Photo courtesy of Charlotte Chess Center
The Charlotte Chess Center has been consistently hosting strong IM and GM Norm Invitationals since 2016, and the recent May 2022 CCC Norm Invitational (their 27th!) was once again the site of my most recent venture into over the board play. We’ve been here before, so let’s jump right into the action.
This time around there was to be an even balance of sections: two GM Norm and two IM Norm, and I was placed in IM section C. While there was no great difference in objective strength between the two sections, I was still happy to be paired “up” this time around. With only two players lower rated than myself I knew it would be a challenge, but I felt ready.
ROUND 1
Round 1 saw a fairly lackluster start on the whole, but fortunately I was the exception rather than the rule. I was playing John Fawole, a popular and well-known FM from Nigeria who had won the National Championship in the past. Not necessarily an easy pairing by any means, but considering that he was one of the two players lower rated than myself, I was definitely out for blood, even with the black pieces.
He opened with 1. e4. Apparently not a particularly surprising piece of information, but this game turned out to be the only time he opened with the king’s pawn! His insipid play in the 6. Be2 Najdorf allowed me to achieve the key freeing break …d5, as he was not in time to prevent it. After only 15 moves I was clearly better, but instead of keeping control of the position, I tried to force matters. Never a good idea in a superior position, unless there is a forced win …
As it turned out, I had miscalculated a key possibility quite badly and, somewhat due to panic, not only gave up the advantage, but passed it over to my opponent. Fortunately, he missed his chance, and the game became very balanced. It was here that the psychology factor came in. I was down to twenty minutes in the clock, while he still had over fifty. I made a conscious decision to play good, solid moves fairly quickly and pray that he would unnecessarily press for the win, perhaps only seeing my clock. My strategy worked to perfection!
He threw his kingside pawns at me without much thought and, still at a fairly fast tempo, I played a series of natural moves that completely refuted his concept. There was still some fight left, but by the time he paused to take a look at the ruins that were previously his kingside cover the end was close at hand.
There was only one other victor in this round, with all other games being drawn, though not necessarily in peaceful fashion. After my game finished Fawole seemed especially unhappy with the loss, complaining to the arbiter that some undefined “mannerisms” of mine had somehow distracted him, making it so he “couldn’t think.” In light of his considerable time advantage for most of the game and the fact that these claims were asserted after the game’s conclusion (and without substantiation), they didn’t seem to hold much water. The arbiter agreed. Still, it’s always a bit surprising when this sort of thing happens. In a later round, Fawole also griped about his young opponent’s frequent piece adjustments, but this time at least he voiced his concern during play.
To his credit, Fawole seemed to make amends for his heat-of-the-moment complaints later on, congratulating me on a win and shaking my hand in the hotel lobby. I appreciated the friendly gesture from a senior player … as far as I can tell, no chess player relishes defeat and we all know that sometimes it’s easier to remain unruffled than others. I’ve certainly had a few instances of behavior at the board I’m less than proud of, especially in my early days of playing. Win or lose, chess players should, in a perfect world, stick together, after all.
ROUND 2
The second round saw the action heating up a bit, with three winners. Unfortunately, I was not one of them. I have long admired IM Roberto Martin Del Campo for his true love of chess and fighting spirit. He was quite a strong player in the past, leading the Mexican team in several chess Olympiads and even winning the individual gold medal on one occasion. Nowadays his strength has declined, but even so he can be very dangerous.
On this occasion I was subjected to a second game in a row with the black pieces. Even so, I reacted quite well to his spur of the moment opening surprise and gained good counter play in a favorable Hedgehog setup. Unfortunately, I misjudged a possible endgame quite badly, and as a result got into a horrible bind with absolutely no active play in sight.
I was given one more chance to climb back into the game, but with time pressure approaching I wasn’t able to seize it. As the pressure became unbearable, I could see only one slim chance of a swindle. Though I saw his winning possibility at the board, what else was there to do? Luckily, he fell right into it, allowing one of my most passive pieces to spring to life. While the computer points out one more chance, it was not easy to adjust to the change of events, and after a short flurry of exchanges I was able to sacrifice a pawn to force the game to its natural conclusion as a draw.
ROUND 3
Coming off of quite an amazing slice of luck in Round 2, I was in a good mood heading into Round 3 against James Canty, a professional coach, popular streamer, and content creator for chess.com who recently achieved the FM title. I was hoping to win this game in order to keep my norm chances alive. As it went, he managed to catch me in an opening line where my knowledge was somewhat deficient. I didn’t find the right idea, and so he gained the initiative.
Thanks to my poor play in defense, I was soon in a world of trouble. Once again, it was then that the psychological factor came in, and I spent a while thinking about what would bother him the most. I knew Canty well enough before this game, and with some knowledge of his character, I knew that he always tries to win with flashy sacrifices (a fact that he confirmed after the game). So, with this in mind, it seemed to me that if I attacked one of his pieces there would be very little chance of him moving it. In theory, that material advantage should improve my chances.
