My First Quad Tournament
You may have heard about quad tournaments. No, they are not 4 tournaments in one. A quad tournament is actually a four person round robin tournament. You play three rounds, and you play each person once.
These were very popular about 30 or 40 years ago, and have been getting less popular, but they still happen. Today, and want to write about my first ever quad tournament. In the first two rounds, I was not able to record the entire game due to time trouble. I can give a summary of what happened though.
Game #1
I was playing the lowest rated player, and I was the highest rated player, so I thought I would be able to win pretty easily. However, that was not the case. I was white in a Ruy Lopez, and got my bishop trapped. The rest of the game was pretty boring, but from that one blunder, I lost.
Game #2
Coming off from a tough loss, I was playing black against the third highest rated player. This player was very careless, and left a few pawns unprotected, which I capitalized on. From there, I was able to cruise to a victory, helped by a king and rook fork.
Game #3
Game three was very, very important. My opponent had already won two games, so all he needed was a draw to win the quad. This one, I was able to record, so here it is.
After all three rounds, three players were tied for first place with 2/3 points! A quad tournament can not have a tie, so we were going to do a mini blitz playoff to decide it. I was the highest rated, so I sat out the first round, and I watched as the other two players play a 5|0 blitz match. I was to play the winner of that game, as black.
The player that ended up winning was the player who beat me in the first round. I am not good at blitz, so I was very worried. One 5|0 blitz game against the person who beat me was to decide the entire tournament Obviously, I was not able to record it.
I came ahead from the very start, because my opponent moved his knight like 4 or 5 times in a row! You always want to move more than one piece, especially in the opening. About 15 moves in, I was able to win one of his knights, and he started to panic. The worst thing you can do mentally is spend time regretting your decisions, so that lead to him playing crazy moves with his queen.
I was able to trap his queen, and just about 10 or 15 moves later, I played checkmate, to win my first ever quad tournament.
I hope you enjoyed this story about a quad tournament. If you did, click follow in the top right. Goodbye!
