I’m feeling lazy today, but I need to put up a new blog entry, so here’s a topic that will let you do the writing! I’m sure everybody has had a best tournament. Tell us about it! How many opponents did you grind into the dust? Did the spectators shower you with gold coins? This is your chance for unvarnished bragging. Spill!
I’ll use my prerogative as admin to get the discussion started. Rating-wise, my best tournament ever was the 1976 Pennsylvania Championship, which I started with a rating of 1669. After the tournament, in which I beat five “A” players in a row (I was in the under-2000 section), my rating jumped to 1838. After that tournament, I was never afraid of “A” players again, and my rating never dropped below 1800 again.
That tourament was the best illustration of my “plateau” theory of learning. When you hit a plateau and your rating doesn’t go up for a while, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t improving. You’re building towards your next rating jump. One day, for no apparent reason, things will suddenly click and you will move on. (At least if you’re young. If you’re old, one day you’ll die and your rating will go back to 0. )
It would be pretty lame if my best tournament was thirty years ago, though. So I’ll pick the 2006 Western States Open in Reno. That’s where I got to debut my queen sac variation in the Sicilian Defense, beat IM David Pruess with it, and impressed Jesse Kraai so much that he got me a gig with ChessLecture. Also I went 4-2 and won the under-2400 prize. However, this is not as clear a choice for my best tournament as you might think, because the first four rounds were nothing special, with two losses against masters and two wins against non-masters. It was really an ordinary tournament with two great games at the end. (My round 5 win over Renard Anderson is also a game I’m proud of.)
Okay, your turn!
