2 weeks ago I played my best open tournament ever in Novi Sad. I made my last Grand Master norm and with it now have everything in place for the Grand Master Title which, assuming my norms get approved, will be ratified in the fall by FIDE.
I played my best chess ever, getting interesting positions and winning chances in almost every game. Most importantly, I didn't lose which allowed me to stay close to a norm the entire event.
Going into the tournament, I had gotten used to falling short of the norm. After making 2 norms in 7 weeks in the summer of 2021, I suffered my worst stretch of tournament play ever. Falling from 2505 live to 2401 in 7 months, something was clearly going wrong.
Since then, beginning in late March 2022, I made a few adjustments and quickly rebounded to a peak of 2485 (As of July 10 2022). The adjustments I had to make were interesting but I feel they deserve their own post so I won't elaborate further here.
Going into Novi Sad I had gotten used to barely missing a norm by a half or full point. Frustrating as it was, I came to understand the norm was a statistical inevitability assuming I kept my form together. If I'm performing at 2500 several straight tournaments then sooner or later one tournament score will vary upward by a full point which would clinch the norm.
Throughout Novi Sad I was able to keep the norm out of mind, I just wanted to get some good games. That is, until the last game when I knew I would just have to draw. Round 9 was played at 10am and so I planned on getting a full night's sleep before it. After sleeping for a few hours however, my body became restless, my mind full of ruminations. Would this be another choke? Would I throw this relative layup of a final game away with faulty nerves?
I woke up at 2:30 am and couldn't get back to sleep no matter how I tried. After half an hour I just gave up and started preparing. I would be playing Adhiban in the morning. In terms of getting a draw this might be the worst pairing. Adhiban is known for playing extremely fighting chess and he'd never take a draw unless his position was really bad. As it turned out he would decline my early draw offer only to take on enormous risk. When it was clear I had a big advantage he offered a draw. I snatched his hand within a second, the grand master title would not evade me this time!
I always wondered what I would do when I reached the end of the ladder. Grand Master is the last stepping stone in chess and there is nowhere left to go except to play for rating. After an hour of elated conversations with friends and family overseas, I went to a bar alone had a few beers and .... studied chess! While Grand Master is nice to achieve I never studied to have a 'G' rather than an 'I' next to my name. There are still many facets of chess I've never explored. And I still feel I don't know close to anything about this complex game. I play this game because I love it and while making GM means everything will improve financially, the allure of being one wears off within a day.
In fact I suspect a lot of people become prideful from it, which is why most GMs drop elo for a few months after making it. Maybe they're under the assumption that a label can somehow mean their brain is thinking on another level.
The label changes and nothing else does. I've got the same geeky fervor for chess as I did when Mr. Bausili would throw my chess books across the classroom in 12th grade English. Chess is something to be pondered and appreciated. Being a Grand Master doesn't make it any less confusing.
