Are There Too Many Drawbacks to OTB Tournaments? A Chat w/ FM Nate Solon

122 You hear the positives of competing in OTB classical events all the time (including from me on this podcast). And their improvement benefits are undeniable. However, they have some serious downsides: money, time, and energy, just to name a few. To the point where I’ve become uncertain whether they’re worth it. And so has my guest, FM Nate Solon.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The many challenges of OTB classical events, like creating difficult situations for proper eating, sleeping, and recovery.
• ​​The identity component of "serious chess players play OTB classical" creates unnecessary pressure.
• Potential solutions like shorter time controls, more desirable tournament experiences, or online classical competitions. 

FM Nate Solon is a coach, Chessable course creator, and author of a popular weekly newsletter, Zwischenzug. Here are links to all of that:

More From Nate Solon:

• Article: I Don’t Like Chess Tournaments
• Article: What Would a Fun Chess Tournament Look Like?
• Chessable Courses
• Weekly Newsletter: Zwischenzug
• Twitter

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Chapters

• 0:05 Introduction to The Chess Experience
• 1:06 The Problem with OTB Classical Tournaments
• 3:00 Tournament Experiences and Breaking Points
• 10:59 Major Drawbacks of Classical Tournaments
• 19:02 Making Tournaments Better and More Enjoyable
• 33:12 Finding Alternatives to Weekend Tournaments
• 43:22 Nate's Current Chess Projects
• 55:41 Closing Thoughts and Newsletter Info

Transcript

Daniel: 0:05

Hey, welcome to the chess experience On this show. It's all about helping adult improvers. I want to make learning chess easier for you to navigate and I also want you to have a more fun experience along the way. I'm your host, daniel Lona, a fellow chess amateur. Let's get to it. This show is sponsored by chesscom, the world's largest chess community.

Daniel: 0:30

Chesscom recently launched a new way to learn from your games with a feature called insights. If you visit chesscom slash insights, you can get detailed stats and analysis in any of the time controls you've played and across any time period. What kind of things can you learn? Well, you can learn. What time of day do you play your best morning, afternoon or night? What part of the game are you strongest or weakest? Opening, middle game or end game? Are you making more or less mistakes than opponents at your level? You can find out all this great info and much more at chesscom slash insights.

Daniel: 1:06

Welcome to this week's episode. Have you ever been to an OTB classical tournament, but the experience didn't live up to your expectations? Or perhaps you've yet to attend one of these events, but haven't because of the cost or time needed for them? Well, in this chat, I discuss with FIDE master, nate Solan, some of the problems with OTB classical tournaments, at the very least those in the US, though some of these issues may be present in other countries too. In this chat, we explore why OTB classical events may not be as great of an experience as we want them to be. Some reasons for this that we talk about include the number of games played in one weekend that's a big one the energy and time required to attend an event, as well as the playing conditions. Now, this episode may offer some therapeutic grieving over these challenges, both for Nate and I talking about it as well as you, but we do also spend some time considering possible solutions to this problem. Specifically, we discuss some changes that we'd love tournament organizers to make, as well as some alternatives you could consider for getting your improvement benefits without having to play a full weekend tournament. Finally, you may be familiar with Nate Solan as he's been a guest on this show two times previously, but if you're not, nate is a FIDE master, he is a coach and he's published several opening courses on Chessable. He also regularly publishes a popular weekly chess newsletter called Zwischenzug, and links to that newsletter, as well as his Chessable courses, are in the show notes. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. It's a little bit of a different style than my typical episodes.

Daniel: 2:45

In this one we're going to just dive all in on this discussion on this topic. So here's our discussion on OTB classical tournaments, some of the big challenges that we have with them, as well as, hopefully, some solutions we could see for it in the future. Hi Nate, I'm excited to have you back on the show. Great to be here with you today. How are you doing? I'm great. Glad to be back. Yeah, it's great to have you here.

Daniel: 3:10

I'm really excited that you're here to talk about OTB tournaments as a little background for people listening and or watching. A couple weeks ago, you wrote an article expressing your lack of interest these days in going to OTB classical tournaments and I found it refreshing because I think and I'm a little bit guilty of this myself actually all you hear in the community is just go to OTB classical events, go to OTB classical events and of course, there are great reasons to go. But in your article you highlighted a lot of the drawbacks, which I don't think are discussed enough if we want to be honest about what that experience is like, especially for adults. So do you want to talk a little bit about that, nate, just sort of like set it up for us, like what have you been doing with OTB tournaments in the past couple of years, and then what led to this decision to write an article about what you were not enjoying about them?

Nate: 4:05

Yeah for sure. So I've been. I don't have a lot of time for tournaments these days. I've got two kids, one who's almost three, one who's almost one, so I'm just not able to play that many. But I have been trying to play a few per year because I am a coach and I think it's important to keep that experience of playing in tournaments of right.

Nate: 4:29

When you don't play for a long time, it all starts to seem pretty simple. You're sort of like you know, hey, what's the big deal? You just play good moves, but then, right when you go to the tournament, you realize it's very, very difficult and it's maybe not even the chess side of it, that's. But. But emotions, fatigue, like all those things you experience at a tournament and it's, it's a lot harder than you would think it would be. So I'm so I try to play them somewhat consistently to stay in touch with that experience.

Nate: 4:56

But I guess what, yeah, what, what, what drove me to, drove me to write this blog post, and was that like I don't really look forward to playing in these tournaments, like, like, if anything, it's like I want to go and experience this pain so I can sort of empathize with my students, you know and be a better coach, but at the same time, I'm like, well, hey, I like I love chess. Chess is a huge part of my life. Like I wish we had some tournaments that I looked forward to playing, as opposed to like I got to really like psych myself up and grit my teeth to to drag myself to this thing, you know.