Objectively I was still completely lost, but thought that maybe later on he would try to be a bit too brilliant, and the extra material could come in handy. In fact, that’s exactly what happened! Missing several wins along the way, he allowed me to whip up miraculous counter play, even to the point where I could have consolidated with an extra exchange.
Unfortunately, luck only takes you so far. With my time getting low I couldn’t find the right way to evade the checks, and the game ended up drawn. If I had managed to eke out the win, there is no saying how the rest of the tournament could have gone … and after this my luck ran out, as we will see shortly.
As for the rest of the games, this was another round with few decisive results, but not due to lack of effort.
ROUND 4
Round 4 would see a sharp change to the prevailing trend of drawn games, with only one drawn outcome. Today I was paired against GM Alonso Zapata, a Colombian legend who peaked in 1993 at 2580 FIDE, at a time when that was good enough to be ranked 70th in the world. I also recalled his infamous six-move win against Vishy Anand shortly before the game. For me, it was worth the arduous trip just from my small town in central Texas to have the opportunity to learn from a game with a player of his caliber.
With all of this in mind, it is important to always respect your opponent at some level, but not too much, and I think I subconsciously made the latter mistake during this game. While I misremembered my opening preparation, nothing disastrous befell me. The key psychological mistake came early in the opening. Facing a surprise, I thought for twenty minutes and concluded that my position was somewhat worse.
As the rest of the game went, that incorrect assumption could be very clearly seen, and in a position where I had none the worse of it, I went for desperate activity, not believing in the alternatives. Sharp retribution followed in the form of a tactical execution. An unfortunate and very unnecessary loss that definitely had a big impact on the following games.
At the halfway point of the tournament, it seemed that there was only one realistic norm contender in my section: Tianqi Wang, who was undefeated with 3/4, though as we will see later on, not all was as it seemed.
ROUND 5
Round 5 saw my struggles continue. I had white against Donald Johnson, an up-and-coming Charlotte local. He was the bottom seed of the tournament, but ended up having an incredible overall performance, finishing with 5½/9. Even so, I felt quite good about my chances to win. For one thing, my rating was considerably higher at the time. And also, he had just come off of a marathon six-hour battle in which he had managed to squeeze out a win from Rook+Bishop vs Rook. The last capture was on move 111, and the game was decided on move 184. Apparently, his opponent had no knowledge of the 50-move rule.
I felt rested and ready, but it did not take long for my opponent to “refute” my insipid opening choice, reaching easy equality. My ambitions to play for the win were soundly punished, resulting in a second straight loss. A disastrous effort, but certainly a nice birthday gift for my opponent.
As far as the rest of the games from this round went, everyone seemed to be in a particularly combative mood, with four decisive games once again. Alexander King kept slim chances for the norm alive by winning in this round to reach 3½/5. Indeed, he very nearly got there, had he not met a buzzkill just as the finish line seemed close at hand.
ROUND 6
The sixth round saw my difficulties come to a boil in another generally decisive round of play. Taking the black pieces against Tianqi Wang, who, also at 3½/5, desperately needed to start winning, I found myself quite quickly caught in preparation of his that I never could have anticipated. As it turns out, he had picked up a book about the Alapin (2. c3 Sicilian) quite soon before this tournament and decided to give it a try for the first time against me. He had also joked to a friend beforehand that after this game he would have played four different first moves in his four white games up to that point! And so it went …
Quickly out of my preparation, I thought for a full half hour and went for a risky pawn sacrifice where “there must be something.” As it turns out, there wasn’t, and he went on to exploit my faulty thinking. Even so, he traded into an endgame prematurely, and after a simple oversight I gained full compensation for the pawn. Unfortunately, at this point I was getting into serious time pressure and played too hastily, overlooking a simple shot that decided the game instantaneously.
ROUND 7
This round finally saw an end to the bleeding I’d been suffering, but unfortunately no improvement in the quality of play. I desperately wanted to defeat my opponent, respected IM Nikolai Andrianov. Not only did I have the white pieces, but I also thought I knew the kind of game my opponent wanted to play. IM Andrianov is a talented and seasoned player, who quite possibly deserved the Grandmaster title. (He achieved a 2450 ELO rating at a time when that placed him among the strongest players in the world.) Some of his early scalps include no less than the likes of Kasparov, Bronstein, and Averbakh.
Later on, there seemed to be a pause in his active tournament play until he began playing the CCC Norm invitationals regularly beginning in 2019. A quick database search shows that since 2019 his record at the CCC IM Norm tournaments is 12 wins, 6 losses, and a remarkable 77 draws. It’s certainly up to conjecture to understand the cause of (or motivation for) so many consistent draws (regardless of his opponents’ ratings), but one thing seemed objectively certain to me going into the round: statistically speaking, he would be likely to play for a draw, or even offer one early on.
