Welcome everyone to my most recent tournament performance! The Idaho State Championship!
I apologize for the super late post I had some stuff happen the past weak including a root canal. So I had a lot of tooth pain during the tournament.
The tournament was on Labor Day weekend from Saturday-Monday two games each day. The format was: A 6 round 30/120, SD/60;d5
I hope you all enjoy the games and hopefully learn from them!
GAME 1
In the first round I got paired with a 354 who is very underrated. Of course going into the game it doesn't matter to me the rating because you never know how well your opponent will play. Especially after covid. Here is the game:
A pretty good warm up, but it wasn't easy in the middle game. My opponent's strength was NOT 354 LOL
GAME 2
The first game was very tiring, and for many reasons I didn't get much sleep the night before so I was very tired in this game. Here is the next game:
Shout out to
Alex he was a previous State Champion, a friend, and a very strong player.
I was ready to go home prep for the next round and get extra sleep so I would be more prepared the next day.
Josh Price (left) vs Andrew Beck (Right) 1st round
Next day I was feeling much better and was ready to go here is the next round:
GAME 3
UGH that was super annoying. I was completely winning and I just threw. Unfortunately this happens to everyone at some point and I got my fair share here. I didn't spend enough time in the critical positions and it cost me the win. Note: Comp says +1.6 or so in the final position but it's so hard to play as white because your king is in the open. Anyways on to the next game!
GAME 4
My opponent was Niall Mckenzie another good friend. He is very underrated at the time of our game he was rated 1208 which is ridiculously low for his strength.
Here is his chess.com profile. He finished 1/2 a point behind me and he played a good game! He also covered his games in this tournament in a blog so go make sure to check him out as well! Anyways, here is our game:
Very complicated middle game, I kind of messed up my opening. Overall my opponent played very well! Qxd6 was the only real "blunder" and that was only because of Bf1!! I am very happy I found that.
Josh Price (Left) vs Luke Wei (middle) in round 5
GAME 5
Going into this game I expected 1800+ play because he has beaten a 1700 and a 1800+ before this game.
ROUND 6
That game went pretty well, so I started to prep against a couple of my opponents that I might play. About 3 hours before I figured out I would play Kaustubh Kodihalli who is a very strong 1750 he only lost to an NM who ended up winning the tournament. Going into round 5 he had 4 wins. He is also a good friend and great competition. Going into this game it was a must win for both of us. And in the middle of the game we knew that whoever won the game would be State Champion! Here is the game:
With the draw I fell short of becoming State Champion by 1/2 a point. In the end I finished with 4.5/6 with 3 wins and 3 draws. I tied for second with 4 other talented kids! I was the only one undefeated in the tournament except for Larry Parsons (NM) who took 1st place for the 19th time! I hope you enjoyed another one of my tournament reports! Let me know what I can improve on and what you would like to see next!
Thanks for reading this super long blog post I hope it was interesting. Have an amazing day!
Josh Price (left) vs Andrew Beck (Right) 1st round
Josh Price (Left) vs Luke Wei (middle) in round 5