Daniel: 5:34

So that was kind of the the background of it. Was there a particular event or moment that led you to say, okay, this is kind of reached the breaking point for me. I don't know if this is worth it anymore.

Nate: 5:43

Yeah Well, I wrote it specifically about after this tournament, us Amateur Team East, which is a really popular tournament I've gone to the last few years. It's always one I'm really on the fence about because I play on a team with one of my students, with some friends, and there are a lot of friends I have in the chess community who, like this tournament is like the only time I see them throughout the year. So in that way it's great. I love the team format. I think that's that's a great twist. I wish there were more team tournaments so in a way it's like really close to this great experience that I want. But it also has these features that that a lot of tournaments have. But but I think this this tournament has them like especially.

Nate: 6:26

So one is really really slow. Time control it's a little bit weird. It's not 90 plus 30, it's like more of it slower than the initial time and there's also an additional time control and move 40. So I'm not remembering the exact time control, but essentially it's like it's quite slow. The rounds are very long, which to me is really weird for a team tournament where you think the focus, like the whole point of the tournament to me is to like see friends and catch up with people, but you really can't. There's no time to do that because you're either playing or you know you're desperately trying to get a meal in or maybe a nap in, just so you can kind of survive the tournament yeah, yeah for sure.

Daniel: 6:59

before we dive into, like, all the pros and cons of ot events and I want to do that and some possible solutions, I want to just dive into a great comment. You wrote in the article a sentence that stuck with me. You said that because we like chess, we feel we should like chess tournaments and I thought that was a fascinating insight and really well said. That was a fascinating insight and really well said, and I think my opinion is that that brings up the topic of identity, the notion that if you're an avid chess player, you play in OTB classical events. Do you think that that is a part of it, that, as an element of what you said, that we should like chess tournaments, that there's an identity involved in this?

Nate: 7:40

Yeah, I think that's where a lot of the pressure comes from is. Yeah, there's this thing that if you're a chess player, you should be going to these tournaments. I mean, some people even would go as far as to say, like OTB, classical chess is the only real chess and nothing else even counts. So there is that idea. But I think, like also in the article, that the analogy I used was it's like if the only ice cream shop in town had a four hour wait and you're just crammed in shoulder to shoulder and it's like so you, so you don't go, and people are like oh, like, oh, you don't like ice cream. It's like, no, I like ice cream, but it's like there's a limit to what I'll put up with. You know, this is too much, right, and that's that's kind of how I feel about over the board tournaments, but I also feel like it's it's quite unnecessary, like we could keep a lot of the good aspects of these tournaments and reduce or eliminate the parts of them that are just incredibly unpleasant and uncomfortable.

Daniel: 8:37

I mean that's that's definitely something I want to get into in a little bit which is, like, what can we do to improve them? I'd like to spend a little time talking about like what, what isn't good about them, Because, I mean, all we hear about are the advantages and there are definitely, I think I think you would agree right Like there's definite advantages to going to OTB tournaments, particularly on the improvement side of things, Right, but I don't think we've there's been anywhere that did like an honest airing of grievances, the issues that we have with them, and you did some of that in your article, which is great. Do you want to like highlight what you think are maybe some of the top drawbacks that make it difficult to enjoy OTB classical?

Nate: 10:07

Yeah for sure. So I think I guess I would say sort of three categories. One unreasonable schedules. So that includes, you know, extremely long round times of two or even three very long classical games per day. You know, rounds starting really early in the morning or going really late at night, or rounds scheduled over typical meal times. So that'd be one. Two would be disruption of sleeping and eating.

Nate: 10:37

Right, so at these terms, simply like it's very difficult, if not impossible, to to just sleep and eat in a healthy way, like you know, very often for rounds to be scheduled that could go to like 11 or midnight. You're probably going to be kind of amped up after that, you know. So you're going to be. You're up quite late, maybe playing around the next morning. Often there there's not really like like a healthy food option. You know, if it's at a hotel or at some sort of playing venue, it might be quite hard to get healthy food like at or near the venue. So it's often quite an unhealthy. You know, when you combine that with like stress, you know it's it, it it's, it's pretty unhealthy. And then finally, I would say, playing conditions, so things like being crammed into a small room.

Nate: 11:23

Maybe poor ventilation, maybe bathrooms are not accessible or clean. A lot of people show up to these tournaments sick. You can hear them coughing and sneezing in this really cramped room. So yeah, for me, those are the three categories I would put them in.

Daniel: 11:39

Yeah, those are. I mean, those are definitely some of the big issues with them. There's another one I wanted to just talk about a bit and see if you find this to be an issue as well, or maybe it's just my own thing. You know, we think of an OTB classical event and the time and energy it's going to take from us to do the event itself, and that's definitely true. But I think there's another big factor, which is the time and energy it takes from you from the next week, because they're typically on weekends.

Daniel: 12:04

So I'm talking about the Monday Tuesday following. You've burned through so much energy that you end up doing less, and so I feel like you end up doing less, maybe productively, on the Monday or Tuesday following and therefore kind of is taking your time even into the next week. Do you find that as well, or am I just like a low energy person?

Nate: 12:50

no-transcript. Yeah, it really took me a long time to recover in terms of being healthy, getting my energy back.

