Charlotte, CAVA, Cameras, and Child Prodigies
Hello! Welcome back to the latest edition of “Fischer plays mediocre tournaments”. In today’s recap, we will be discussing the Charlotte Open, which took place sometime in January. I’m too lazy to check right now.
For those who don’t know, this blog is my entry for round one of BlogChamps, since by some miracle my last blog qualified. (Don’t worry, the judges didn’t rig it for me. I still scored pretty low overall. I think I came in ninth, which is bad enough that I’ve probably done better than that in a chess tournament before). For my next challenge, I have a head to head battle with none other than @W1nT0L0ss, who wrote about Franklin Chen’s successful journey to the national master title. Therefore, I have also decided to write about my equally successful journey to the same title…
Oh wait.
In my last blog, I wrote about my return to tournament chess. Since then, I’ve wasted most of my life playing in over-the-board tournaments, and throwing away my games in most of them. I dealt with my frustration in the only way I knew how… by going back the following weekend. I’m pretty sure this is the mindset of a gambler, but I suppose it worked out in the end, as I somehow achieved my goal of a 2100 national rating. But that’s a story for another time. Or maybe not, since I messed up my notation really badly that tournament.
Anyways, for those who don’t know, I’m a student at Davidson College, located about 45 minutes away from the rapidly expanding Charlotte Chess Center. The CCC, as I will lazily refer to it as, is home to many grandmasters such as Kayden Troff, Olexandr Bortnyk, (maybe) Dina Belenkaya, and the late Daniel Naroditsky, whose impact on the community (and the chess world in general) still shines through the fact that most of the kids there play openings that he recommended to them.
I had taken a break from in person chess for a few months, but rediscovered it over break. Therefore, the weekend before classes resumed, I decided to give chess in Charlotte one more try. As I mentioned in my first blog, I hadn’t had previous success trying to balance chess and college, but I felt confident that this time would be different. Mainly because my classes had not started yet, but also due to a false faith in myself to not show up twenty minutes late to any of the rounds.
Now to describe the tournament. The Charlotte Open was held from January 17-19, 2026, at the lovely UNC Charlotte Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. Isn’t it beautiful?
My section was the highest one, reserved for players with ratings over 2000, which terrified me as I would never be the clear favorite. The time control was that both sides had 110 minutes for the whole game, and only gained 10 seconds extra after each move (110+10). My plan for this time control was to make rushed, mediocre, moves, so my opponents would end up with extremely low time and make mistakes, since they essentially would only have ten seconds to make a move. Now you may ask me “how is making mediocre moves a good strategy?” And I would answer that in all honesty, it’s probably not. But it worked.
Now on to the tournament.
Round One: In Which The Result Is “Well-Deserved”
Last time I played the first round of one of these tournaments, I faced Dina Belenkaya. Here’s a link to how that went. I hoped this game would be better.
My first round opponent was around my age. I felt relieved to avoid a child prodigy (I wasn’t so lucky the rest of the tournament) but I knew he was very strong, as I had lost to him before. Considering how badly my tournaments at Charlotte had gone this school year (0/4 in major tournaments), and the fact that he is higher rated than me, I very much wanted to get on the scoreboard this game.
A very well deserved draw by me. I definitely played the middlegame and endgame absolutely flawlessly, and the result was never really in doubt. In all seriousness, it was an extremely sloppy game, but it did give me faith in my strategy of staying way ahead on time. It also gave me half a point, which gave me a cushion going into this next round. This is a terrible mindset and you should always play each game to the best of your ability, but I couldn’t help but somewhat feel relieved.
Round Two: In Which I Face A Scary Prodigy
I think based on those last comments, you know how this game will go. But first, we need to talk about the most important thing in life, FOOD! I decided to go to a local CAVA (an American restaurant) nearby. Unfortunately, I did NOT realize that I needed to cross over these…
My strategy to cross the train tracks consisted of closing my eyes, sprinting, and hoping I didn’t die. I would advise you to come up with a better strategy if you find yourself in a similar situation.
Anyways, after a good meal (I think it was a burrito bowl) it was time for the next round. Unfortunately, this time I WAS matched with a child prodigy (I think. Is an eighth grader rated above 2200 a child prodigy? I’d like to believe it is for my own ego)...
I’m still kicking myself. I saw my chance in the game, and knew it would be better for me. I just thought the other move works equally well, and just rushed. However, another way of thinking about it is that I had a chance to gain a better position against such a strong player! This showed that I was in good form. I preferred this mindset as I continued with the tournament.
Round Three: In Which I Thought I Had No Chance
Going into my third game, I knew I had to win this one. I wasn’t doing badly so far, but if I lost this game to yet another young national master, I definitely would be…
Frankly, my heart sank when I saw my pairing. I’ve seen my opponent in tournaments a lot, and I’ve definitely seen him win far more than I’ve seen him lose. He beat me from an equal endgame in mutual time pressure the one time that we played. Therefore, I wanted to continue my plan of avoiding time pressure. Unfortunately, disaster struck. Right as my Uber was about to arrive, I noticed I had typed in the wrong destination and had no choice but to cancel and order a new one. It ended up taking an extra twenty minutes…
I won’t lie to you. I felt hopeless. I felt like I had just ruined my chance of having a good tournament in the most soul-crushing way possible. When I arrived at the board, I was already down nearly twenty minutes on the clock. I had no choice but to blitz out all of my opening moves and hope that I could catch up to him on time.
