This weekend I’m playing in the Peoples’ Tournament in Pleasanton, California. If you’re a Northern California player, that sentence should just sound wrong. The Peoples’ Tournament is supposed to be played in Berkeley in February, not in Pleasanton in July. It’s supposed to be at the student center. You’re supposed to spend half an hour looking for a parking place. There’s supposed to be a dance or a drum circle or something going on outside the tournament hall, so you can’t possibly concentrate on your chess game.<\/p>\n
A while ago David Pruess wrote a nice retrospective<\/a> on the mystique of the Peoples’ Tournament on chess.com. (I’d ignore the part about him losing 300 rating points in one day, though.)<\/p>\n Anyway, all those quirks, whether you love them or hate them, are now gone and what’s left is Just Another Chess Tournament. One at which you can actually think and play decent chess!<\/p>\n So far, in the first three rounds, I beat an expert and drew two masters (including my teammate in the US Amateur Team tournament, Robin Cunningham).<\/p>\n My second-round game was notable because for the first time in my chess career I played 1. f4 on the opening move! I’ve been mulling over this possibility for a while. First, as a King’s Gambit player, I’m perfectly happy to meet 1. … e5 with 2. e4. Second, if Black plays 1. … d5 2. Nf3 c5 or 2. … g6 I am eager to play the Bryntse Gambit with 3. e4. That leaves the question of what to do if Black plays 1. … d5 2. Nf3 Nf6. I’ll admit I have done no preparation, but my inclination is to try 3. b3. It will probably lead to a slow positional game, not my usual cup of tea but I should learn to play this kind of position too.<\/p>\n As it turned out, I didn’t need to worry because my opponent played 1. …e5 2. e4 d5, and we were in the familiar realm of the Falkbeer Counter Gambit. I’m not quite sure what his mistake was, but he ended up wasting a lot of tempi on defensive moves and not getting his pieces out, which is never a good idea. I won a piece with a nice little tactic on move 23, and he resigned.<\/p>\n So I have now been baptized into the ranks of 1. f4 players! Somewhere, Michael Aigner<\/a> (aka “fpawn”) must be smiling.<\/p>\n