Daniel: 12:57

So, yeah, I totally agree, that's a huge part of it as well investments, but rather than just be frustrated with the downsides of the OTB classical events and, like I said, I know there's a lot of great advantages to them too but I want to talk about how we can maybe make the situation a little bit better, and to me there's two broad buckets of doing that. One is how we could actually make the tournaments themselves better, and the other is, from an improvement standpoint, how you could maybe find some ways to still get the benefits of these tournaments without doing a whole weekend event. So let's start with how we can make the tournaments themselves better, something you already touched on. What would you say are some of your top things that you would like to see organizers do realistically to make the experience better?

Nate: 13:50

Well, so my biggest thing in here, you know, I think so far we've mostly agreed. Maybe, maybe this is going to be one where we disagree. Okay, I think the round should be shorter. Like for most tournaments, I think they should be way shorter. Well, example, well, so, okay.

Nate: 14:04

So, you know, 90 plus 30 is kind of this, this international standard so I would say 90 plus 30, I would say is like an absolute top end, like that, that's the slowest time control that I would even consider close to reasonable. For me, like you know, it's like. That's like. That's like the most serious international competitions. So if you're having a tournament with amateurs, it really doesn't need to be any slower than that. But I would even say most tournaments can and should be be a lot faster, because then when you, when you try to put two of those games, or sometimes even three, in a single day, it's just totally crazy. You're playing like 8, 12 hours of chess in a day.

Nate: 14:43

I think it's just way too much and I think we could get. You know, I do, I do appreciate like that part of the appeal and the benefit of chess is like slowing down and experiencing that focus over a period of time. Right, like that's something that's like kind of magical about chess and that is real and you know I believe in that. But I think we could get that maybe even more so with, you know, 60 plus 30, even 30 plus 30. One great point actually my wife made this point is that when the rounds are too long, it actually takes away from that quality of focus, because then the time between the rounds becomes so compressed and frantic yeah.

Nate: 15:26

Like the overall tournament experience is so chaotic, even though the rounds themselves are so long. So, and I would also say that you know, so let's say, to go from 90 plus 30 to 60 plus 30, I think we can have like the decrease in the quality of play, in my opinion, would be extremely minimal. But then that frees up an additional hour per round. That just makes it possible to have like such a more humane schedule, more humane schedule, and it also makes the you know from the tournament organizer, like that's something talking about, like what's realistic from the tournament organizers point of view. That makes your job easier, because now, right, there's a shorter round that you know has to be essentially proctored. You have more time, you have a lot more wiggle room to create a schedule, to get the pairings done and all of that. So it it's. You know, just by taking a little time off, the time control, you really make your life a lot easier.

Daniel: 16:19

Yeah, no, actually I agree with you, Nate, and I think those are great ideas. So the standard that I've experienced is typically either is two games that are at least 90-30 a day Well, I guess Friday has typically been one game, but then Saturday, Sunday, they're two, each for the 90-30. And I do feel like that's too much. As far as making the game shorter, I'd be for that. Actually, I mean to a point. You know me, I think that's why you said that I prefer my long games. But I think 60-30 is totally reasonable. In fact, that's typically the length that I do for my practice games online at home. So it's like, if that's what I'm doing at home, 60, 30, why wouldn't that be good enough for a tournament? So, yeah, I absolutely think so. My alternative, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Nate: 16:59

I was just going to say. I actually think that going from 90, 30 to 60, 30, or even 30, 30 might, sort of paradoxically, help the people who struggle the most with time pressure. Because if you're using all your time in 90 plus 30, like you probably have a time management issue. You know, like my, my experience from from playing in these tournaments, from working with students, is like very, very few people use that much time effectively, like it's actually very difficult to use that much time efficiently. But you have to be. You know, alexander grischuk like can think for an hour on a move and at the end of that hour he understands a lot more than he did after 10 minutes. But to be able to do that you actually have to be incredibly strong, like in visualization and calculus, calculation and being able to organize your thoughts. So when I'm at that, you know, when I'm sitting across someone, you can kind of tell what they're thinking, and when they are thinking for 30 or 45 minutes I can tell like they're not figuring out more about the position.

Nate: 18:04

And likewise yeah, when I, when I work with students, you know we and we, if we analyze a position where I know they spent half an hour, I mean, if they were really using that time efficiently, right, they should be able to tell me so much about the position. But it, you know, usually it's just they've only looked at a couple lines. It's almost always struggling with something like, emotionally or psychologically, element of knowledge that you really probably won't be able to figure out during the game. So, all in all, it's like I don't think having this huge amount of time is really helping anybody. It's just encouraging people to really spin their wheels and get stressed out, and if you're the kind of person who always gets into time pressure, well you know you're sort of going to be in the same boat as your opponents a lot faster. With a faster time control. You're not going to have this temptation to spend a huge amount of time up front and then put yourself at a disadvantage.

Daniel: 19:02

Yeah, yeah, totally agree with everything you said, nate, and I mean frankly, as much as I like my longer games, I would gladly give a little extra time and do a 60-30 to have lunch.

Daniel: 19:15

Yeah, exactly time and do a 60-30 to have lunch. I think this brings up a good point, even if there was some significant advantage to having a 90-30 for your extra time over 60-30 as a club player and it sounds like, nate, you're even saying maybe it's not even necessarily true beyond club player. Even if that were true, I feel like it's lost in this setting because of the cost on your time needed to eat, to recover, to sleep, and so whatever you gain in that, I feel like you lose in those other areas maybe, if we're talking about like one game a day, 90 plus 30 is more reasonable that I could do, but if we're doing two games a day.

Daniel: 19:49

It's really really tough, right right, so time control was one big bucket that you said you would like to see altered. Is there anything else else that you think they could do to help the situation?

