Tri-State Championship @ Bryant Park XXX

Last week played in the "Tri-State Championship" at Bryant Park. After my previous tournament at Bryant Park was abandoned due to rain ("No refunds!") I came back - like some kind of masochist - for one more.

These tournaments at Bryant Park by Tri-State Chess are just awful. 0/5 stars, do not recommend. The problems:
- It's outdoors in the middle of New York City. There are loud sirens, people shouting and screaming, even live music. Very very difficult to focus.
- Did I mention it's outdoors? They sun beats down horribly, and they do not let you move to a board under a parasol (even though there are plenty available). And if it rains and you have to abandon the tournament - no refunds.
- For a $50 entry fee, you think they would provide quality chess sets. Instead they provide garbage, beat- up mismatched sets (I should have insisted that we use my own, quality set).
- It's primarily a scholastic tournament, and the children present are not well-behaved - the directors do nothing to control them as they run around / having tantrums.
- Overall the tournament is chaotic, mostly it's for children and for some reason they have an U1800 section that allows adults? It doesn't really make sense.

(Now I am used to children at tournaments, but what I'm not used to is the tournament directors showing a complete disinterest in maintaining any semblance of order).

If you want to play a quality USCF tournament, just go to Marshall Chess Club. They are USCF rated and professionally run, they provide high quality chess sets and clocks, and it's indoors, air-conditioned and quiet. And they do 4 round swiss tournaments, not 3 rounds (more on this later).

And most importantly, you're unlikely to be paired with an Unrated player at Marshall. Playing Unrated players is annoying, because there's no upside - only the downside if you lose. I came to this tournament hoping to get more draws and wins against higher-rated players - and instead (spoiler alert) lost both my games to unrated players.

Likewise, if you have scholastic players, just go to the Hunter Scholastics. Those are very well-run and indoors. Don't take your kids to this nonsense.

Basically, this tournament was an unpleasant experience and a waste of time. For less money, I could have played a 4-round Swiss G50 at Marshall. Never again.

Round 1 vs No Show

For my first round game, my opponent didn't show up. Instead of getting a forfeit win, the repaired me with someone else in a similar situation. (Are they supposed to do that?)

Round 1 vs Shea

In this game I was completely winning out of the opening, but didn't follow my plan of liquidating pawn centers, casting early and then starting an attack. I made some completely baffling moves and managed to throw away the game

Round 2 vs. Moos

Another unrated opponent. He played the English. In previous games vs the English I tried a "quirky" opening recommended by NM Nelson Lopez ("ChessVibes" on YouTube), but this time around I just tried to play a solid opening featuring Nf6 and e5 (the "standard" response).

In fact, this worked out: I was completely winning in the middle game. Then for some reason I don't understand - lack of calculation I guess - I traded queens and my attack fizzled. Then I lost the rook-and-pawn endgame under time pressure.

Round 3 FULL POINT BYE

After losing my first two games, I found that I was basically "eliminated" from the tournament, aka "Full Point Bye." I don't play a game but get a 1.0 result. Woo, who cares. It's a 3 round tournament.

Overall Analysis

I did poorly in these games because I didn't calculate enough in critical positions. Too often, I had a tactic or combination, but instead made a "safe" developing move (moving a piece out, castling).

I have been reading Logic Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev, and I think it infected my thinking. It's a great book, but I put too much emphasis on developing pieces to sensible squares and not looking for tactics. This isn't the book's fault: it describes tactics that drive opening / positional play. I just was thinking about the wrong things.

When I sense that my opponent has played a "lemon" move in the opening, I need to hunker down and calculate the best line. Too often I decide "it's to early for tactics, I need to castle first. This is wrong.
("Principles are principles but winning is winning" - IM Andras Toth, when reviewing one of my games on his stream last year)

Conclusion

Why did I even play this tournament? I guess I wanted to see if I improved from last year. Of course, I don't know the answer to that because I don't know the strength of my opponents as they were unrated. I feel like in general I played better than last year - in that I didn't lose early playing dubious sacrifices - but the results tell a different story.

For $50 I played two games in unpleasant conditions against two unrated opponents. I won't be back for this tournament next year.