Blindfold Tournament

Now that I actually recovered from this event, time to post a bit about the blindfold event, which indicates that throughout the game, we had a view of a blank board with only the last move played on the board available. It's clear that the whole field can handle that handicap quite easily and process through the game, but still it's very easy to make blunders, forget simple tactics and even lose the course of the game for a while, as every minor change on the board can have dramatic consequences. A few times I actually had to recount the moves to see that I didn't make a simple mistake such as forgetting some neutral move had been played, or thinking wrongly that such a neutral move had been played.

That's why I was very happy not to blunder anything throughout the 7 games, and actually play a lot of good games there. I started very well with three convincing wins, one draw and quite a bunch of nice tactics, just as if I was seeing the board more clearly because I was very focused in not losing the position. The downside was that it was exhausting, and on the last three games my play went downhill.

I missed a very nice, though very complicated win against Almasi and preferred to repeat moves, I almost got outplayed by Ivanchuk from a safe and better position, but I missed a very nice piece sacrifice from him and was very lucky to find a miracle path to the draw. Then on the last, decisive game against Gashimov, I had a very nice position but then blundered one strong defensive move and then had to fight for my survival with a pawn down, something which I clearly managed because when I repeated moves at the end, only I could be fighting for a win, even if it should be an easy draw. So overall I finished with a very consistent 5/7 with good games, or at least games I'm satisfied with :)

That was enough for shared first with Almasi and Gashimov, though I had to settle for silver according to tie-breaks regulation, while Almasi got gold. Overall, it was a very nice event to be part of, with a lot of fun, even if it was exhausting at the end.