Nate: 20:11

I would say right now, for the most part, we like the experience at chess tournaments ranges from terrible to tolerable, but there's not a lot of great experiences Like the things that count for luxury at chess tournaments are like coffee is provided, like there are clean bathrooms. But you know, imagine if you told someone like oh, I went to this conference, it was so luxurious, and you're like, wow, like what did they have? It's like, oh, there was coffee there. It's like our standards are very low and we could do a lot of other things. You know, simuls, classes, lectures, there's a lot of stuff we could do. I was actually I actually was just looking at this.

Nate: 20:52

There's this company that I'm going to write an upcoming post about what is called dnd in a castle. So it it's what it sounds like. It's a company that does these vacations that are dungeons and dragons, like literally in an actual castle. So you go to this castle. It's like all-inclusive. You play these games of, I mean, dungeons and dragons is not really my thing, but apparently they have like amazing dungeon masters and stuff. So this is for a four day vacation. This is like over $3,000 and they sell them out. And for comparison I was just looking at the world open, right, like a four day chess tournament, that's like $300. So, like you know, I'm not saying your tournament has to be in a castle, although I'm that would be quite on theme for chess I'd like, right, I think it would be cool, or, like you know, you don't have to charge three thousand dollars, you don't have to try to. Like, you know, like some tournament organizers want to make money, some just want to provide a service to the chess community. So it's like, depending on what you, what you want to do, but I'm just saying like there is room to be a lot more creative with the experience and I think there's a huge community of chess players out there who are kind of invisible to tournament organizers because they're not playing in tournaments right now.

Nate: 22:06

Yeah, but that community is probably much bigger than current tournament players, than current tournament players, because if you think of, if you compare online chess to over the board chess, like US chess, just recently, somewhat recently, crossed 100,000 members. Chesscom had over, I think, like 200 million members, like several years ago, and it's gotten much bigger since then. Now you know, some of those are like duplicates or non-active accounts or whatever, but, like you could certainly say there are many, many, many times more online chess players than over the board chess players. So from an organizer perspective, I think, like you know, how can you like the determines we have right now? I think we're like we sort of have a blind spot too because, like, if you've grown up playing chess, this is what you're accustomed to.

Nate: 22:53

But if you kind of step back and you just think about the whole experience of the average chess tournament in the United States, it's like wait a second, like this sucks, like I don't want to be here, you know, but it could be, it could be a lot better. And if it was like if you can create an experience that's radically better, then all bets are off in terms of like how many people you can attract, kind of people you can attract, and like you can potentially charge like 10 times as much, because it's a completely different experience yeah, yeah for sure.

Daniel: 23:23

Just a clarifying question. So the comparison between the numbers of us chess and the numbers of chesscom is the point there that there's still like 99, 98 percent of a large chess pool that they're not tapping into, you know, like they're just getting a tiny fraction they could attract a lot more.

Nate: 23:40

Is that exactly? Yeah, like that's what I'm saying. There's a huge number of people who are interested in chess, are passionate about chess, but are not going to show up at a tournament if it's enormously inconvenient and intimidating and grueling and, you know, just at the end of the day, like not really a lot of fun.

Daniel: 23:58

Right, right Outside of like the castle, which I'm for, a couple of like easy things you feel like they could do to make the experience better, or, you know, whether just from a quality perspective or a fun perspective. I think you hinted at a couple of things like symbols. Right, I just wanted to kind of like dive into that part a bit a couple things like symbols, right.

Nate: 24:17

I just wanted to kind of like dive into that part a bit. Yeah, I think, like I think there are some little perks and quality of life things like you know you should, you should definitely provide water, you should provide coffee, like obviously, that you know it should be clean. I think another one that's that's very low cost but is a nice touch is to provide the boards, because I mean, if you, you, you know, tournament chess sets are not expensive. It's like if you buy them in bulk I don't know 10, maybe $15 per set, and then obviously you could, if you're an organizer, you can reuse those. I think that's a nice touch to people, especially if people are traveling by air they don't have to pack a chess set.

Nate: 24:51

I actually one thing I found out after writing this was a lot of the stuff I'm talking about turns out to be pretty unique to the United States. I heard from readers not only in Europe but also South America, australia, japan, that they were horrified not only by the two classical games per day, which I knew was like mostly an American thing, right, but also just the overall conditions that boards were not provided, you know, things like pens weren't provided. So it seems like in the United States we have really a uniquely low standard for the conditions of tournament chess. So I'm not entirely sure why that is, but it does appear to be pretty unique to the United States.

Daniel: 25:36

Yeah, have you been to a European tournament?

Nate: 25:39

I actually you know that's a great question I never have I wish. I really regret. So I live in Omaha, Nebraska now, so I'm like exactly in the middle of the United States. I wish I had gone to the Reykjavik Open when I lived in Boston, which is a very easy flight, but no, I don't think I ever actually have played a tournament in Europe.

Daniel: 26:00

Okay, okay, yeah, on the to-do list then, right, yeah. So the other part of what I wanted to talk about related to quote unquote. Solving this issue is until or unless OTB tournaments improve in the US at least. I want to think of how people could still get some of the improvement benefits of them even without going to one, because I think that is probably the primary driver for most people going is to improve their chess. So what would you recommend to get some of those benefits outside of an OTB classical event?

