Berlin Rapid Championship - Individual and Team
Opening:
Welcome my dear reader! Over the last weekend, I played both in the Berlin Rapid Individual Championship and Team Championship. The events were a blast, and featured some interesting chess, which I want to share with you all today! But beforehand, I want to thank SC Kreuzberg for finding me a spot last-minute on their 2nd team, and allowing me to play on board one in spite of more experienced and higher-rated players being eligible. Specifically, I want to thank Michael Ziems and FM Alexander Kurz for organizing my participation. Quick side note - while our team was seeded 11th in the beginning based on our rating average (2059), my not playing many FIDE tournaments means my rating is only in the mid-1900s while my USCF is around 2200, so rightfully we could’ve been 7th or 8th and the result (which shall be revealed later) wouldn’t have been such a huge overperformance. So, without further ado, enjoy!
Middlegame:
The first day was the individual tournament, and I felt I had something to prove - I wanted to get my foot into the door of the wider Berlin chess community on a good note. I’ll only show the more interesting games, so let’s start with:
Round 2, Individual Championship:
After a shaky first round, I was pretty happy with my result in this game - my opponent was rated a little over 2200 and had defeated me in a more casual tournament a few weeks prior. Up next is my game against FM Jürgen Brustkern in Round 5 on day 1.
Round 5, Individual Championship:
This win put me at 4.5/5, which had me pleasantly surprising. With only two rounds to go and a serious shot at becoming Berlin’s Rapid Champion, I played 2400-rated IM Alexander Gelman and… hung an exchange in the most simple way possible. Genius, I know… Regardless, at the end of the seven rounds, I had a score of 5/7 and a performance rating of 2246 - not bad by any means, and I was pretty happy with my final position of 7th place (on tiebreaks).
Endgame:
After my performance in Day 1, I decided to shoot my shot and join the Kreuzberg team for the Team Championship. Playing alongside me were FM Alexander Kurz, FM Klaus Lehmann, Mustafa Inkaya, and Michael Ziems on boards 2-5 respectively. With a relatively low average rating, the five of us understood that a good performance was unlikely - we were all in it mostly for fun chess. At least, that was my attitude; just go crazy and play for a win. With that spirit, I didn’t really bother to try and remember my games, although being the chess addict that I am I still mostly did. The highlight of the day was Round 5, we scored a huge upset against one of the pre-tournament favorites, TSG, after I beat a strong IM to clinch the match; as much as I would love to show that game, unfortunately I forgot some early move orders 😢. Instead, here’s my only loss in the second day of the tournament, against 18-year-old FM Jonas Eilenberg.
Round 2, Team Championship:
