You can use any criteria you want to determine a best and worst performance, but with each include some exposition/reasons you think you had such a good/bad performance. Also of course include the pgns of good/bad games for brags and lols.

I played an open after christmas 2008. I was rated around 2130 ELO at that time.

Round 1: I'm paired against a GM, get a very good position and blow it rapidly, 0:1.
Round 2: black against a 15-year old rated 2000, he blows me off the board in a sicilian: 0:2
Round 3: White against a 1900, i get a very good position, when it's time to start taking pawns i don't, get under pressure, blunder: 0:3
Round 4: i beat a drooler who accuses me of playing "same old boring stuff, no chance of playing an actual game" because i answer his 1.Nc3 with c5. At move 12, i consider my move for around 20 minutes because he has a piece sac in response. I decide it just fails, make my move, he bangs out the sac instantly, i convert the extra piece without particular difficulty. 1:3

Round 5: i get a totally winning position on the white side of a grünfeld, but blow it to a surprising tactic. Then it's a draw and i stop myself overpressing at the last moment. 1,5:3,5
Round 6: I get a totally winning game on the black side of the Najdorf, then i make one bad move to make it just clearly better and simply hang a rook on the next: 1,5:4,5.
Round 7: I beat an elderly gentleman from austria in what actually was a good game: 2,5:4,5

Then i catch a cold, i'm feeling terrible. But there's the last day with 2 rounds left. For round 8 i draw an 18-year old rated around 1950. On the way to the tournament hall, the heating of my car breaks, the window is iced from inside, i just manage to avoid crashing a truck and in the end arrive 15 minutes late. He plays 1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+, i offer a draw after 10 moves which is accepted.
Round 9, i draw with some difficulty with white against another 1950-rated junior.

Result: 3,5/9, 35 ELO lost.

so this was your best performance, right? hehe good story

0/6 in a one day rapid about 5 years ago, actually made me quite chess

I was rated about 1950 elo approx at the time, it was a pretty strong rapid and I was out graded in every game.

I also managed to lose 3 games that were relative easy draws in that rapid and was totally outclassed in the other 3!

But you unquit since then right?

It's worth mentioning before I start with the stories that I've only played four rated tourneys in my life. #2 was best, #3 was worst, but the first three all sort of blend into one story, so I'll just tell it that way.

It all started in July of 2001, when my dad bought me a membership in the USCF for my birthday. Up until then I had always liked chess, but never really studied it seriously in any way. I was good enough to play evenly with my dad, and we both found tactics more interesting than strategy which made for some wild and fun games. I also had a collection of chess books that I had inherited from my grandpa, who was a pretty good chessplayer (I think he was roughly 2000-strength, but I'm not sure). I enjoyed reading them, but never used them properly for study, aiming instead for entertainment.

With the membership, I quickly realized one of the coolest perks was that I was eligible to play in tournaments. The first one in the area was in September, The Oregon Open, and I went eagerly, but with no idea what to expect. Obviously I wasn't very good yet, and even so I probably didn't play quite to my peak ability, since I was completely unfamiliar with using a clock, recording my moves, or playing for so long. Still, I had a lot of fun, and managed to beat two of the weaker players in the field plus pull a bye for a 3.0/6.0 score, and 32nd place out of 60 in the Reserve Section. More importantly, I learned that my High School actually had a really strong and large chess club. Close to twenty members of the club (including middle schoolers) were there, and I made a few new friends and learned when the meetings were.

When school started up, I started attending the chess club. I had a pretty fair amount of natural talent but almost zero practical knowledge (I wonder what would have happened if I had found the club when I was 8, instead of 17? Would I actually be good at chess?), which meant I was behind the curve at the club but also was able to improve rapidly. I mostly played with the middle school kids, because the skills matched up better. There was also the fact that in their young eyes, I actually qualified as "cool", and that wasn't something I'd really ever been before, so I enjoyed it. I was actually one of only 6 high schoolers that attended regularly. The club had three really good players (expert level), one of whom was an eighth grader, who kind of kept to themselves. The other high schoolers were a kind of cool punk kid, a very attractive girl, and a guy who I considered to be an extreme douche, mostly on the grounds that he and the girl mostly just played each other. And it bothered me that he got to do that, not me Of course it made sense, they were both rated over 1400, and a step above the rest of the non-expert crowd. Still...

Anyway, after a couple months, it was time for my second tourney, The South Eugene Open, and I went in feeling I could probably improve on my 1128 provisional rating. I opened against a guy rated 1309. And lost. In round two, I got a full point bye. Swiss gambit! Round three matched me up one of the middle schoolers from the club, 1294 provisional rating, who I knew I was pretty evenly matched with. And I pulled out the win.

In round four, I was suddenly relatively high in the standings at 2/3, and I got paired with: The douche from my high school. He was rated 1461, and knew he was better than me, and I knew it too. He had white, and he played d4. I was a pure king's pawn player. Unfortunately I don't still have my scoresheet, so I don't exactly remember how the game went, but somehow or other I managed to pull out the upset win! He stormed off while I looked the game over with some of my middle school buddies in the skittles room. I didn't think it could get any better than that.

Which brings us to the final round. At 3/4, I was in a four-way tie for third. First place was a kid from Washington rated 1503, and with a 4/4 score, who is apparently now a candidate master ranked 2098. In second at 3.5/4 was a guy rated 1600. In third was me, the hot girl from school, a 1366, and a 1654. Of course she got the easy draw, and I had to play the 1654. Oh well, sure I was going to lose, but at least it was fun, and I made it to the final round tied for third. Pretty solid, and I was happy with it.

I don't have the game in front of me right now, but I'll edit it into this post when I can. Long story short, I made a dubious trade (bishop + knight for rook+ pawn) but kept my position playable, until about move 13 when he inexplicably hung his knight. Afterward he explained that he thought he was winning a pawn with a combo, not noticing that he didn't get the piece back. It wasn't until three moves after I won the knight that he realized he wasn't up a pawn. I converted solidly, never letting him back into the game, and won to finish the tourney 4/5, tied for second place with the hot girl, as the wonderkid from Washington finished off his 5/5 domination. He took home the overall prize, she got first in the U1600 section, and they gave me first in the U1400 section. I won money! It was freaking awesome. Obviously my best tournament ever. My final round game ended up getting published in the magazine Northwest Chess, with annotations from FM Chuck Schulien who had won the open section of the tourney. He made a special point to comment on how even up a piece for a pawn it's not necessarily easy to beat someone rated 500 points higher. And I'll never forget his use of the phrase "excellent use of pawns".

At this point I was flying high. I quit the chess club that winter, because it was baseball season and practice mattered more to me, but I figured I was still playing good chess. After all, I was rated 1332 now. Which brings us to the Oregon Class Championships the following April. Obviously I was still improving. I beat a 1460 and a 1654 last time I played. These U1400s didn't stand a chance, I was going to take home the Class D prize! I opened against one of the middle schoolers, who I scored about 65% against in club games. He blew me off the board. I recovered to win round two (against an 1116). In round three I was paired with the *younger brother* of the punk guy from school. This kid was rated 691. I don't remember the game at all, but according to the tourney cross-table... he beat me too. To his credit he scored 3.5/5, tied for second, and bumped his rating up to 993, but that was hardly consolation at the time. In round four I lost again, this time to an unrated (who finished 3/5). I did win round five, against a 1081, but I finished 13th out of 17, and the two people I beat finished tied for dead last. My rating dropped to 1231, and my high school chess career was over. Worst tournament ever.

BobJoeJim, great read, that part at the end made me laugh. How long ago was all this?

2 weeks ago i started playing again

2001-2002 school year. Distant memories

I was hoping for some romance later in the story with the 'hot chick', but lol awesome story I was getting into it!

Yeah, I know the Hollywood version of the story would have included that. Alas this is real life

Sigh.

About 20 years ago I played in an insanity tournament. It was an 8 person double round robin G/30. It started at 6pm, and went until the next morning sometime.

I was the only one that was not a master. I did not win a game, but not a completely terrible result the first half with 4 draws and 3 losses. I am sure it was above my ELO had it been rated. The second half, I was not up to the physical challenge, and I fell completely apart with 0-7. Then wandered out into the bright sunshine feeling like total crap...............

Only really terrible tournament I had was when I was just about (but not quite) recovered from the flu. I just had no energy, no creativity, etc. Withdrew after a couple rounds.

Worst rating ever was my first tournament. I was intimidated by the clock, the silent, tense atmosphere, etc. Plus I didn't start tournament play until I was 21/22 and all these kids running amok were better than me. I went 0/3 for an initial rating of 283. I was also introduced to the idea of "true strength" by 2/3 of my opponents. You know, "I'm rated 1138 but I'm really 1350." Such ********. My 2nd tournament came about a year later with my first ever tournament victory. It was the last round on Saturday of a 2 day tournament. I was playing a 6 year old kid who was obviously sick and his eyes kept fluttering like all he wanted was to go to sleep. I still should have lost, but managed to pull out a great victory.

Oh, I did make a 12 year old cry. Best tournament ever. It had been my goal for 3-4 years prior to this tournament. I had started to resent all the wunderkinds going nuts and was on a mission to make one of them cry. I really thought I had it in one tournament where I suckered a kid into sacking a bishop for 2 pawns (didn't do anything useful as he had no attack and I could win back a pawn), but no dice. This tournament I was playing a 2100 and I was 2000ish. He dropped a whole rook in the late middlegame and had to go walk around with his dad for a while before finishing the game. Greatest chess moment in my entire life.

lolol I made a kid cry once. Like utter balling. It got so frustrating i left for a while and ate a hot dog.