Nate: 26:33

Yeah, I do think they're good for improvement, but I don't think that the reason is primarily how slow they are. I think it's more so focus and intensity that you can access in that environment and also community that you're going to meet other people who are passionate about chess, right. So I would say you know some things you can do. A lot of local clubs run a tournament where it's one round per week. You know, often, like one evening per week, the same day, you go and play one game. I think that's a great option. I have a lot of students who do that and I think you know that that's really a nice rhythm for improvement, because then it sort of gives you this, this bullet point in your week. You know you're sort of you're training, you're kind of leading up to that, and then you have something to review. So it's very consistent, but at the same time you're not going to not to be overwhelmed at any point, right? So I think that's great.

Nate: 27:29

I think you know if, if your club has, or you can convince them to have faster time, you know like 60 plus 30 we were talking about, I think even 30 plus 30, or even you know even like 15 plus 10. I don't see a ton of tournaments like that, but like I think those can all be great for improvement. Like I was saying, I think a lot of the benefit it's like it's not like oh, like once you play like a four hour game that suddenly unlocks improvement, I think that's like that's really excessive for most people. Probably even more so, actually, if you know something I've heard from a lot of people when they're like thinking about playing their first tournament is like like, what do you even do with all that time? Like like what are you supposed to be thinking about?

Daniel: 28:11

so, yeah, I think right for most players, playing more faster games, yeah, would actually be more beneficial I think anything game that goes beyond three hours, I start to get a little punchy in my thinking afterwards.

Nate: 28:25

It's, it's not diminishing return after about three hours for me one other thing I would suggest just to add one more is like yeah, you know, a lot of tournaments allow you to request buys in advance, so I think that's something you should consider taking advantage of. Like, I've created some personal rules for myself just to try to make sure, like I enjoy the experience. So, for me, I don't play anything slower than 90 plus 30 and I don't play anything slower than 90 plus 30. And I don't play more than two classical games per day. So if there's three classical games in a day either, if I could request a buy for one of those in advance, I'll consider that, but if not, that's probably not the tournament for me.

Daniel: 29:08

Right. How do you feel about online classical tournaments? I know things like Chess Dojo does that. There's some leagues like a 45-45 league online. How do you feel about that as a way to get in your classical for improvement?

Nate: 29:35

for three hours playing one game, like it's just not going to happen. So for me, you know, if I'm using online chess for improvement, I I might be playing like 10 plus 5 or like 15 plus 10 or something like that. I it just sounds really tough to me to to sit in front of my computer and play one game for that long.

Daniel: 29:46

But you know if it works for you, sure yeah, I, I think I and many others set up a, set up a board. You you know if it's going to be a long classical game. So that way, yeah, staring at a screen that long is definitely not terribly enticing. There's just one thing I want to touch back on and get your opinion that you mentioned. You said another reason people go to these OTB events is for community, to meet people, to connect with people. I don't know about you, but I found that difficult at these events and it goes to everything that we've already talked about. There's so little time outside of the games to do anything that I find it makes the socializing just not what I would hope it would be. There's people I say, well, yeah, let's meet up there at the event and we just never do because, like, oh my, you know my game went long or whatever. The games just get in the way. Have you found that to be true as well?

Nate: 30:39

Yeah, that you know. That's a good point. Now that you say it, I probably it's more so seeing people I already know than making new connections, yeah, no-transcript.

Nate: 31:18

And like I think that's the wrong way to think about it Like you should have downtime at the tournament, so shorter rounds would help. Then, you know, in addition to things like simuls or classes, you know you could have like a cocktail hour or more social type events. You know, maybe a blitz tournament, maybe a bug house tournament, that also. You know that that also kind of gets the issue of like kids at tournaments, cause obviously you know kids should not be at like a cocktail hour but, I, think if you want the tournament to be more social and more about community, then you know I also wish there were more adults-only tournaments.

Nate: 31:57

There's a few there's Alto at Charlotte and some other chess clubs but yeah, if it's purely about competition, obviously I understand there's a lot of kids who are amazing at chess and you know they should be allowed to compete. But if it's more about community and the experience, I think we should also have more tournaments that are only for adults and it's like you know we understand this is more about making connections and having a great experience. It's not just all out competition.

Daniel: 32:31

Right, yeah, I mean, ideally I would like to have a social component to it as well, which is made almost impossible to me if the game schedule just puts such a severe time crunch on everything that it doesn't happen. I wanted to ask your opinion on something regarding classical events like the ones we're talking about and improvement, which is I've heard from several coaches slash title players that the best way to improve, or one of the best ways to improve, rather to be fair to them, is to go to these events. That it'll do as much for your improvement as almost anything else can. I wonder, do you think that too much emphasis is placed on that for improvement, either just in general, or that these classical games need to be in a, you know, otb setting?

Nate: 33:23

I think it. I think they do tend to be helpful. I mean, you know, it's it's always like really hard to sort of tease out cause and effect with improvement. Yeah, because we really, you know, there's nothing like a randomized controlled trial, so it's all just kind of still back in the envelope, but I mean it does.

Nate: 33:45

I would say it seems like there's a pattern of people who play OTB consistently tend to get better, of people who play OTB consistently tend to get better. I mean, again, you can go back to the cause and effect of it's like is it they're getting better because they're playing OTB or is this a? You know, have you selected a sample of, like highly motivated and engaged players? Right, still, I would say, you know, I do believe that it's good for improvement, but but again, I think it's it's good for improvement, but but again I think it's it's probably less to do with, like insanely slow chess is good for improvement and probably more to do with it's going to create a lot of motivation for you to train harder before the event. It's going to create an environment where you're able to access more focus and intensity than you could at home, just because you know when you are in a room and it's quiet and it's filled with other chess players, right, sure, in a perfect world would be great to like turn on that, that mentality, like a light switch at home.

