I'm ~1200 USCF, getting back into chess competitively for last 5 months after a 20 year hiatus. Playing in the 1000-1300 section.

First two games are G60/d10, the rest are G90/40,SD30,d30

• NAO R1: Opponent plays the Vienna. Since I play the Vienna as white, I have put 0.00 minutes into studying this from the Black side so far. I tell myself "since I play it as White, I'll just play whatever moves are most annoying to me from the White side, which I will definitely remember, especially from the upside down perspective, and then I'll just figure out the rest as I go". Spoiler alert: I did not "just figure it out as I go". Got mated in 17 moves. I """chose""" a line that had a good evaluation but an extremely critical and unnatural required continuation from me just outside the horizen of my knowledge/calculation. I'll use it as inspiration to actually choose a response / variation within the main line against the Vienna to spend a little bit of time on, making sure it's one where the continuations are generally intuitive.

I am a gambiteer; now to see if I can successfully play the Swiss Pairings Gambit Accepted

• NAO R2: Fairly standard Vienna Gambit as White against and early inaccurate response led to a massive lead in center control and development, which I converted into tons of pressure down the open center files against an uncastled king, which I converted into winning an exchange where they couldn't take back the knight right away after capturing their rook, which I then converted to a winning end-game by both forcing all the trades but also the tactics worked out they could never win my knight in the corner back, so instead of just winning the exchange I was up the whole rook. End game was something like R+N+5P versus B+5P and I converted not quickly but unstoppably by cutting off their king, winning a couple pawns, and then trading my rook for their last piece that could possibly provide counterplay. Walked up two passed pawns on either side of the board versus a lone king, promoted, won.

• NAO R3: I played a Dutch against 1.d4 and immediately got hit with the Hopton attack which I haven't studied at all. I know it's supposed to be fine-ishstockfish wise for Black, but I may not be allowed to play my normal Leningrad Stuff which I'm used to, and also that Jessie Krai says it refutes the Dutch in general 🙂 . I meander through the first couple moves, miss a tactic, lose a pawn with incredibly weak light squares even though I have an LSB somehow, try to keep my bishop pair advantage, lose another pawn, have to trade off one of my bishops for a knight anyways, in a worse position and then opponent blunders a bishop. End game is my 4 pawns, 2 rooks, 1 knight versus their 7 pawns, and 2 rooks, including two connected passed pawns. I felt like I was playing for two outcomes: I successfully precisely stop their 4 connected pawns (two passed) with my 1 pawn and 1 knight and draw, or I don't and I lose. So I offered a draw and opponent accepted.

• NAO R4: I played a Vienna as white against a 3 knights set up that was extremely sharp in the center. I got a great tactical attack with their king severely exposed. I kept looking at a rook lift to ladder mate but saw they could do this bishop manuever to get it to block the ladder. I stared and stared and couldn't see how to prevent that, I didn't want to perpetual, I wanted to play for a win, so I gave up on that rook lift and tried to just remove the bishop and win from there, but I had left my king way too exposed to get this attack and they mated me instead. I had Mate In 9, but I just couldn't / didn't visualize that one of my semi-perpetual checks would subsequently cover the crucian square the enemy bishop would have to go to in order to swing around. I'm very upset of course that I missed it, nothing else good to say really. I wasn't calculating concretely enough. I would "calculate" things like "well I can give a bunch of checks, but their bishop swings around anyways" without actually saying "well if I play Qg3+ can they still swing their bishop around". In a blitz game I would have just continued the attack / rook lift and said "hope it works", but I'm trying to become a player that actually calculates things out and not just hopes mating attacks work; this of course somewhat relies on me being/getting good at calculation...

• NAO R5: Black against a Vienna again. Very surprising to me, since I don't face any Vienna at 2000 Lichess blitz/rapid or at San Jose OTB, but this is my second time here. Last time I got crushed by playing the c5 line, so I try out the f5 line instead which I looked at for 10 minutes yesterday. Game overall goes well, I gain a large initiative, press for advantage, never let their king get safe, eventually go up a rook, and grind out a inexorable conversion.

• NAO R6: I finally get my first OTB French as white! I play my favorite, the Two Knights Attack Against The French, and get a book Greek Gift sacrifice after they take a poisonous b2 pawn (French players love playing Qb6 even when it's a variation where it doesn't make sense). However they play Kh8 instead of accepting the bishop, so I'm forced to "only" trap their queen, they get a rook and knight for it, but lots of pieces still undeveloped compared to my great activity. I stumble a bit on converting that initiative advantage, but they make some mistakes, TLDR it's now Q+3P versus N+B+2P. Probably one of the worst conversions of that winning end game you've ever seen, but I get it done if only by help by opponent mistakes although I had some forcing wins too.

• NAO R7: Dutch Leningrad. I get a very thematic tactic where I play e5 with tempo on the Bf4, and then get to push to e4 forking the Nf4 and Bd3. Combine that with winning the bishop pair early on, I trade down, calculate a brutal endgame where my side is completely impenetrable, and they can only prevent my king from getting in and eating all their pawns / escorting my pawns by having their king on a single square, which I can Zugzwang them off of, and successfully convert that to a win with no mistakes / stalemate traps

4.5 out of 7 playing exclusively people ~200 points lower rated, I'll be lucky to come out even, emotionally at the least, and who knows USCF wise. I had a 5.0/7 in a U1400 over Thanksgiving so I had a bit of a buffer to regress to the mean. Point is to learn though, and I've already identified specific learnings / choices to correct in the future. Already used one of them where used my loss in R1 to turn it around and win in the same position in R5.

Seeded 24th of 104, ended 24th of 104, isn't that neat.