NC State Championships 2024

Hi and welcome to the special edition of the Weekly Tournament Blog. Today I'll share my 6 games played in the NC State Championship. So we left on Friday, which was one day early. But I figured it would be better to leave in advance than leave a 6:00am the next morning. The first round was at 9:30 the next morning. 

So here's what I have for game 1:

So this is as far as my notation would go, but I lost because of the bishop blunder. So for that game, I didn't really look at the opponent's pieces, and that actually cost me the entire first round. I also decided to use the gambits I learnt a few days earlier.

Unfortunately for game 2, my notation only got to move 23, so I can only explain. I played white, so I used my normal Italian Game opening to kick off the game. So after we both castled, I started a small attack, getting the opponent's king out of his comfort zone. After trying to get into the king's safety area, I was unexpectedly back rank mated while attacking. 

So for game 3, I played black:

And I couldn't find the reason of move 11 on my notation. But I attempted my new Traxler Counter Attack, but my opponent didn't go for a fork on the f7 square. I managed to get ahead by 2 pawns, but my opponent equalized it out. After that, it was a king+pawn endgame. We had 3 fold repetition, so we drew. 

The next morning, I played the fourth round. It was so boring, I'll just show the final position.

Uhh, yeah. Nothing happened cause my opponent withdrew from the tournament, and didn't come. After that game, I bought a souvenir which was a t-shirt with all the competitors names, the logo of the tournament, and a badge on my left sleeve saying 1st place, so whenever I write, it shows.

So I won the fifth game as white

So after he resigned, I said on move 23, he could've gone c6 and ended my attack. On the next move, he could play Ka8, so after Qa6, he plays Rb8. 

So after the 2 wins, I was feeling very confident to play the last game:

I drew!! Note I was playing a 1450, so a draw was insane! After this last game, we had to wait for the standings, but I was #19, meaning no trophy.

I hope you enjoyed, and bye!

@Amazing_Plane