You can get a 691 rating?

My best and worst tournaments came nearly back to back after about 8 years of playing chess.

Worst: I had just reached master level for the first time and consolidated it with some good results, and in January entered the city championship (an eight player round robin with games played once per week) rated 2224. The rest of the field was rated 2055-2000-1982-1940-1819-1694-1672 (average 1880). I proceeded to score a cool 2.5/7 vs this assortment and lost 56 rating points. Kind of worst part of this is that the tourney was one game a week, so it wasn't like I went on chess tilt and blew off a few games really quick.

Best: Despite that debacle, I had already qualified for the provincial championship, another 8 player round robin held in April. Now, my rating was 2161, but I was facing a lineup of 2337-2314-2304-2243-2202-2084-2022 (average: 2215). I started off well with a draw against the 2304, then beat the 2022 and 2243. Another draw vs the 2084, and I was sitting well with 3/4 early. I then pulled the upset on the 2337, and drew with the 2243 to enter the last round in clear first with 4.5/6. Because the others were beating each other up pretty circularly, this was actually good for a full point lead over two others. I choked pathetically in the last round and ended up tied for first, but it still represented a 2329 performance rating, equal first in the provincial championship, and a rating gain of 43 points.

Apparently. And it wasn't provisional either.

Ha, idk if that was a joke or not, but your rating can be as low as 100 and as high as infinity. My first tournament was in January of 1999 and I received a provisional rating after 5 games of 552. My first tournament game ever, I won by fool's mate. lol

I've only played in 5 tournaments (4-5 years ago), all at the same place near my college, against pretty much the same locals every time. They were all 4 round Swiss tournaments, G/30. The players were all rated around 1600 - 2100 USCF, and my rating after those 20 games is 1538, so as you can imagine I didn't really have a good tournament.

Still, it always felt like I could get so close. Remember, the players were all rated above me, yet:

-Very first game I lose on time just as we get to the drawn endgame.

-I win a pawn in the late-ish middle game, but then we both get short of time. We were using an analogue clock. I'm told that he flagged first, but it was my first tournament so I didn't notice. He pointed out that I flagged a move or 2 later, so the game was drawn. Worst part was that I almost sacrificed a rook in that game too, but eventually chickened out. That took up a good amount of my time, and it turns out would still have been winning.*

-I was so close to playing a combination that would win significant material, but I kept getting lost/confused near the end of the line, so I went with another move instead that lost significant material. So close to making that move.

-I played the black side of the Danish Gambit. I could have won the exchange, but white bluffed off a few more pawns, and with some mistakes I ended up just a pawn up. Some more screw ups and I was down to K+P vs K+R. It was drawn though since my pawn was on the 7th rank and my king nearby, but in my rushing, I promoted my pawn a move too early, allowing white to take it for free with his rook.

-I was gifted the exchange as black, but had to endure some attack. It should have ended in white perpetually checking me, but I decided to end it by walking into a mate-in-1 instead.

-Against one of the weaker players at the club, I won 2 pawns as white. To compensate black, I gave back the pawns and let him double rooks on the 2nd rank. I resigned soon after.

*If you want something positive from this post, here's the position:


I played 33. Rc5 but really wanted to play 33. Rc7. You can confirm that it's winning (or let me know that I've been wrong this whole time), but if you use an engine, you might have to force it to play a few moves into the line before it will agree.

I must admit I am a little confused by Rc7.......

I've only played in one tournament. I think I'm going to get to one next weekend, so after that I can decide which was worst and which was best and go from there.

I miss live tournaments. Last one I played was in 04.

I think the idea is simply to clear c1 for the bishop. I have no idea if it actually works.

Yep. The idea is to get the bishop on the c1-h6 diagonal, mainly to target the h6-pawn. My computer wants to do this with 33. Bc3 and then Bd2. I did it in the game with 33. Rc5 and 34. Bc1.

However, the issue I had with all this is that the black queen is able to get back to the kingside to do some defense: 33. Rc5 Qe7 34. Bc1 Qf8. Now, all is still good for white, though I didn't notice that after moving my knight (I played 35. Ng4, I think my computer liked 35. Ng8?), my queen is attacking the d8-rook. Allowing the knight to join in on h6 with a tempo is pretty key.

Still, I wanted to slow down the black queen's journey to the f8-square. The only way I saw to slow her down and still get my bishop on the c1-h6 diagonal is by 33. Rc7. It seemed like a pretty neat trick, but it is a whole rook that doesn't get recovered for as far as I can see into the position, but with an engine (that I can run again later and post if interested), white gets more than enough compensation.

I see said the blindman. Nice move. I am gettin a headache trying to analyze without a board, but looks like white just wins.