of the game.