Breaking 1700 USCF!

I had not played any over-the-board (OTB) chess for one year, two months, and 14 days. That was until May 1st of 2021 I got to play an over-the-board tournament. After all of these online games, I could finally play an actual chess game without worrying about playing a cheater. Although more importantly, I would be able to increase my OTB rating! Even though my Online USCF Rating has surpassed 1800. My OTB Peak was only 1611 and at the time my OTB rating was only 1572. I wanted to break 1700 but it wasn't as easy as I thought, since even though I may have improved, all of my opponents have also improved. It took three tournaments to break 1700! So why not write about my games, and how I surpassed 1700. Enjoy!

Tournament #1: Gambito #931

I lost the first game on time. For some reason when playing online classical games I play too fast, although when I play OTB games I play too slow... although that game isn't important since it was practically equal until I fell under 5 minutes. So let's take a look at Round Two.

Round 3 was a pretty boring draw, I never really had an advantage and I was worse at some points but eventually, we traded down and made a draw in a rook and pawn endgame. Although let's see Round 4 since that was a bit more fun.

I actually ended up tying for 2nd and won 40 dollars, as well as going from 1572 to 1593. I didn't want to win just 21 points though, I wanted to gain rating faster so for the next two tournaments, I decided to play in the open section.

Tournament #2: Gambito #933

This tournament wasn't as fun and I only had one win and three losses. Most of the losses were pretty equal until I had less than two minutes and did something dumb like hanging my queen. So I'm only going to show the win since the losses were pretty boring.

Even though I lost three games to 2000s and only beat an 1850, I managed to break my peak going from 1593 to 1612. Although this wasn't good enough. 19 points is great but I wanted more, and you can see that I got quite a few points in my next tournament.

Tournament #3: Gambito #934

This tournament was a lot better, I don't know what made me play better. Although I managed to get a score of 2/4 winning a game and drawing two. In round 1, I managed to be paired against a quite familiar face. In fact, I even blogged about one of my games against them! It was my former classmate David! 

Well after this I managed to draw two 2100's and then lost to a 2000 who I also lost the week before also in round 4. Although that game wasn't that fun either. Because I slowly got crushed. Although I'm not going to show that since it's quite boring and this blog is getting too long. Although I'll show my two draws since after all, it helped me reach 1700. 

Just like that, with 2 out of 4 points. I went from 1612 to 1703. Not only for the first time breaking 1700 OTB but also putting myself in the USCF Top 100 list for 12-year-olds. Thanks for reading, and sorry I haven't been able to post much recently. I've had a lot of school projects as the school year is quickly coming to an end. Also, this blog was only supposed to be about two tournaments but after that third tournament, I knew I had to add it in. Thanks again, and have a great day!