Thomas Heerd had a very nice tournament in Germany. Here are his impressions:

Changing the world in one day

This tournament was the perfect match as it was in the middle distance of meeting my old chess colleagues from SK Lauffen / Germany and Zurich. Also, this tournament was more attractive to me as there were better players than in the one happening in Glarus. Even the Liechtenstein chess family came all the way to play there !

The start in the tournament on Friday evening was tough as I had to work hard for the win with the black pieces in a rook endgame. After that the tournament went fine; the hotel I was staying at was on top of the mountain so I had plenty enough exercise on my way to the playing hall.

On the penultimate day I won quickly with a Queen trap against a 2000-rated player, which gave me time to relax before the afternoon game, where I was playing black against a 2100. In this game, I had to defend hard with a knight pair, queen and rook pair against a bishop pair, queen and rook pair. Almost reaching a drawn end game I did not want to exchange the last rook too quickly directly, wanting to position my king better. This was a mistake, as I ended up in a losing endgame where the rook breakthrough in the h-line proved fatal. I was quite disappointed as the handshake to the draw was really close after offering it at least three times in quite drawish positions. Nevertheless I told myself that the show was not over yet, just half a point got lost. I had a nice evening with the tournament organizers with beer and food.

The next morning I got paired with the best senior in the field. I had quite a lot of respect for him as used to be rated 2300 and even won tournaments recently. Nevertheless I managed to beat him. I would have liked to analyze the game with him, but he was not interested.

Finally, all was set for a must-win situation against a similarly rated opponent with the black pieces. We both knew we had to win to get a money prize. This pressure may have helped me having better nerves on that day.