Nonetheless, I still wanted a strong, fighting game and hoped he’d welcome a challenge – I hadn’t traveled 1200 miles for an easy draw! Things went well at first, as I caught him in some deadly preparation against the Rauzer. Later on, my position was much better, with no counter play in sight for black. From that point on I failed to make any significant progress, and later acquiesced to a draw in a position that was still clearly better. Very disappointing, and it seemed that, with a -2 score and two games to go, it would not be easy to make a recovery and save face. But at least I was able to snap the losing streak.
Two important victories from this round saw Alexander King and Tianqi Wang land on 5½/7 going into the final day. As the norm requirement in Charlotte is 7/9, both needed at least a win and a draw to do the job.
ROUND 8
In the first round of the final day, I was to play King, Manager of the historic Memphis Chess Club whose tournament performance up to that point had obviously been in a very different league than mine. I will admit, before this game I was definitely having flashbacks to my last round battle against Chasin from the Spring Invitational, also with the black pieces. In that game the advantage changed hands several times, but in the end his bishop pair proved too much for me to handle.
Would Alexander King be able to pull off a similar feat in his Round 8 game against me, as good as securing the norm? It sure seemed likely, seeing as he was coming in hot off of a three-game winning streak, whereas I was still recovering from a three-game losing streak, plus he had the white pieces. Despite all of these advantages, right from the get-go I believe he made a massive psychological mistake that cost him dearly in the end.
Playing with white he had the opportunity to steer the game in whichever direction he wanted it to go. He normally plays the Rubinstein against my Nimzo, after which the game stays in positions that seem to favor his style more. At least that was my opinion before the tournament. White has a small edge and can try to press for a win with very little risk.
His round three game against Tianqi Wang quite nearly saw my thinking borne out: white did have small but real winning chances, which grew after an error by black. While he wasn’t able to finish off the job, I had a few opening improvements ready that I believe would have made black’s position hard to crack.
As it went back in our game, he went for the Saemisch, a weapon he later told me he has researched well and saved for a must-win situation such as this one. While a potentially dangerous situation had I been unprepared, it was there that I believe his first mistake came. This game most certainly was not a must-win just yet, only a must-not-lose. By burning his bridges, he made the possibility of a draw much less likely, when in reality I think he could have won as black in the last game against Canty, if it came to that.
The game became very sharp very quickly. I went somewhat wrong in the opening but, seeing as this was his first outing with the Saemisch, he wasn’t quite able to take advantage of it, and my planned variation came to pass. I survived the opening intact, and probably even got a better position, before missing a divine queen sacrifice that would have given me every chance of winning the game.
Due to this oversight, my opponent gained much needed time to consolidate. Even so, in the heat of the battle he overlooked the best way of doing it, which would have given him a small advantage. I soon had the chance to transpose into a clearly favorable endgame, but for whatever reason twice decided to allow my kingside pawn structure to become crippled. This once again gave him an opportunity to seize the initiative, but with time pressure looming he allowed me to demonstrate probably my favorite move of the tournament, 26… Bc2!, which I had planned well in advance and thus could bash out for extra surprise effect.
After this shocker he went under five minutes on the clock, and while there were definitely still chances for him to save the game, he just couldn’t keep it together, soon liquidating incorrectly into a pure opposite-colored bishops endgame where my connected passers became decisive.
Apart from this game, the most significant result of the eighth round was Tianqi Wang’s fine win with the white pieces, meaning that he would only need a draw in the last game to clinch a norm.
ROUND 9
The tournament’s final round saw a meeting with one of the few players having a tougher time than myself: Todd Andrews, an FM from Tennessee who is Executive Director of the Nashville Chess Center. We had both emerged victorious in the first game of the day, and so the result here would mean the difference between a forgettable event and a decent result. I countered his Guimard French with several moves of preparation before he threw a surprise at me on move 10. I had a vague recollection of the position but botched the move order, allowing black to give up two pawns for active play.
I compounded the error by going for the wrong move order in accepting the pawn! Was fatigue setting in? Certainly a likely scenario for everyone at this point in a tournament. It seemed that my king was in big trouble, but he missed the right way of getting at it, and first threw me a piece, then subsequently missed the tricky forced draw that was still on offer, leaving me with a winning material advantage. While not the cleanest game, I’ll certainly take it.
As is so typical for closed events, the last day saw a spate of short draws, with my game being the only decisive result in sight. The only other actual battle was Donald Johson-Tianqi Wang, which did eventually end in a draw as well, securing a norm for Tianqi. This is already his 7th IM norm, and his 6th to come from a CCC Invitational.
Throughout the other sections there were no norms to be had, though there were a few close calls. In particular the IM D section winner, FM Andy Woodward, missed the required score by half a point, finishing with 6½/9. This is his second straight miss when he probably deserved to get it, though he at least had the pleasure of upsetting Eigen Wang’s norm chances, as Wang needed to win their last-round game.
As a closing note, I’m hoping to play 2-3 more tournaments this summer including the World Open in Philadelphia (my first time playing there). Thanks as always for reading and check back here for updates! Comments always welcome.
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