2023-24 South Florida Grand Prix #1: My First Tournament of the New School Year!

INTRODUCTION

This is my recap of the first day of the 2023-24 South Florida Grand Prix tournament. This tournament is hosted by the Boca Raton Chess Club (owned and operated by Jon Haskel) in Florida. Last year, I participated in the final day of this Grand Prix and ended up placing first with a perfect score of 5/5. So, understandably, I entered the first tournament of this year with great energy and excitement. 

To make it even better, I was going to be participating with my school's chess team. We had participated in one tournament together last year and had placed fourth place in the team standings. Fourth place is alright, but we knew we could do much better this time around, even though we had lost one team member. Each of us had improved greatly. 

Us last year holding a puny fourth place team trophy

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

- Our time control is 25 minutes with a 5-second delay

- I play in the K-8 Scholastic section

- There are 5 rounds, all in one day

ROUND 1

My tournament day started out with me dropping my water bottle and spilling water all over the floor immediately after arriving. I was already making blunders and the games hadn't even started yet... 🤦. I was hoping that that whole ordeal wasn't an omen to how the rest of the day was going to go...

The first round had been delayed due to some issue with the pairings list. There were 88 kids in my age group and the computer was taking forever to generate pairings. That was annoying because I had truthfully been hoping to just get the tournament over with as quickly as possible so I could go home and watch college football 😅. 

The delayed start ended up giving me some time to hang out with my team and practice things. It was actually really nice.

Finally, the pairings were posted for the first round -- nearly an hour after they were supposed to be. I was pretty happy to see that I was facing a 129 for the first round. That should be a smooth win and an easy point scored for my team... right?

I started to have some doubts, though, when I heard my opponent tell a kid at the board to the right of me that he was rated 1700 on Chess.com. My heart sank when I heard him say that. Was I about to fall to the infamous first-round upset? Let's hope not...

Well, he was definitely not a 1700. I don't think he knew what he was talking about...

It was overall a smooth win, but I can't believe I missed that free queen. That is just embarrassing.

Everyone on my team won their games for this round, so we were already tied for first in the team standings with 4 points. Off to a great start, but there were still four rounds left to play...

ROUND 2

For round two, I was paired against another sub-200, so I was expecting to get another free win here. I'm pretty sure there was in fact something wrong with the pairings because my first two opponents were both 100s, but I wasn't about to complain to a TD or anything.

There was some commotion because my opponent went to the wrong board and started a game with the wrong person. The kid who was actually playing at that board told my opponent repeatedly that he had gotten the board number wrong, but my opponent was very stubborn about moving. The kid had to get his phone and show my opponent a picture of the pairings list. Even then, my opponent wasn't sure. Meanwhile, while all of this was happening, my opponent's clock had ticked down to under eighteen minutes already.

Eventually, my opponent went to check the pairings for himself. He came back in and walked straight to my board, sat down, and, clearly embarrassed by his mistake, apologized for the holdup. Then our game began with me already up almost ten whole minutes on time.

Although those first two rounds were both rather boring, I'll take any points I can get for my team.

Speaking of which, we emerged from round two a little banged up. Two of my teammates had some tough pairings and, although they fought to the bitter end, ended up losing their games. So we dropped to fifth in the team standings with only six points. Nevertheless, our confidence remained sky-high as we walked into round 3.

ROUND 3

In between rounds, I feasted on some Papa John's pizza and Fritos chips, one of the most healthy chess tournament lunch combos of all time 😅. Immediately, I felt the effects and regretted my life decisions. I didn't have much time to lament over my stomach pain, though, because the next round was starting.

I admit that I was a little disappointed when I saw that I wasn't paired with a <200 for the third round. I was paired with a 659 who had won his first two games and clearly wasn't messing around. On top of that, I had a stomachache. Oh well, here goes...

Another quick win! I hadn't really come into the tournament attempting to win the tournament for myself... I was just here to score some points for my team. But now that I was undefeated through three rounds, I realized that I had a legit shot at placing.

The third round was a lot better than the second round for our team. Three of us won our games and one of us drew, which pushed us back up to third place in the team standings! So not only did I individually have a shot at placing in the tournament, my team had a shot as well!

ROUND 4

Round number four! Time for things to start heating up. There are no more easy games from here on out -- this is when it gets tough. My pairings have been pretty lopsided so far, so honestly I wasn't sure if I was mentally prepared yet to face someone who is more at my level.

I was paired with a 970 who was also 3/3. I recognized her from a free play that I attend some weeks on Saturday. I watched her destroy her opponents at the free play but had never actually played her myself. She was a bit intimidating, but I could tell that she was intimidated by me as well. Let's rumble.

Oh man, right when it seemed that my luck would never run out, I hung that knight. I kid you not, I jumped when she captured that. That was one of the worst jumpscares of my life and it did some damage to my confidence as well.

But even with that mistake, I still eeked out a victory. I was 4/4 with one final round to go! And my team was still in third place in the team standings! Initiate clutch mode...

ROUND 5

Hoooo boy. Final round. I was shaking as I walked into the playing hall. Since there were 88 kids in my age group, there were six total undefeated players through four rounds and I was in sixth place on tiebreaks. However, a win here would guarantee placement. Anything less and it was all in the other undefeated players' hands. Yikes. The pressure...

I was playing on the second-highest board against a 1287 who was also undefeated and was in first place on tiebreaks. Things didn't look too great for me, but I was just going to go in there and give it my best shot. Here we go...

The game actually did not end there. My opponent played on, but I had to stop notating because we both got low on time. I know that's kinda lame for the blog so I'm sorry 😐. I do remember how the game ended, though, and what the final position looked like:

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow... I have nothing else to say. I won! LET'S GOOOO!

As I walked out of the playing hall, my teammates, who had all won their games in the final round, surrounded me and we celebrated together. It was a great feeling.

Since I had finished undefeated, I was guaranteed placement in the top five. I could hardly control myself. I was so excited! And to have done it with my team on my side made it even better.

CONCLUSION

As it turns out, I got second place on tiebreaks in the individual standings, tied with one other kid for first place. Getting the second-place trophy was a little disappointing since I technically did nothing wrong and won all my games, but I wasn't upset about it. I did much better than what I went into the tournament anticipating to achieve. Like I said, I just wanted to score some points for my team and then go home and watch college football, but I ended up as co-champion of a tournament with 88 kids. Crazy! 😁

There's me, exhausted and holding my second-place trophy

Then, my day got even better when the TDs announced the winners of the team standings. I anticipated another third or fourth-place finish for my team since one of the teams in our age group had 30 kids (that cannot be fair). But as he went up the list, we were not called. 5th place, 4th place, 3rd place... I was stunned. Surely we'd placed? I had 5 points, two of my teammates had 4 points, and my other teammate had 3.5 points. We had done so well and it didn't add up that we weren't up there...

Then, all of a sudden, he called our team for... FIRST PLACE! I could not believe it. Did I just hear that correctly? A first-place team trophy? And with only 4 kids? Holy cow!

One of the greatest chess teams ever assembled

Less than half a year ago my school didn't even have a chess team. Now here we were, bringing home a first-place trophy in just our second tournament as a team. I am proud to say that I was a part of school history! 😃

Believe it or not, there's even more good news. After this tournament, my rating jumped to my new peak USCF regular rating, 1247.

There are four more tournaments in this Grand Prix throughout the school year. The next tournament is in early December, and you better believe I'm already looking forward to participating in that tournament as well. I've got to protect my title!

This was an epic tournament day. Totally worth missing college football for.

I hope you enjoyed this blog. Cya next time!