My Trip to Maryland | K-12 National Blitz Champion!

the K-12 scholastic Nationals was always a classic event each year in December held at Orlando Florida, having many states and teams compete for the national title. this year however the Event was held in Maryland Baltimore so it added a new special feeling to the experience for me alongside my team. this was the first time i would be going out of state for 5 whole days and the last time as the next time the team travels to Maryland will be when i graduate from high school.

the Event has made new changes having a gap switch between the places each year so in my senior year we will be playing at the original location in Orlando. my goal from last year was to attain a top 10 medal in the Blitz portion of the Event where i exceeded expectations becoming the underdog winner and National champion. i had no ideas or motives towards winning clear first and was only trying to make a reasonable goal so i felt really proud. 

i did miss 2 days of school due to shopping and on the day of the eventual trip with my team, my dad drove me to a barber shop to get a haircut along with some money. we were rushing heavily so i forgot my board and some additional money i was supposed to have. i was very sad about this but i decided to think maturely and not waste what i had during the trip and i was going to be in this bus for over 18 hours so i definitely had to feel awake. i managed to not eat anything for the first 10 hours until we made our first stop where i ate some leftover fries.

Fries you say? yes fries, leftover fries one of my teammates decided to share and thats all i ate for that night yes shocking. i did eat also some small honey candies my mom packed but besides that i was basically grinding blitz chess on a bus at 1am and was laughing a lot from games like these where the wins were impractical and more based on tricks.

at this point we have crossed Virginia taking a stop at the Blue star memorial highway? no idea where we stopped honestly, my first time there and i was enjoying the cold it felt beautiful. after that we kept going many more hours in where i simply just couldn't sleep honestly. i felt more excited than before to keep being awake and it was borderline uncomfortable to sleep inside the bus pretty much.

we finally made it to the hotel on Thursday morning nearing 1PM eastern time and this was one of the photos i captured on the inside. the whole place felt like i was in a harry potter world and reminded me of New York cause of the whole atmosphere except for the snow unfortunately. much to my dismay i was really sad it wasn't snowing in Maryland when we arrived and that realistically it was meant to happen after we would leave which was the only bad part i didn't enjoy in the end. 

the Blitz Tournament and Exploration

so i have finally made it to the hotel and was super excited, playing some games with another friend i knew who was in the 2nd bus traveling alongside us. i won the small casual match and then after a bit of photos and waiting, we picked up our luggage's and headed straight to pick the hotel rooms getting a room key. considering the lack of strength, energy, and motivation i was only having sleep on my mind at that point but before sleeping my roommate passed me my room key to open the door. i immediately went to sleep and only got up a few hours later before the blitz started getting to the ballroom where the event would be held so i was excited.

Nico Chasin was considered to be the Blitz events top seed in the k-12 being fully unbreakable with his 2494 blitz rating and the fact that no one seemed to be near his level except Huston Gus (2373). I always kept in mind that during the time of nationals, they fail to update ratings to the current ones so it showed me as a 1900 blitz player. nonetheless i felt like i was going to get stomped over and barely be able to snatch a spot in the top 10 rankings. however, i had 3 lucky factors which helped me a lot indirectly throughout the event and somehow was very safe.

Lucky Factors #1 - the td's were a bit sloppy, Happy pairing, and Withdrawing

the staff team was very nice and well organized but they did the mistake of giving me a incorrect result back in the first round. i beat a opponent twice explaining it very precisely to the TD in front of him, yet he marked it 0-2 for my opponent. the problem is that i didn't notice this until the 4th round where despite knowing played my opponent and then went with him to report the issue cause it would be weird to report it while the 4th round would start. they decided to give me 2 forfeit wins instead marking me as undefeated with 8/8 as the score.

the 2nd factor that helped me was the lucky pairing in Round 5 where i was facing FM jean Cruz who i mentioned in my last blog recapping the first FIDE event i played. Jean was in a different group in the section U2050 winning it almost flawlessly with 8.5/9 and incredible skill. the reason this is a lucky pairing is that despite my horrible record against him, he wasn't playing as his normal self in both games and i could sense he was feeling "off" like if he was sick which aided me a bit as i was winning both games. the first one i threw due to blundering a skewer in a totally winning endgame and the last game i won due to my promotion being inevitable.

this was the point where i suffered my first loss though i was feeling very great at this point and feeling confident that i would be able to maintain a top 10 medal for the first time. my luck was a bit shattered however as i was going to be facing the top seed Nico Chasin at the last round. the problem was that unfortunately he withdrew from the event?? i was confused and even talked with a TD who confirmed that they made another error on their part, instead giving me the 2 forfeit wins once Nico's clock runs out in both games. i was super excited and a bit relieved even if it felt wrong cause i was glad to finished with an amazing result in the end.

After i finished with 11/12 i went out and was filled with joy from the fact that i knew i would be in the top 3 regardless. i then got into more joy when coming back and trying to see from the rankings the possibilities of who would win. i was extremely thrilled knowing i would be either runner up or the champion and to my magical wonderland, i was luckily in first by half a point.

the prime reason that me and another player speculated was that Nico withdrew out of spite that he was simply frustrated at not getting first place. he was flagged by one of the low seeds in a drawn or winning endgame and it was after the 5th round where he decided to withdrew.

it felt very magical and was a great night for me as i ventured throughout the hotel, at one point spotting Dlugy passing by and was honored to see him there. i then decided to go into the lobby where my teams chaperones were and they gave me some food. i went into my hotel room, sharing the food as i was starving and then went to sleep as tomorrow was the first big day for the main event. during that morning obviously i had black eyes and was very tired but my teammate was trying to wake me up as they were heading to the washington museum. 

i thought they were heading for breakfast instead and continued to sleep for a few more minutes before waking up though by that time i realized where they were actually going. at this point i went into the lobby looking at my phone getting a message from someone who stated they saw me in the hotel, we then got on a voice call meeting outside and played a few skittle games. we introduced each other having a fun time and then another friend i knew hopped in so it was pretty much a group of 3 people at this point and we all looked around to find the chess store.

