My Best Year of Chess!

Hello. This is my Road to Greatness! 2022 has definitely been my best year ever for chess. This is because I have improved so much since 2021 in both rating and performance. My goal for 2022 was to get at least two points in every tournament I played in. This is because I was not expecting to play in that many tournaments being a 1300 from Idaho. How did I go from 1300 to 1700 in one year? Well lets see how! 

JANUARY

My first tournament of the year was the Western Idaho Open in Mountain Home, Idaho. I was rated 1390 going into this event and came out 1407. The game below was the first round of this tournament.

Whenever I feel like I'm an awful chess player, I look back on my games in the past and remember how much I've improved in just this year alone. At the end of January I was 1407 and started putting a lot more of my time into chess. I started to spend hours every week practicing and doing puzzles trying to get better at the game. 

Little did I know that February would be my best month ever for chess! 

FEBRUARY

Last week of January my family decided that we would visit some old friends in Spokane. During the drive up to Spokane I was looking at the tournaments in Washington and saw that there was a tournament in Spokane called the Collyer Memorial Tournament. A two-day tournament which had a NM and a IM playing. This would end up being my largest rating change ever in a tournament! These were two positions in my games against experts. 

This first position he sacrificed a pawn for a large attack, but I defended well. What is black's best continuation in this position? 

I was able to convert the position to a win since I had two extra pawns. A 613 POINT UPSET! That made it my largest upset ever and it would be my record, for about 5 hours. 

In this position I have a giant attack, but what is the best option that white has? 

Two 600+ point upsets in one tournament. It still remains my best tournament performance ever. My rating went from 1407 to 1636! I will forever remember this tournament. 

MARCH & APRIL

The only tournament I played in was the Idaho State Scholastic Tournament. I had just got back from spring break in San Diego, so I was excited just to relax and play some chess. The winner of this tournament would qualify for the Denker tournament of High School State Champions! I was the fourth highest rated player going into the event and these were the final standings of the event. 

I was so happy when I won the 9-12 section of the High School Scholastic tournament. This got me a trophy, a title, and the best part was that it also qualified me for the Denker! I would have a couple months until the tournament, so I started to work extra hard so that I could perform my best at the Denker. Unfortunately I wouldn't get to play much during the summer because of work, so the Denker was my next major tournament. 

AUGUST

It was time for the Denker tournament of High School State Champions. I got a medal and a small Idaho flag. My mom took way to many pictures of me, so I'll share one below. I was super nervous because I was one of the lowest rated players at the tournament. My goal was 1/6.

The first round it matched me against a 2178 National Master. I just thought I'd give him the best game I could. I did no prep because I couldn't find a chess.com profile on him. I decided I would just try and stay solid and wait for my chance to attack. 

That game was not my largest upset by rating, however I feel the way I played was way stronger than my rating. I also feel like this win was my best ever win because it is still the highest rated player I've ever beaten. I ended up scoring 2/6 at the Denker. I had so much fun at the Denker and at the US Open. I got @JoshPrice to go down to the US Open and I got to see @Lightning! It was definitely one of my favorite tournaments ever because I even got to play a grandmaster. Watch me get absolutely killed below. 

I may have got completely crushed that game, but it was still cool just to be able to last that long against a grandmaster. The US open was my last tournament before college, so it was the last tournament my complete focus would be on chess. I had so much fun playing chess in 2022 and I hope to have a better year sometime in the future. 

Thank you to everyone who made it this far in the blog. I will continue the Road to Greatness. Comment what my goal should be for 2023!

See you guys later!