The European champion and my first game against an IM

This last saturday, the beautiful city of Vale de Cambra hosted the XIX open tournament called Memorial Pedro Parcerias.

Me and some folks from Alverca decided to travel more than 500Km and play some chess. The tournament was very very strong mainly because of tow reasons: the prize money (1st prize was 650 euros plus a libra in gold) and the presence of the strong GM Sergei Tiviakov. GM Tiviakov has a FIDE rating of 2686 and is the European champion. Since its not every time that we, common mortals, have a chance to see such a strong GM live, it contributed to increase the number of participants in the tournament - 172 players. Mr Tiviakov seemed a very relaxed person, a bit reserved, and was always nice and available for some photos. He also gaved 9 free chess lessons (the number of rounds in the tournament :) ) to whoever Swiss Manager decided to put against him. Of course that, after all the games were over and the dust cleared, he was the one taking the first prize :) (results).

I was able to score 5 points out of 9. Not bad, considering the strong nature of the tournament. The most memorable round was the first one, when I went against the IM Mauricio Vassalo (and, of course, I went down in flames).

MI Mauricio Vassalo(White) - Sérgio Lopes(Black)

GM Sergei Tiviakov (left) and Ernesto Loureiro from Alverca (right)

Vacations and Chess

Here I am… back from a 2 week vacations.

It was cool since it gave me time to sleep a lot - and I badly needed it because work consumed most of my awakened hours of the last weeks, and a lot of hours when I should be sleeping - and to play in a chess tournament in Amadora (linky).

The tournament was cool. I ended up in 11th, with the same points of the guy that ended up in 7th. It wasn't bad at all for me - I actually wasn't expecting to have so many points. My ELO rating is around 1807 right now, but I'm going to have a big fall on the next list. This is mostly due to some really bad games I played in the last epoch. Since my rating is quite recent (1807 is my first international rating) each defeat costs me a lot of points.

Anyway, having a good ELO is cool because it kind of serves as a comparison between players, but playing chess just for the sake of ELO is not my objective. I believe that if you really are good at it, sooner or later, your ELO will follow you. Too bad I'm not really good at it right now :(. Unfortunately, some players seem to take it the other way around: they get obsessed with their ELO and they start playing for the sake of it. Now, where's the fun in that? I don't think they actually enjoy much of the game when they get to that condition. And if you aren't having fun playing chess, why should you bother playing it at all?