Nate: 34:40

But realistically, you're not going to be able to do that. You're only going to be able to access that at the tournament. It's going to be a much higher level of intensity and then it's also going to give you something. You're going to be much more motivated to review those games because you put a lot more into them. Um, so I I do like I do believe you know these are probably really good for improvement for a lot of people. I just think we could do it with 60 plus 30 or 30 plus 30. Like we could have all those benefits actually probably like more so of those benefits and they just wouldn't be so miserable.

Daniel: 35:14

Yeah, yeah, I agree, I would like to see tournaments themselves improve and not just find, you know, like online alternatives, for example, as the solution. And if we could just talk a little bit about this, because I think this is a fascinating subject within OTB events, you know, why are they so helpful to your point, nate, about it not just being the length of the game itself. There's a critical factor that I've always found, because a component to these events that I found really helps my improvement. I noticed this when I submit my games to my coaches. The classical OTB games that I submit to a coach are by far OTB games that I submit to a coach are by far my best performances, and I think one of the big reasons why is the stakes, and there's two parts to that.

Daniel: 35:59

One is a rating, a USCF official rating or whatever your country rating is, and I think people value that highly, so they're going to give their best for a game that has that at stake. And the other is just what we're talking about all the money you invest, all the time and energy you invest, you don't want to give a half-hearted performance. You're going to give your best because of how much you put in to be there, and I think when you raise the stakes in those two ways, you really elevate your performance. And so I guess my point in saying that is one is to further what you're saying, that it's not just about the length of the games, and then, two, to emphasize why it would be great if we could just make these events a little better, because they do offer so much. Your thoughts on that.

Nate: 36:40

Yeah, I think the stakes absolutely. I agree 100%. One other thing that brought to mind is the post-mortem right, this tradition in OTB chess where you analyze the game afterwards with your opponent. I think it's a great tradition, I think it's really great for improvement to get that perspective. Unfortunately, I feel like it seems to be dying out somewhat.

Nate: 37:00

I don't really see people do that as much as they used to and I think, again, it's the the schedule is a big part of it, right, like if that next round is coming up, you got to think about, you know, hydrating, like eating something, relaxing a little bit, yeah, and I think it's also. People have also told me it's a little bit. You know, they feel like it's tougher with kids because, like, if your opponent's an adult, you might offer to analyze the game, but with kids often they sort of run off and then you're like am I really gonna like walk up to this kid and their parents and be like hey, like want to analyze the game? So think that's. That's another great tradition that maybe we could sort of bring back, if there's like a little bit more breathing room between these games.

Daniel: 37:40

Yeah, yeah, great points. So a question that I had for you is given your own distaste or displeasure with tournaments lately OTB tournaments do you think you will still recommend them to your students for improvement? Or, you know, does your own, your own experiences affect what you recommend for coaching?

Nate: 38:00

yeah, you know I was sort of thinking about that and kind of um uncomfortable with it, because it is something like I have told my students for a long time like this is a great way to improve. But I've, you know, I've gotten so frustrated with the experience of these tournaments. I do think I think like something like that, like a local, once a week rated game, is probably the ideal for a lot of like amateur sort of club level players. So I think that's great, I think. And then I think, like for the, the tournaments that are bigger commitment like, like like weekend tournaments, I mean I would still say like, try it. Like, if you've never played one, like try it just to experience it.

Nate: 38:40

And some people do love them. You know, it's sort of like some people run like super marathon, some people like a very intense, grueling experience. So, like you know, if you're one of those people, obviously you know, do the thing that you love, why not? But I would also say, but probably for the people who don't like them, I would not pressure them to to play in these, because I mean there is an enormous cost in these, like not not so much in in money, although I mean when you factor in, like air travel and hotels, it can be pretty expensive, but but even more so in time and energy.

Daniel: 39:13

Right, I think. One last question I have for you on the subject of OTB tournaments and their value and how we can make them better is you know we talked about some potential solutions that organizers could do to make the experience better, to make the games themselves better too, our experience in that as well. While I think it's interesting to talk about it and think about it and helpful to think about it, I'm wondering if there's any practical step that we could take as chess enthusiasts, adult club players, whatever you want to call yourself, to maybe nudge at least tournaments to go in the directions that we're talking about. I mean, do we reach out to organizers? Is there anything we can do to push things in that direction?

Nate: 39:54

Yeah, maybe you know, if you would prefer a shorter time control, I think you could get. Yeah, maybe, maybe you could talk to, like, the organizers or whoever runs your local chess clubs, because I have I've heard sort of anecdotally from organizers that that they hear from players who want longer time controls. So you know, so, you know, so I know their preferences go both ways. I do like, I do kind of have the feeling that like, maybe the people who like the, the longer time controls, tend to be a bit more vocal and like these these are, you know, often, not always, but this sort of more old school chat. You know people have been playing a long time. They might be a little bit more like gatekeeper-y when it old school chat. You know people have been playing a long time. They might be a little bit more like gatekeeper-y when it comes to that, you know.

Nate: 40:37

So if you, if you would prefer a different kind of tournament, you know, maybe you should let that be known. Yeah, yeah, I think I I guess I already mentioned like utilizing buys strategically. I think you can sort of you know journey craft, your own experience, to be something that works for you. I think you can sort of you know, ernie, craft your own experience to be something that works for you. I think you know within the rules, Right.

Daniel: 40:57

You know, on that point I've had like a competitive mental block against that. Because you know if there's five games at an event for a weekend event and you take a buy, you know you get the half point and there's no chance now that you can get that full point and you drastically reduce, even with just one buy. And there's no chance now that you can get that full point and you drastically reduce, even with just one buy, your chances of placing high in your section, maybe competitively. I just shouldn't care. But I mean, I also felt like if I wasn't competitive I wouldn't be doing chess.

