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My Biggest Tournament win ever!!!
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My Biggest Tournament win ever!!!

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LiftingChesss
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Hey everyone, it's been a minute. 

I did end up playing a tournament between this post and my previous one, It went ok, and I gained about 20 rating points. I never ended up posting it because life has been super busy, I haven't been 2300 online in about three months and it feels like I'm stuck, so the motivation to play or post has been hard to find, but here we are. For context this is a unique event, the 2024 MN class championships is a tournament where you only play against those in your class, with mine being class B 1600-1799, so the competition should be easier than my past few. I will try and make some of these into puzzles so you can play through my best moments, and then see the games after, enjoy! 

Round 1: Beautiful positional cruise

When I see I have the white pieces in the first round, I am happy, but when its against a 10 year old with a live rating of 1728, I'm definitely more wary. But I figured I would play what I had been looking at theory wise and see how it goes. A kids weakness is positional chess, not tactics. 

Hint for the puzzle: restrict the queenside

Good job if you got the puzzle! Here is the full game:
My score is now 1/1, and I was very proud of that game, certainly a good way to start the tournament off, now I will have to face my other friend who is in middle school and is incredibly underrated, but I was excited to finally face him.
Round 2: Atrocious Swindle
This puzzle should be very difficult, so take your time yall, but how can black get a queen?
The full game: I was winning but messed up and had to pull that crap to survive.

OOOF, what a messy game, but at this point I was leading the tournament with 1.5/2 points going into day 2, so all I had to do was not do my usual of throwing easy wins, and I would be able to win the whole tournament!

Round 3: An old friend

The last time me and Arthur brawled, he escaped with a draw, as a far older man its incredibly impressive how fast and strong he can be, so I tried to make the game complicated and try and see who found their way around best. But with one caveat, he hates positional chess... So looks like we need to do this again for the 3rd time in a row in a sicilian:

Hint for the puzzle: Stop counterplay while preparing to add attackers to his main pawn weakness.

Good job! You clearly understand positional chess if you are able to find these maneuvers.

Well, cant complain too much, had to figure out where to put my pieces but once that was done it was a nice cruise like my round 1 game with white. 2.5/3 in clear first, if I win or draw I win the tournament and over 200$

The Final Round: Down a rook...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I dont think I can possibly exaggerate how insane of a game this was, I managed to get a huge attack, it failed because I rushed, and then I gave both my rooks for a sliver of hope, a hope that I can do what I did in round 2, and make a draw. But the technique required is still immense. 

This puzzle will be very hard for those under 2000 elo, your hint is: Down a rook, you cant let the king get to safety no matter what, use the hint button as needed and good luck! See if you can do what I did 

Its hard to even explain how I felt when it was over, shock? Maybe, I couldnt believe I had won, I had grown so used to being losing I thought it was over and I was already thinking in my head how stupid I was to have thrown it... but then I won. I actually did it, my first big win in over a year. Sweeping the section with 3.5/4 points and winning money and 60 elo points! Thank you all so much for reading this and have a good day! Or recommend it to someone else that would be helpfulhappy.


Me with my tournament money: