1st FIDE Rapid Tournament

2024-11-16T11:35:50+00:00

I was super nervous about joining the tournament. I was scared those younger players would crush me on the board, especially with the fast 10+5 time control. But guess what? I won my first game! That brought a great sense of relief!

The tournament had almost 609 players and my starting rank was 595. But I finished at respectable 357 rank.

There were two halls where all the games were happening, and I must say, the organization was top-notch. I was especially happy to grab a hot cup of coffee after every round—it kept me going. And a vada paav too. I must have eaten almost 8. haha!!

But as the day went on, I started feeling how badly out of shape I really am. But I marched on. I was getting good positions but spolit a couple of games in trying to find a knock out blow. I lost 3 games on time. The biggest issues were I was not keeping track of time on the clock and when I did notice that I was low on time I did not move fast enough and quickly press the clock. This is in contrast to online chess where we can even premove and we never have to press the clock.

But winning 4 games was a satisfactory experience.