I HAVE SOME EXCITING NEWS!

Well, maybe this is more exciting for me personally than my readers... nevertheless, I still plan to write about this experience, which you will hopefully enjoy!

So what's the exciting news? Let's get straight to it. My collegiate chess team for Baylor University got invited to the 2022 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Championship! What's this tournament all about?

It's a six-round event over four days, January 6-9, with a time control of G/90+30 (90 minutes per side with a 30-second increment). To be completely honest, I don't know the exact prestige of this tournament, as my chess team is (obviously) not a powerhouse. I think the top four teams qualify for the collegiate chess final four, or something like that, but I could be totally wrong. Either way, some STACKED teams are signed up for the event. 

Each team has four players (some universities have multiple teams). The format is a simple "Olympiad" structure, where board one plays each other, board two clashes, and so on.

The most intriguing detail to me personally is that the tournament is in Virginia, right next to Washington DC, which means that it's going to be quite a travel for us Texas players. Also, it'll be my first career out-of-state chess tournament, and I'm hype for that!

As far as my team goes, I'll be on board one at 1801 USCF. My teammates are rated 1555, 1437, and 1178 (provisional). Our board four is about 1700-1800 on Chess.com, so hopefully, he can make some noise!

That's about all I wanted to say. I will definitely be blogging about the event. We don't expect to win anything major, but our chess club is thankful and excited for the experience of playing such a high-level event. 

Last, but not least, I know a lot of teams/players are signed up. Please give me a shout-out if you are going to be there!   Otherwise, have a great day, Merry (belated) Christmas, Happy New Year, and I'll see you for the next post!