Tying for first place - The Western Classic!
Hi all, I recently had a very exciting tournament, and I thought I should share it with you! It took me very long to publish this, so yeahhhh. The Western Classic is a 5-round tournament with a G90/D30 with SD (sudden death), 30 minutes after 40 minutes. I did well, so without further ado, let's dive right in!
Round 1
For the first round, I played as the Black Pieces against a kid named Max, who had a similar age as me. His rating was 1644. Anyway, I am a slow player who takes his time until he realizes that he has 30 seconds on the clock and gets into a time scramble. But this game it went quite smooth for me. Here's a tactic from my game:
Here's the full game:
Now, are you going to ask, "You must have done a lot of prep before the game to win, right?" Well, my answer is going to surprise you. No. I certainly was not doing any prep at all. Sitting in a car, feet up, and eating Raising Cane's was what I was doing. That's probably not the best way to prep, but eating chicken fingers and crinkle fries was certainly yummy.
For Round 2, I was playing Eric, a kid a year or two older than me who pummeled me two years ago. Coincidently, last year I drew him on the same board I was playing on. Interesting. Anyway, we shook hands and began the game. Can you find the moves that I played to get a decisive advantage?
Nice job! Here's the full game:
What a game!! Sac the queen, I mean, I don't know what to say about that. I walked back to our car and drove back home. At that moment, I was proud of myself. Sooooooooooooo yeah.
Round 3
Fresh from a good night's sleep, I was ready to go. I got to the tournament site and when I saw the pairings, I thought, "Oh God, another 1940 in my way. Imma die." Well, to some extent, I did. He had a grip from the beginning but let it slip once we traded pieces.
Um, not much annotation for that game. I had a constricted position, but I slipped out of his grip. After picking up that win, I scored 3/3, which was a pretty good score compared to how I've done in recent tournaments. Next round, I played Black against Nathan. I knew him from a chess club, and I've seen him play. It would be a somewhat smooth game.
Round 4
This game was in the morning, so I had to wake up early. Ugh. I usually sleep till 9 am (I know, you must be thinking, "This kid (shaking head), he must be so lazy like a sloth."), so I was a little groggy and tired. Here's the game:
Now, don't get mad at me. I played just fine. I drew against a higher rated as Black, and that was pretty good (for me). As for the last round, well, that is the complete opposite of this game lol.
Round 5
I needed a lot of luck in this game. So many tactics. Here's the game:
In the end, the first board drew, and I tied with an eight-year-old with a rating of 1931 lol he's in front of me by a couple years. Anyways, it was a great performance filled with wild games, and I hope you've enjoyed this blog! Bye
!
