Battling the Storm | Fischer Blitz Tournament ⚡🌧
welcome back everyone where today we will be recapping yesterdays blitz event held OTB at the Bobby Fischer chess club. Blitz has been popular all over the world in the new generation of online chess being regarded as one of the most exciting ways to play the game in history. you need to have a good understanding of tactics, speed, and intuition to be amazing at blitz in the time scrambles that emerges complete chaos. FIDE has also held the World rapid and blitz to decide the World Blitz Champion which was won by Reigning Champion Magnus Carlsen last year.
My Club regularly holds blitz every friday night which is a perfect time to relax and enjoy some heated battles in the arena. the most notable participant being International Master Yunier being ranked as the #1 seed coming into the tournament. there were some other strong Masters like WIM Aponte and even NM tony who beat Hikaru at one point live on stream.
things were going to be extremely dramatic but what is it with the title you may ask? well onto my way to the club there was a huge storm with rain pouring everywhere furiously. I had to run fast and got really flooded as if i was in a pool swimming to get out of there. I eventually got to the club and we waited for the rest of the players but the storm was still raging with madness.
Beating An International Master?
After winning my first 2 games through some luck i was being paired against the King of Blitz and strongest International Master Yunier Leyva. he has been known in the florida community for being a giant at the game usually staying consistent and being a contender for the top spot. I was pretty nervous as i was facing him the day before in a classical tournament losing a drawish position but i stayed to my guns and managed to swindle the legend despite being lost.
the emotions towards the ending was super exciting and filled with so much joy from beating him for the 2nd time in my chess career. Afterwards however i played a scandi game which ended in a draw against a strong 1900 player then went on to lose against FM robert.
this marked the end of my good streak but i had managed to make a comeback and felt pretty confident that i would end up in the top 5 rankings. I went onto beating some pretty strong players including masters eventually losing to Akeras Overlingas by hallucinating a blunder. It all went down to the final game with FM Arnaldo who had the white pieces against me. After our game we were spectating Yunier clashing against one of his strongest blitz rivals NM tony!
THE FINAL MATCH vs FM Arnaldo
Unfortunately for me the Last round was about to come and i was going to be facing FM Arnaldo for 2nd place in the tournament. he is an incredible speed player and has really good tactics up his sleeve so i had to be extremely careful, lets see how the final match ended...
that was such a game changer having so many swings and turns in the endgame but at the end of the day the time pressure got to us both and i managed to control my nerves. I was nearing the jaws of death but the increment kept me alive and despite having 8 seconds managed to clutch in the final game. this win was important as it allowed me to win clear 2nd by half a point which is pretty ridiculous and insane as well but we win 90 bucks and i just feel thrilled.
at the end the invincible Yunier managed to secure clear first being 2 points ahead of the field ending with a near perfect 8/9 victory. I was super happy being the only one to defeat him in the event and was filled with joy to be able to escape with a ton of lucky money. the things we could learn from the tournament is to have really amazing calculation and good opening understanding like in the game against arnaldo. I knew what was coming but didn't know how to handle it so that will serve as something for me to look upon and improve for our next game.
Congratulations to IM Yunier and Roberto who came in on tiebreaks to snatch 3rd place!
THANKS FOR THE BLAST EVERYONE!
that is it everyone for this incredible recap as I have now hopefully surpassed the 2200 USCF Blitz Barrier. it was a Remarkable tournament that i hope you all have enjoyed and make sure to stay tuned for any of my new tournament recaps as they will be filled with more action packed games and exciting players. I also would love to thank chess.com for awarding me the title of top blogger so i can promote my love for the game and its entirely spirit cheers and take care!
