My recent Chess Results

Hello and happy holidays to everyone on chess.com! I have not made a blog post in a really long time, but I wanted to make an update about my recent chess progress. After an 8 month break, I returned to OTB tournament play at the North American Youth Chess Championship U18 section, earlier in the year. I started off great with a 3/3, including beating the top seed who was rated almost 2500 fide! However my rustiness showed when I ended the last 6 rounds with a very poor 2/6 score to end only on +1 in a youth event. I later played some smaller 5-6 round tournaments to get back into tournament play. My results were OK, but I didn't make any serious rating gains. However, last month in November, I had my breakthrough tournament. I earned my first International Master norm at a Charlotte Chess Center round robin event with 7/9! After a great 3.5/4 start,  I drew 3 games in a row, making my norm chances very low. I had to win the final 2 games against 2 IM's including the top player from Namibia. One game at a time though, I was able to keep the momentum going with a nice win with Black in round 8 against IM Attila Csonka. Then the next day I was in a must-win situation with White where I was was able to convert a better middlegame position to achieve my norm! Despite my huge rating gain and norm, my FIDE rating was still only 2229. Over 100 elo lower than I was at the same time last year. Yesterday I returned home from the SPICE Cup in St Louis, Missouri, where I earned my 2nd IM Norm! This raised my fide rating to about 2282. This is my 2nd back-to-back norm, and next month I'm playing a  Norm Round Robin in Chicago where I will be aiming to get my 3rd consecutive norm, making me an IM-elect. I would like to thank my parents and coach for their continued support of my chess goals. Below shows my performance at the SPICE Cup. For more updates, follow me on twitter! https://twitter.com/liam_putnam