After a bit of walking i decided to head towards a nearby McDonalds which was pretty exciting but this was the start of a 3 day sick rampage. once i came back from the McDonalds, i had developed a fever somehow and was feeling very sick. the bad news is that my dad gave me keys to my luggage bag but i couldn't find them at all and had to play the first 2 games sick.

During the game my fever was developing and i felt super worse but still wanted to keep on playing for the podium. my first round opponent was a 900 named Matthew although after the game i really viewed him more as a 1000 or 1400 than a new player. we laughed a bit afterwards over the game and i was explaining how i didn't feel well even touching my stomach at one point during the game cause it was hurting. after that i went into my hotel to find my keys for the luggage i had which kept my medicine but to no avail i was unfortunate. when my teammate came back he tried helping me but again no luck and i was forced to stay in bed till the next round where the pairings simply didn't wanna make me slouch, giving me a 2220 rated NM.

Round 2 - Fever Gets worse!

alright there are good news and then there are bad news so i will break it down quick here. this was the first ever National Master that i drew in my OTB history. the bad news however is that i can't find the scoresheet i used to notate the game but if i find it saved on my friends laptop, i will reedit this and implement the game as part of this section. the game lasted for 3 hours till it became a opposite color bishop endgame with no way to progress for neither side despite the NM having the pawn advantage as it was a blockade negating his extra pawn so we agreed.

the other bad news was that my fever wasn't healing up at all very much but luckily one of my friends had pills so i drank one to try and relieve the cold. i knew that saturday was going to be the hardest day considering it would be 3 games but you guys will see how bad my play is affected by this non factor. Before i get into the 3rd round i want to state that they were giving the Medals out to the winners of Blitz and Bughouse so here is the celebration photo

The only Loss in the Event

third round again despite the fever my pairings were really hard to withstand and i had to face another NM named Merric Hu who was rated 2216 at the time. a fun fact i want to point out is i have no idea who this person is but i have been watching tons of times the US chess school which enlists tons of young talented players around the country and guess who was one of them? thats right it was Merric who in another fun fact has played Hans Neimman in Bullet

i thought the game was pretty equal to a certain extent but i blitz out on a move and then the middlegame went to havoc. i have to give credit to Merric as he converted it simply well despite his strange moves and deserved the win undoubtedly. still a bit sick afterwards we chatted while on our way to the exit door where he gave me some advice on his approach towards NM which i humbly appreciated. i shook his hand and then we parted ways, after this round i didn't lose any other game continuing a streak of draws or wins so lets go onto my next round opponent.

Being Sick and Saving Lost Positions

the next person i was paired was a 1100 player named chen who i really was playing poorly and my sickness has not been too well. granted i didn't know much about this line in the Caro Kann and hated it as Black but still i was just..... yeah i simply cant play my best like this. i somehow cheesed him later on with a simple trick but it was pretty much really bad by me as a whole.

so yeah no need to look at this game, i stopped notating but remember i forked his rook in the end somehow and simply won a mediocre game. this is not the best part however cause to add insult to injury, i now face another 2000 yay the pairings at nationals are so nice this year. I drew that game as well and felt a bit hurt honestly from a small joke though yeah ended with 3.5

The Last Day

It was sunday aka the last day and i was feeling really better, facing a 1400 in the first game and lastly a 2000 Named ryan peterson. i won't show the first game as while it was a really quick victory, i want to get this blog posted before the 31st so i can show another blog for new years. Instead i will show my last game against Ryan who won 4th in the blitz section and 1st in the team division for 11th grade. it was the last game and i really needed to win but it was just very difficult given the lack of motivation and i felt like i already achieved what i wanted practically speaking so i played the Trompowsky attack with Bg5 to try and spark some fun this game.

*also after the first game i went to a nearby Burgerfi and had some cool pictures*

maybe if i didn't move a bit fast and tried to play it more calmly then i could have grinded it out for a small advantage. either way it is what i was given with both me and ryan being happy as we both laughed at how the TD's weren't letting us leave easily. we just decided to pick up the pieces although by the time we went to get our participation medals, they all ran out. yes you heard correctly, the nationals this year had over 2000 players and the medals simply weren't large enough for everything to have. good news is that i got my own medal and its worth more to me as it has more spiritual value and i am fine with that accomplishment as a whole.

so yeah that was the K-12 Nationals for this year in Maryland and it was such a fun time being there with everyone. i had the amazing opportunity to meet @trophies100, @PawnSacrifice5, @tacticianx, and many strong players alongside some i met in the previous nationals. i am very grateful to have been able to participate this year with my team and while the bus ride back home was excruciating, the hard work was really worth it. My chess throughout this year has been very incredible and while i may have done mistakes in my past i have really changed for it.

tomorrow will be my blog for new years showing the last tournament i've played for this year and i love all of you guys for supporting me. if i have never had the chance to come back and rise to be stronger none of this would have been possible i really am thankful to have very amazing friends who never gave up on me here. my future plans are to attend the High School nationals held at Washington in March 2023 where i will meet @B1ZMARK which will feel very special cause i really care about him alongside trophies. Besides that i will try to keep the chess flowing and who knows maybe by next year i will be closer to NM so yeah thank you guys

Hope everyone had an amazing happy holiday and i really hope you have a great New Year