Hi, everyone!
I know I've been relatively inactive from posting. The event I am referring to in this post happened two months ago. I think I got a little burnt out from posting, as well as very busy with school. I might talk about that more in detail in the future, but let's focus on the event!
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This is the follow-up to my
exciting news post. To recap, my collegiate chess team received an invitation to the 2022 Pan American Intercollegiate chess tournament. Essentially, it's a huge collegiate chess tournament, with teams from all over the country. The event was six rounds in total. Rather than analyze all six games in one post, I think it'd be best to break the event down into four posts, as the event was four days total.
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Round 1 was set to kickoff on Thursday evening (1/6). My team decided to travel to Virginia a day early, so we flew in Wednesday morning. It was nice to have an extra day to spend with my teammates, prepare, etc.
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The format of the event is that teams were paired in a swiss system, and each team had four players. Many schools brought multiple teams. We wanted to bring a B-team, but since we received this invitation last-minute, we were only able to muster up four players rather than eight. I think that was a good decision, as managing eight players for our first major team tournament would have been a hassle. Anyway, here was our lineup:
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BOARD 1: Daniel Guel (1802 USCF)
BOARD 2: Mark Mettler (1562 USCF)
BOARD 3: Evan Sherman (1426 USCF)
BOARD 4: Andrew Henson (1178 USCF)
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You could say our team is good depending on how you look at it. I think given that this is Baylor's first serious chess competition, it's a very solid team. However, I think it's safe to say we had no shot at the top, given that some teams had four GMs
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In round one, we were paired with Harvard. So with the format, board 1 plays the opponent's board 1, board 2 vs board 2, so on. So I was set to play Harvard's board 1, who was none other than WGM Jennifer Yu (2368 USCF).
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My guess is that many of you know who she is, but most don't. She's famous for winning the
2019 US Women's Championship. Not only did she win the tournament, she DESTROYED the competition. I was very excited for the pairing.
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This was my 5th career tournament game vs a 2300+ USCF, with a 1.5/4 record against players in that rating range. At the time of the game, she was my highest rated opponent ever. She'll probably go down as the most famous opponent I've played, having won the US Women's Championship. Everyone else on Harvard's team was 2000+. Tough pairing!
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Thursday evening was only one game, so this'll be the only game for the post. Hope you enjoy the analysis!
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Honestly, it's not a bad loss in itself. I'm not expected to win the game. My biggest regret is my time management, and not putting up more resistance. One thing I noticed playing her (as well as any insanely high rated players) is that she was not nervous at all during the game. She was cool as a cucumber. I feel like players at that level are better at not thinking "Oh no, what if I lose to this 1800 and lose rating", and just focus on the task in front of them.
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Baylor ended up losing to Harvard 3.5-0.5. Our board 2 held a draw vs a master.
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That's it for round 1! We played two rounds Friday, two Saturday, and one Sunday. Be on the lookout for more posts soon!
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