Holy smokes. I actually did it.
Not only was I able to catch up on time, I was ahead nearly THIRTY MINUTES at the end, and he was the one to blunder in time pressure. I’m so glad that I declined his draw offer. It just goes to show that even if you make a mistake (such as hanging material or ordering an Uber to the wrong place), the game doesn’t end there. In fact, the extra motivation from needing to catch up on time at first helped me get a massive time advantage late in the game. Therefore, I have decided to show up twenty minutes late to all of my tournament games from now on. Just kidding… or am I?
Round Four: In Which I Returned To YouTube
Anyways, I made yet another mistake before my round four game. I decided to try out a nearby Five Guys instead of CAVA, and I had a very interesting experience before the game. I was just minding my own business eating food and wondering how the heck I won that last round when a woman came up to me and asked me for money. She was extremely persistent, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. I eventually politely declined and walked away, but the experience put me on edge as I once again crossed back over those train tracks.
My uncomfortability continued as I received my pairing for the fourth round. I was playing National Master Robert Ramirez (@RobRam) who is a content creator… (those who read my first blog know how I feel about content creators in general). And to make matters worse, he opened the game with the Bird Opening (1. f4). Like, what am I even supposed to play against that?
First of all, I’d like to shout out my opponent, who turned out to be a very nice guy. Maybe my faith in streamers is restored? We had a nice chat where we pretty much agreed that I was never better, but it was equal until I hung that pawn, and then he was just pressing, and I probably didn’t ever have a clear draw after that. This turned out to be pretty accurate according to the engine.
Second of all, guess which game he decided to feature on his youtube channel after the tournament.
Round Five: In Which I Was Tired
There had been a blitz tournament the night before, but I was tired and opted not to play. Mainly because I was tired. Oh, and did I mention that I was tired? And to make matters worse, I was also playing down this round for the first time in the tournament. My opponent also seemed a bit underrated based on his previous results (and indeed, he gained a good bit of rating…)
I’m happy to announce that I was on time for the round this time. It didn’t matter. I’m pretty sure I finished this one earlier than I started my first game yesterday (okay, technically not quite, but you get the point).
A hilarious sidenote to this game is that my opponent told me that he copied the way Dina played against me, since he found a way to get a drawish position from that line. Another example of streamers hurting my chess rating. Dina, if you’re reading this, I want my one rating point back that my opponent took from me this round.
In actuality, I was pretty much gassed out at this point and was more than happy with a draw here (I was scared of my opponent) hence why I took an early repetition. I also felt like a grandmaster drawing in such a manner!
Anyways, I went back to CAVA for obvious reasons, and nothing really notable happened before the last round. That is until I saw my pairing…
Round Six: In Which I Face An Even Scarier Prodigy
Let me ask you this, dear reader. What were you doing in 2015?
As you may have guessed, that is when my final round opponent was born. He’s ten. Oh yeah, and he’s higher rated than I am. When I saw my final round pairing, I simply went into the bathroom and wept. I was extremely close to that last statement not being a joke.
I comforted myself with the fact that even if I lost this game, I would not lose any rating overall for the tournament.
Fortunately, I think my opponent was also having an off day. To be frank my only goal in this game was to draw and go home, so I definitely missed some chances such as the free pawn. My opponent was very nice after the game. He definitely has lots of potential, it’s cool to think that I might have just drawn a future grandmaster.
And with that, the tournament was over.
Closing Thoughts
I ended up gaining 7 rating points from the tournament, going from 2065 to 2072. I felt satisfied with my performance, and I felt hopeful for the future (and spoiler alert, I hit 2100 a week later). With that being said, I didn’t play perfectly of course. I wanted to share my three main lessons that I learned from the tournament.
1. Resilience is important. At many moments in this tournament, I faced challenges, like having a lost position in Round 1 and coming late to Round 3. However, I was able to come back from these situations by never counting myself out and focusing on doing the best in the situation I was in. As a result, I ended those two games with 1.5 points. On the other hand, I could have shown more resilience in some of my other games, such as playing on in Round 5 and defending better in Rounds 2 and 4.
2. Never be scared of your opponent. I believe that being scared of my opponent had a large negative impact on my play this tournament. I should have trusted my gut more which would have benefited me in Game 2 and Game 6, but I was too scared of young prodigies. This also contributed to taking an early draw as White in Game 5.
3. Don’t rush. All of my blunders this tournament were due to rushing. For example, against Robert Ramirez, I was definitely capable of seeing his c4 move, but I played too fast and didn’t even consider it. Although I used the clock to my advantage this tournament, I should slow down every once in a while 😆
The final lesson that I learned? Chess tournaments are fun as heck! I had a great time talking to some local players, exploring the neighborhood (okay, that one was more like an eventful time), and spectating the top boards between rounds. This tournament motivated me to continue playing, even during the week when I had classes and homework. And this went very successfully, but that’s a story for another time…
Anyways, that’s all. Thanks for reading. I hope I win BlogChamps.
Peace, or piece, or however you want to spell it.
