How I Won the Alabama State Championship
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Hello everyone! In case you couldn't guess by the title, today I'll be recapping the Alabama Scholastic State Championship, which took place a couple of weeks ago on March 11. Now I had planned on attending this tournament for the past year and I originally intended to play in the main High School section, where the winner would go on to represent Alabama in the Denker Tournament of Champions. Little did I know that my USCF rating (1066 at the time) was just thirty-four points shy of being eligible for the 1100+ High School Champion section. And I didn't figure this out until a week before I registered. To say I was disappointed was an understatement, but there wasn't much I could do. I knew that I had a pretty high chance of competing for a Top-5 finish in the U1200 section and I could always compete in the higher section next year, when I'd hopefully be much stronger. So I settled for the one-day option, a 5-round Swiss with a time control of 30/0 d5. Then I prepared for what was to be the largest OTB tournament I'd ever played in.
A week before the tournament, I began preparing using my P.A.C.E. method. For my newer readers who are unfamiliar with this training method designed by yours truly I'll just quickly re-explain it. P.A.C.E. is an acronym which stands for puzzles, analysis, classical games, and endgames and are what I consider to be the fundamental aspects for thorough OTB preparation. Puzzles and game analysis are crucial to every chess player's development and should be utilized during pre-tournament preparation to brush up on tactical awareness and blunder checks. I also find it useful to play classical games before OTB so I can ween myself off speed chess and work on my calculation skills. Endgames are also very crucial. It doesn't matter how well you played in the middlegame if you can't convert in the endgame, and that's something I know all too well... Using this method I studied for a week until the morning of the Championship arrived.
Round 1: Crushing the Caro
For round 1 I was paired against a 600 who I had never seen over-the-board before and knew virtually nothing about. Awesome, you love to see that. Despite his rating I was a bit nervous because I had no intel on my opponent as well as a notoriety for losing to underrated scholastic players.
It had been over a year since I had won Round 1 of an OTB tournament so I was very pleased. Additionally, I played a near-perfect, 94% accuracy game with zero blunders or mistakes. My opponent's position went south with that inexplicable rook sacrifice on move 11, and 15. Qf4 only exacerbated the situation. Besides these two blunders my opponent played well though, much stronger than his rating would suggest. Also, yes I name revealed finally, although some OGs may remember when I had my name on my profile 
Round 2: Game of Groans
In Round 2 I was paired against an 850 who was also 1/1. I figured this guy was probably underrated as my opponents usually are, and boy was I right. He went on to beat an 1100 in this tournament and gained over 100 USCF points. Let's see how I did.
If your opponent offers you a draw, try to work out why he thinks he's worse off. -Nigel Short
Round 3: Crushing the Caro...Part 2
Now that I was 1.5/2, things were a lot more complicated. I knew I'd most likely have to win
out in order to win this tournament, and even then I didn't know if 4.5/5 would be enough. Drawing
with someone 200 points below me sucked. Which is why I needed to bounce back. For round 3 I was white against a 900. I was currently #11 out of 47 players with eight players above me having a 2/2 perfect record. I needed to first win my game since a loss would almost certainly throw me out of contention, but I also needed a lot of the players above me to lose their games. Let's see what happened.
- 5. Bb4+- questionable opening decision. It's much better for black to just play naturally with Nf6, Be7, and 0-0, since this check is easily parried and I can boot the bishop around the board.
- 7. Ba5- another slight mistake, allowing me to blow open the queenside, with tempo-gaining moves like b4, c5, and Nb5. Be7 was the alternative.
- Not playing a6- not playing a6 and kicking my knight gave me free reign to do whatever I wanted with my queenside stronghold.
- 12. e5??- the final straw, leading to a position where black has conceded numerous pawns and self-destructed his pawn structure.
Due to those four dubious moves in the first fifteen moves of the game, black gave me a much better position out of the opening. Using this advantage I was able to generate a lethal attack against his king.
Round 4: Magic With the Ponziani
Now I was #6 out of 49 players, and according to the standings I'd either be facing the #4 or #5 seed for Round 4. That meant that if I won my next two games and the players above me didn't draw their matches, I'd be en route to a Top 3 finish. However, to accomplish that meant defeating someone at least 100 USCF points above me, most likely as black. One draw and my ranking would plummet. I ate my lunch before walking back to the playing hall and surprise, surprise. I was paired against the #5 seed, the highest-rated player in the section, a strong 1175 who was also at 2.5/3. I had an extreme minus record against 1100s OTB. Would I be able to change the narrative and finally defeat someone stronger than me? Or would I get crushed and thrown out of first-place contention?
Wow, a lot to unpack here. While I was never down significant material, I'd still consider this a swindle. My opponent was much better out of the opening and held a positional advantage for much of the early middlegame. In fact, the game review sums this up almost perfectly:
My opponent outplayed me up until move 21, where he allowed me to finally regroup and seize back the advantage. Overall, that was a very back and forth game and just horrid opening play by me.
Mistakes:
- 7. Bd3- a very early slip-up in the opening almost cost me the game. Giving up a -2 edge to my opponent on move seven in my main opening against 1.e4, e5 is pretty bad. If I hadn't been lazy with my opening study I would've known that 7. Bb5 was the correct continuation.
- 22. Rfb1- a missed win, failing to capitalize on black's blunder on the previous move. 22. Nxe5, followed by a queen trade would've been a winning endgame due to black's unstable pawn structure.
Round 5: Oh No My Knight!
I was now the #3 player in my section and the top two seeds were about to battle it out head-to-head. I didn't know how tiebreaks would work, but I did know that with a win and a decisive result from the board above me I'd seal a top two finish. For round 5 I was up against a 950 as black. Would I prevail and finally win an OTB tournament?
Ummm... so I definitely should've lost that game. For some reason I diverted from traditional Dutch theory and played some weird, unorthodox double fianchetto set-up. Then I blundered with 21. Na6, giving white a +4 edge. Fortunately for me, my opponent was allured by my hanging knight and blundered mate-in-one, giving me a final record of 4.5/5, my best yet.
I left the playing hall before the match between the top two seeds ended so I had to wait for the award ceremony to find out my placement. I waited anxiously while individual and team trophies were awarded to the two sections below me, and then it was time to announce the standings for the U1200 HS section. Eight names were called before mine and then the TD announced that I had tied for first, but due to tiebreaks I had fallen down to second place. Nevertheless, I was extremely pleased. For the first time, I had proven that I could go an entire tournament without throwing winning positions and that I could handle the psychological pressure of an OTB event for once. I had gone against the odds and defeated players much stronger than myself, and I had won the Alabama State Scholastic Championship. Sort of
Conclusion:
As always thanks so much for reading; I sincerely hope that you enjoyed or at least learned something from this blog Consider leaving a comment below if you liked this post as all feedback that I receive is appreciated. I plan on establishing a more consistent blogging schedule, ideally posting at least one blog a month. Additionally, there are a lot of upcoming OTB tournaments this spring which I plan on attending so you can expect a lot more OTB recap blogs in the next few months. Thanks again for reading; I truly do appreciate all my readers. Until next time,
-Nimzo
