My Return to Chess and the 2025 K-12 State Championships

For nearly one year, I have not played chess. But recently, I have decided to start to play again. So with some preparation, I went to the state chess championship. Since I have not played in a long time, I thought maybe 2 or 3 games out of 6. Did I win more? Stick around to find out. 
  I had to wake up early for the tournament, and I was a bit tired going into the first round. I don't know how the pairing system works, but I got paired up with a 1300 player as black (I'm about 900). 
  Here's the game:
     

My opponent said taking the bishop on f4 was a blunder, which was correct (If you guys see any blunders, please point them out). I went back to the waiting room, and my friend who's rating was 1100 but lost to a 700 by playing too fast and blundered his winning position.
  The next round was at 10:30, and the pairings where up. I got black again.

I then waited for my opponent to move his queen and rook off the f-file so I could mate. It happened after about 11 moves, and my opponent accidently threw a pawn onto the board and begged for a takeback. I declined and went to the scorekeeper. 
  The next round was in one and a half hours, so we got lunch. I took a walk with my mom afterwards. The next round, I finally got white against a 587. But since my game is rusty, he lasted longer than expected:

I once again messed up notation. I managed to move my king up and block him in, but he didn't see mate and continued to capture pawns. When he realized the threat, it was a mate in two and he was unable to defend with his 2 rooks. He desperately offered a draw, but I declined the offer. His a-file pawn was also late to the party and unable to promote. 
  My next match was at about 2:30, and I got black again. At this point, I don't feel like the colors were random. Here's the game:

Something in my notation was messed up (sorry), and Rxf5 was mate instead of check. But that was it. While waiting for match #5, I took another walk outside, but quickly forced inside by them smell of diesel fuel.
  Here's game 5, which I lost as black (again).

I was way down in pawns, and I wouldn't have been able to stop the B pawn from becoming a queen, so I just resigned. A lot of the moves I made weren't good at all, and I was making mistakes left and right.
  Time for round 6. The final round. I got white against a 760 player, so I was a bit nervous. The last game I forgot to notate, but it ended up being about 15 mins. We played a standard opening, but my opponent blundered mate in the middlegame. I used the Qg3 and Bh6 trick, and his f7 pawn was pinned. He moved his queen to e7, preparing to move pawn to f6. My bishop was on the a1-h8 diagonal, and my queen got onto h6. He tried to use f6, but I pointed out it was illegal. He then stalled for ten minutes trying to "figure it out". He ended up losing, and I had a final score of 4/6. 
  We waited for the results, and I got 2nd of my class, the 800-1000 rated. I got my trophy and my free Chesskid membership, and went home.


I hope you enjoyed this blog, and I will be posting weekly from now on. Make sure to check "The Weekly Tourney Blog" series.

@Amazing_Plane