The last two games were two very short draws. I had completely lost any desire to play chess and my opponents felt the same way, so we didn't play long. So my final score is 1½ of 5 and 25 lost rating points.

Basically I am very disappointed about my results, I had prepared more than ever before, spending a lot of time on shapening my opening play, but this doesn't help much when you miss realatively simple tactics.

I simply don't understand that because I have played a lot the last months and with generally good results winning 56 ratingpoints in my last two tournaments, not making such silly blunders, so why do I suddenly make these blunders now? I seems to have completely lost my sense of danger.

In two weeks there is another weekend tournament, I think I will spend my study time the next two weeks on tactics and not on openings.

Rimfaxe, I sympathize. I've never played well in any big tournament either. To help with simple tactical problems, try playing some blindfold chess. You'll stink at first, but gradually your 'vision' will improve.

Perhaps you got a little careless after your good results? Anyway, your plan of working on tactic rathers than opening sounds reasonable. BTW, I haven't played blindfold for a long time, so if you want to play blindfold, let me know and maybe we will play some games.

Hi Rimfaxe, i'm sure you will find the experience very useful of playing in these tournaments. My own experience is that, in a long Swiss type tournament, you still have scope to recover in case of a slip, but 5 round swiss is a bit short . I think playing quick games or mini matches will help to get a feel of positions if you like, i will be glad to play if you are interested.

Best of luck for the next tournament.

Thanks for the good advice! I tryed to play a blind game against my computer Shredder 11, letting the computer play at a low level. I lost the game, but did better than expected in remembering the position during the game. So I think I will try to play some more blind games against the computer.

On Friday my next weekend tournament starts, it is a 6 player round robin and we are all within 91 ratingpoints, so I expect it will be some tense hard fought games.

I scored 3½ of 5 in the weekend tournement, well actually only 2½ of 4 since one game was a bye.

I won two games, lost one game, and a draw in the last game to secure 2. place in my group. And I won 15 ratingpoints.

So my play was a lot better than in the Danish ch. But still not quite as good as I would like it to be. But it never is.

I played two good games, where I think I was close to my best form, but in the last two games, I did not quite reach the same level. But this can be because of tiredness. And my opponent in the lost game played very strongly.

All in all I think it was a fair and OK result.

As the fm in our club always says: "Just keep on playing and you'll get your lost rating points back very soon. Play as many games as possible."
I've tried that one year, but after almost 60 tournament games (which is quite a lot from my point of view if you have a job and other interests as well), I almost wanted to stop playing chess at all. Now I play a lot, but if it's getting too much, I just withdraw from a tournament. Who cares. So far I've played 13 team championship rounds (team championship of Hamburg and something that is called "company sport" team championship—I don't know if this is known in many countries) and cup games this year (without a single game in march) and there are at least two 9 round swiss tournaments to come aside all the little 5 round tournaments over the weekends and the club championship at the end of the year. Last year all summed up to 39 tournament games (at least 2 hours for 40 moves (including increment) plus another period). I lost 50 rating points in one tournament but recovered them by the end of the year. Real chess players will probably laugh about these numbers, but for me it's already quite a lot—and it still makes fun despite losing all the hard earned rating points again and again...

You see, Rimfaxe, all you had to do was merely ask for our help and you started playing better right away! It is the magic of the ninja boards.

SG, I'm impressed. 39 games a year at 40 moves in 2 hours? That's a huge appetite for chess. I've tried playing that much in the past, and could never stomach it. I like to play chess, not work chess. On the other hand, I know people who play hundreds of games a year. I don't know how they can stand it.

I played 53 tournament games the last 12 months. And that is quite a lot, I don't think I will play so many the next 12 months.

I started 12 months ago with a 1783 rating then I lost a lot and dropped to 1698, climped back to 1768 and after the last two tournaments I ends the season with 1758. So I lost a total of 25 rating points in these 53 games.

So it has been a disappointment, because I have really studied a lot, so I had expected better. However I have also been changing my openings quite a lot, so some of my losses are probably caused by playing new positions I am not so famliar with.

So now I will stick to my new opening repertoire and then next season I will hopefully benefit from the lessons I got this season and do better.

Now there is no tournaments the next few months. This is good because I need a break, I am a bit chess tired right now.

@Supergrobi, are there any summer tournaments in Hamburg or Norhtern Germany during the summer? After all I live not far from Germany, so perhaps I could try playing south of the border. Could be fun trying something else than the usual tournaments.