Nate: 41:22

Your thoughts on that. Yeah, I mean, I actually I think it's from a competitive perspective. Maybe this should not even like it's a little bit weird that this is even allowed. But but for me currently, like, if the, if the choices are either I'm not going to play the tournament because I just know I'm going to be too miserable, or I can take a buy and play the tournament and have like a good experience. Right then that's preferable. But much you. But I would much prefer to either that the tournament would just be designed in a way that I could play all the rounds and not hate my life.

Daniel: 42:00

Right, right, yeah, exactly, great point. So, nate, I just want to spend a little time talking about what you're up to these days. Now I know that basically closes that part of our conversation for OTB tournaments. I think we covered a lot of good stuff. Oh, I want to recommend to people, before I dive into what you're up to, to read your two articles. We'll have links in the show notes to both of your two articles on this subject. I know you did a follow-up one recently on what would make chess tournaments fun, which is also an excellent read, and I encourage people to check that out. So just a quick reminder for people to do that. But that actually is a good segue into what I do want to discuss, which is what you are up to these days as a coach, as a content creator. I know obviously you have your newsletter that's why we're talking about this subject today but I just kind of want to know where's your time and energy going these days in chess.

Nate: 42:48

Yeah for sure. Well, I'm finishing my next Chessable course, which this one has really taken a long time, but it is almost done. I basically just have to record the videos. One e4, and it's based on the semi slav, so this will combine with my, my two existing courses. So I've got one for white, which is the with the ready one night f3. I've got black versus e4 with the nimzovich sicilian. So then this one black versus everything but e4. The three together would be a like a full repertoire for both colors.

Nate: 43:30

I so, and they all follow a similar philosophy, and they're these 100 repertoires, which means 100 lines total, which is much shorter, right, than a lot of courses, and that's by design, it's to make them manageable and practical. So, anyways, that's supposed to be out in May, so that'll be awesome. And then, yeah, yeah, I'm also doing, I'm doing one-on-one coaching, I'm doing. I just wrapped up, I sort of tried an experiment, this time with this semi-slot that I'm working on, but I also did did it as a live kind of cohort-based class where we had like a weekly zoom call, okay.

Nate: 44:11

So that was pretty interesting, because what I, what I found, is that I, I've developed a process for learning, an opening that works for me, you know, and I kind of try to like with my one-on-one students. Obviously we don't only do openings, we do a lot of different things but I help some people with their openings. But I thought, you know, maybe I can sort of try to lead people through the process of how I would learn an opening, because I think it's really. It can be a lot simpler and faster than people think it is. You don't to prepare an opening to the level that you can succeed with it, even up to a master level.

Nate: 44:49

It doesn't take a huge amount of time if you have a good process what I found is when it comes to the opening, most players are the way they're doing.

Daniel: 45:00

It just isn't really working interesting, so you teach a process for learning an opening more efficiently, basically, yeah, that was the concept of this live course, so that just wrapped.

Nate: 45:11

Yeah, it was the first time I did, it was quite experimental, but I mean I think it went pretty well. People seem to like it. So you know, I might do and I'll probably do another cohort, you know, perhaps with a different opening even, but but a similar idea.

Daniel: 45:25

Was that direct through you, or was it through Chessable?

Nate: 45:27

That was, that was through me, you know. I told Chessable like, hey, I'm like I have this idea, and they're like, oh, you can just go ahead and do it. So, but it was just. I just, you know, set up a, set up a page and did it.

Daniel: 45:37

Oh, that's awesome. I'm sorry I missed that. That sounds fascinating.

Nate: 45:49

Is that still available? In some like do you sell the recorded version of? But do keep an eye out because, like you know, I might run another cohort based on the semi slav, or maybe you know I was thinking of other openings. I think actually the the london would be a great fit for this format, because I know this is an opening many people hate, although it's one I kind of love, although I mean I I played a lot of different openings but one. So so just to you know, to say, my approach to learning the opening like in a single sentence, would be learned by playing like.

Nate: 46:21

I really want to lay the groundwork as quickly as possible and then get in there and play, you know, not not necessarily over the board classical games, but you know, not necessarily over-the-board classical games, but faster online games to get experience. And the problem with that approach for a black opening versus D4 is that well, black pieces, that's 50% of your games, and then white players at most levels play E4 in more than 50% of games. So if you're trying to practice, just by firing up a random game online, you're looking at less than 25 that you'll be able to use it and then and of course I'm sure everyone has had the experience of like. As soon as you learn an opening, then your next 20 games online, like no one ever plays into it right, yeah, so that's.

Nate: 47:10

That is there's a little bit of a challenge. So the reason I think um the london would be a good fit is because, well, you can play d4 every game that you have white, and then you can play the london against most things black can do. So you're in a little bit more control of like getting to practice this consistently and use that learn by playing approach I see.

Daniel: 47:32

Well, going back to the workshop or like I don't know if you call it that, but the like, the live course that you did on how to approach an opening, that sounds similar, at least in format, to what you did for having a study plan, right, like creating a study plan for yourself. Am I right in that that those were kind of like similar format offerings for you?

Nate: 47:53

yeah, well, I mean, they were both like live zoom events. The study plan was was a one-off session that I did. You know, I did it around the new year because I figured people would be like sort of trying to revamp their chest and that. So that was just a one-off, it was totally free. The the semi-solve was was a series like a six-week series that included like weekly calls.

