The Return of the Blog
Hmm...how does a blog work again?
It's been a while since anyone's seen a blog post by me. Roughly 2 and a half years, actually. So what's inspired me to come out of hiding? Nothing in particular, actually.
My 2 most recent tourneys were the USATE (which was AWESOME and fun as usual, and one I will post about soon, I promise) and the Philly Open, where I performed decently but nothing spectacular happened. However, the most recent chess highlight was going to St Louis to see rounds 9 and 10 of the US Championship (for those who don't know, I live in NJ). Wait, did I just say round 9? Yes, I saw the infamous forfeit LIVE! The Hall of Fame was pretty cool too.
Recently I started playing again here on chess.com, although mostly unrated blitz and bullet, where I have been trying to perfect my c4, b3, g3 setup. Can someone tell me why I have 87,000 profile views??! Seriously, what have I done here?
I've gotten some of my real life friends into chess, and some even on to this site, which is cool. Maybe some will even enter an OTB tourney, which would be fantastic!
Alright, none of you just want to hear about my life, right? So let me tell you a story from the Philly Open, which is still technically telling you about my life, but...whatever.
In one of the rounds I played a talented young player from Canada. We had both barely made time control, and he had played extremely well in time pressure in order to not lose immediately, although my position was still dominating. After thinking for around 10 minutes on move 41, I inexplicably played a move that allowed a 3-fold repetition! I had simply forgotten for a split second what had happened before the current position. I quickly realized and got up from the board so he wouldn't sense my poker face slipping. Eventually, after thinking for a while, he played the move that fulfilled the requirements for the repetition, but in order to claim it, you have to not make the actual move on the board, but write it down on your scoresheet and say that you are intending to play this move. So I knew I was in the clear. Surprisingly, though, he didn't mention anything at all. After a little maneuvering I broke through and won. After the game I asked him what had happened in this moment. He said that he had thought about this, but he had tried to claim a repetition and that he hadn't been given the draw. Apparently, because of this, he thought that they "didn't allow it" in this tournament. Also, he thought that to claim it, it had to be the exact same sequence of moves 3 times, but I told him that it was just the position. I felt bad, but I would have been pretty mad if I had drawn from such a position.
Alright, that was enough for one post. However, since I know that some people don't even bother to read anything unless there is a chess diagram somewhere on the page, I'll insert one right now.
Except... I'm on mobile. Great.
