Bye City and Rating Mismatches

I'm playing in the 2005 Atlanta Championship this weekend, starting tonight. I'll be playing up in the A section for the fourth time. If you're really bored, you can track my progress (updated daily) here. So far, every time I've played up in the A section, my first round has been a full-point bye. I drive over 30 miles to find out I won't be playing. So that's the big question for tonight? Will I play or will I go? Place your bets now.

It'll be hard to match my performance in the last tournament I played up in the A section. I scored clear 1st place (and everyone else in the tiny section also got full-point byes). I've noticed that playing people rated far above you has certain advantages. They feel they have to win, and thus won't play for a draw. This provides far more opportunities for mistakes on their part. In that tournament there was only one game that I felt I outplayed my opponent from the beginning. The other games were lost by my opponents blundering in games they could have drawn. In the Tennessee Open last year I beat two experts -- well, they beat themselves actually, presumably because they felt they must win against a B-player.

Unfortunately, this principle also applies when you're playing people rated a good bit below you. They'll be happy with a draw, and you probably feel that you must win. My embarrassing performance at last year's Emory Castle Grand Prix is a good example. Four of my opponents were young kids, having just completed a week-long intensive chess camp, led by GMs and IMs. I'd like to say they must have been inspired from the chess camp, and that scholastic players have deflated ratings (all of which is true), but in fact I just played horribly. Incidentally, this was my last tournament before the tactics boot camp effects started kicking in.

So what's the best way to play against a much-stronger opponent? And how should you play against a much-weaker opponent? IM Timothy Taylor will tell us how to defeat a weaker player in upcoming articles. I know some players (master-level) who just try to play solidly and wait for their weaker opponent to make a mistake. And I've seen these same players start to get very worried when their opponents don't seem to be making any mistakes. Some stronger players aim for a complicated position where they can blow away their opponents tactically. When playing against stronger players, I definitely feel an absence of pressure I normally feel, because hey -- I'm expected to lose! And now that I feel more confident with my tactical ability, I'll happily enter into crazy complications with stronger players, and so far, I've held my own. So personally, I just try to play good chess, regardless of who I'm playing. I even prefer not to know their rating beforehand.