Nate: 48:16

There is also a discord group and some other elements to it okay okay, but yes, they were both live zoom event okay, the the chess study plan event.

Daniel: 48:26

is that something you plan on doing again in the future, because I know that was a live event that's already passed now?

Nate: 48:38

You know what I probably should like? Something that I do that is very stupid as a business person is I create these things and I only use them once. So for that study plan workshop, I even created a slide deck. So I should do it. Yeah, maybe. I don't know if I'll. I guess I could do it like quarterly or annually. I definitely should do it again.

Nate: 48:53

I'm still kind of experimenting with, like how I can create a study plan that people will actually use. Because, like, I do believe having a specific daily plan if you're serious about chess improvement is something you should do. It's like in my experience, chess players are pretty resistant to this, but it's it's a little odd to me because you know, if you're trying to get in shape, like physically right, you know you would certainly have a plan that was like specific, down to days and workouts. You know, if you're gonna run a marathon, you're to have a specific plan. So I think the same logic applies for chess. Like it makes sense to have a plan. It doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, it's not about necessarily doing more or being more intense. It might actually be about like doing less, but maybe with more intentionality and purpose. You know, if can, yeah, take some of that time, like that mindless bullet time and put it towards something that that might be, you know, both more educational and more enjoyable.

Nate: 50:03

Right, it's, it's just a. You know, to me, a plan is it's just a way to like really get clear on what you want to do and then follow through on it. So, yeah, I think I think people who are trying to get better at chess could benefit from having a specific plan. Still, sort of tinkering with, like what is the format, how do I convey that so that people will actually stick to it that's the tough part.

Daniel: 50:26

Right. Well, for what it's worth. I think the study plan you know, live workshop that you had is a great idea. Once again, I've been a little in and out of touch with things on social media so I didn't get the news on that when I should have, but I would love to be a part of that for what it's worth, and I think a lot of other club players and listeners of the show would too. So if that's something you want to do again, I'm all for it. I'll be a part of it and encourage others to join as well. I think it's a fantastic idea, one that just seems like is evergreen in its usefulness for people.

Nate: 50:58

Yeah, I should definitely do that again. And I yeah, I've got a slide deck, I've got a video.

Daniel: 51:15

I have. I have like a Google doc study plan sort of template, so I did create a lot of materials around that that I still think are helpful. And then the last thing, nate, that you're up to, that I want to talk about a little bit. We, in a certain way, we did this entire episode by talking about your articles relating to OTB chess events, but more broadly, as part of your Substack newsletter. Can you just tell people a little bit about you know what that is, what it offers.

Nate: 51:30

Yeah, absolutely. So. I mean, mean, this is really the thing that I've done the longest in terms of chess content. That's probably what I'm most known for. So it's it's a weekly newsletter, I mean, which is it's essentially a blog that gets emailed out. So it's called zwischenzug, which, of course, I mean most readers will know that this is a, this is an in-between move, so you know, sort of the concept with that name is that it's a little bit unexpected or a different perspective. You know, perhaps perhaps it wasn't the best choice, since it is hard to spell, but I think I'm stuck with it now. But yeah, people can sign up for that. There it's. You know, there there is a paid level, but but it, you know, the, the standard weekly post is completely free.

Daniel: 52:15

So you know, if people just want to get that like delivered weekly to their, their mail, you can just sign up and the weekly post is always free perspective is to, you know, have positions or ideas that are maybe unexpected or less less commonly heard, which is exactly why I wanted to invite you on the podcast for this episode, because I haven't heard anyone talk about what are the drawbacks to OTB events and you know how do we manage them or deal with them. So, yeah, just love that. You're thinking, you know, in ways that maybe we haven't heard a lot of in the community, because I think we need that, because a lot of the things, a lot of like certain like ideas and concepts just keep getting repeated over and over and we think like we have they must be true. But I love when people challenge them sometimes and ask you know, is this the best way? Is this worthwhile? So I appreciate you doing that in your newsletter too, you doing that in your newsletter too.

Nate: 53:09

Yeah, I mean, I think realistically there's not much we know for sure about chess improvement. There's a lot of passed down wisdom and traditions. Probably some of them are right, some of them are wrong.

Daniel: 53:28

There's still a lot of room to experiment. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, definitely encourage people to check out your newsletter. I'll have a link for that, as well as the specific articles that we talked about today in the show notes. And, yeah, it's my highest recommendation to check out Nate's newsletter, because I think it's fantastic Lots of great ideas and things that will help you think differently about chess as well as improve your chess. So, nate, I really enjoyed our conversation today. I want to say thank you for doing this. I didn't know if it was redundant for you, because I know you already wrote about it, but I wanted to have this conversation because I've been thinking that and feeling that and I wanted to talk about it with someone else who shared those feelings and also had some really good ideas about how we can move forward with it. So I just want to say thank you so much for talking about it with me today.

Nate: 54:13

No, thank you. I think it's great to discuss it and, yeah, I'm excited to see where the discussion goes from here, because I would love I mean to hear what more people think and hopefully, just at the end of the day, make tournaments better, more enjoyable and more accessible to a lot more people.

Daniel: 54:31

Yeah, absolutely that's the idea, and I appreciate your perspectives on that. I agree with all of them that we need to. We need to make some improvements, so that way they're desirable, basically. So, yeah, thanks, nate, appreciate your time today and thank you for being on the show.

Nate: 54:45

All right, thanks, daniel.

Daniel: 54:49

Thanks for listening. This has been a production of my business, adult Chess Academy, and that has a website with the same name. If you want to look for it, you can also find me being way too active on Twitter by searching my username, lona underscore chess See you next week.