My First Classical Tournament In 6 Months: Winning The March Open
After six months of limited activity over the board, I had the pleasure of playing in the March Open classical tournament held in the coastal suburb of Rothwell in Brisbane, Australia.
The event was a 6-round Swiss weekender with a $2,500AUD prize pool and I was excited to enter as the top seed with a $1,000AUD prize for first place. The tournament attracted 47 other players, some of whom were significantly underrated due to a smaller player pool in the region.
With a number of Australia's most prestigious tournaments scheduled to take place in the coming months including the Doeberl Cup, the Gold Coast Open, and the NSW Open, this event proved a great opportunity to try out some new systems and setups and test my consistency against lower-rated opponents.
Round 1 vs. Xuyuan Zong
The first round was a good opportunity to shake off the rust and after employing my weapon of choice with white for the weekend (The English Opening), my opponent ended up playing a Kings Indian which transposed into one of my usual d4 setups.
Round 2 vs Christian Barkley
A nice king and pawn endgame after a largely balanced game.
Round 3 vs. Jai Turner
Jai put up a great fight with black after having some difficulties with his dark-squared bishop however some difficult defense allowed me to survive and eventually win hopefully not ruining Jai's 18th birthday which would come the following day (happy birthday!).
Round 4 vs. Mars Qi
The start of the second day saw me face the dangerous Mars who I had failed to defeat in several over-the-board rapid and blitz encounters (luckily none of these were rated).
Round 5 vs. CM Henry Slater-Jones
Henry is a tough customer who I have known for many years. We had never played in a tournament before though so this was touted to be one of the matches of the tournament.
Round 6 vs. George E Lester
A very shaky final round where I almost blew first place. George was well prepared and showed his expertise on the white side of the Nimzo-Indian. I was extremely lucky that he didn't feel like pressing and agreed to a draw.
Final Crosstable
A great tournament all around organized by the Redcliffe Chess Club and the Chess Association of Queensland. You can check out the other games from the event here.
