2023-24 South Florida Grand Prix #3: An Adventure of Near-Misses and Lucky Breaks

Before I begin this blog, I just wanted to take a moment to thank Chess.com so very much for gifting me the role of Top Blogger! I have been blogging on Chess.com for a little over a year now and Top Blogger is truly a dream come true for me. I'm so happy to be able to share my blogs with a larger-scale audience. 😁

Ok, now we can begin...

INTRODUCTION

This is my recap of the third day of the 2023-24 South Florida Grand Prix tournament. I participated in the second day of this Grand Prix in December and the first day back in October. I have had much success in this Grand Prix to this point, having tied for first place in my section on both days. So as you can imagine, my confidence levels entering the third day were through the roof. I was greatly looking forward to participating in this tournament and seeing if I could add to my achievements.

If you read my last blog, you might remember that a new section was added to the tournament, a K-8 U600/Unrated section for the lower-rated players in my age group. It had been created because the  K-8 section had gotten too crowded (on day 1 there were 88 kids!) and the tournament directors were looking for a way to split us up a little bit. The new section turned out to be a pretty big deal, as almost all of the lower-rated kids were now participating in the other section. That meant that there was just a handful of kids left participating in my section and the majority of them were around my level. This led to much stiffer competition on day two, and I had a feeling it would continue on day three.

But I believed that I could handle it. I had taken care of business on day two despite the tougher pairings and I knew that I could do it again.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

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

- I play in the K-8 Championship section

- There are 5 rounds, all in one day

ROUND 1

For the first round, I was paired with a 664 whom I had seen around before. Although his rating is fairly low compared to mine, I wasn't about to take this game lightly. I knew that he was pretty serious about chess since I had seen him at many of these tournaments in the South Florida area (including the first two days of this Grand Prix!).

I had never actually played him, though, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Would I be able to hold him off, or would he pull off a shocking upset? Only one way to find out...

That was a pretty smooth win for me. It's always good when you feel like you didn't make any mistakes. This game was a good warm-up for me for the rest of the tournament.

ROUND 2

I was paired with a 987 for the second round, much to my dismay. I dislike facing players rated in the 800-1000 range in the early rounds because they typically put up a good fight. In my opinion, there shouldn't be much real competition in these tournaments until round 3 and beyond.

Would I be able to handle the early challenge? Let's hope so...

When he seemingly trapped my bishop with that a3 move on move 9 I was totally distraught for a minute. I have gotten my dark-squared bishop trapped the same way (by prematurely moving my knight to e7) countless times in the French Defense. Thank goodness I found that Qa5 idea.

That game is a good lesson in why not to bring your king out too early. His king became very vulnerable in the center of the board and I was able to hunt it down.

ROUND 3

When the standings came out after round 2, I was surprised to see my name at the very top of the tournament standings. The two higher-rated players who were above me on the starting standings had both been upset by lower-rated opponents in round 2. In fact, it appeared that quite a few of the higher-rated players in the tournament had been upset in round 2. But yours truly was still standing!

For round 3, I was paired with an 1124 named Tristan who I have now faced three times in OTB tournaments. I faced him for the second time just last tournament. In that game, I trapped his queen and defeated him in 10 moves. I was sure he wouldn't let that happen again, though. I knew he was a very good player and not to be underestimated. Would I prevail again or would he get his revenge?

Well, that was a super uneventful game. It was stale from start to finish, so a draw just made sense there.

I was perfectly content with my 2.5/3 score, although I did fall to third place on the standings. I was just grateful to still be in the running after three rounds. I managed to avoid being upset and now it was time for the competition to truly ramp up.

ROUND 4

I was not looking forward to my round 4 game after I saw the pairings. I was paired with this 1154 kid who is literally in the third grade. From what I've seen of him on the first two days of the Grand Prix, he is very good -- especially considering his age. He honestly intimidates me.

It would really stink to have my tournament victory hopes wiped out by a third-grader. Could I take him down, or would he defeat me and deal a big blow to my ego?

Yikes. That was so awful by me. I had such a tremendous advantage (I was up a whole rook!) and should have been able to convert that with my eyes closed. A win is a win, I know, but it's still horribly unpleasant and embarrassing to make a huge mistake like that. I'm one lucky duck to have escaped with a win there.

I had no choice but to shake this whole thing off and move on, as there was just one round left and I was still alive (although barely) and pushing for a big finish.

ROUND 5

The tournament had been so grueling up to this point that there was not a single kid with a perfect 4/4 score going into the final round. I was tied with three other kids for first place at 3.5/4. That meant the pressure was on for this final round game, which was not great news for me since I was still recovering mentally from that wild close call in round 4.

As expected, I was paired with one of the three other kids at 3.5/4, a 1086 named Bhavin. This kid had knocked off the highest-rated player in the tournament back in round two, so I knew he was significantly better than his rating suggests. He had been on a tear up until this point, defeating the usual contenders like they were no big deal. I was definitely a little frightened to play him, especially with the tournament on the line.

A win here would guarantee a first-place finish or at least a tie for first place, a draw would guarantee placement in the top 5, and with a loss, I'd be lucky to finish in fifth place. The stakes are high here. It's pretty much all or nothing.

Deep breath. Let's go.

YES!!!!! I did it! Another undefeated tournament!

Although I'm thrilled to have won, that final game wasn't exactly great play by me. I'm lucky that he didn't punish me for my bishop sacrifice mistake at the beginning. Plus, I struggled to find a clear win in that endgame even though I was up a rook. But I managed to survive yet again. Ws in the chat guys!!!

CONCLUSION

I ended up finishing second place on tiebreaks, tied with a kid who had also been at 3.5/4 going into the final round and had also won his last game. I admit that I was a little disappointed that I was not going to be receiving the big first-place trophy, but the title of co-champion is definitely nothing to be disappointed about! I am ecstatic that I was able to earn a trophy at all.

I have now been co-champion of all three of the tournaments in this Grand Prix thus far (I wonder if that's some kind of record?). I am extremely blessed and so grateful for these experiences.

From this tournament, I gained 30 more rating points and once again reached a new peak ELO, 1327. I have officially crossed the 1300 mark and hope to keep going up. At this rate, I might be an NM by the end of 2025! (jk lol)

That's it for me for now, but I have quite a few more OTB tournaments on my radar that are coming up. The Florida State Scholastic Championships are on the second weekend of March (dang, that's really approaching quickly). It would be my first state tournament, so that would be cool. Also, the next tournament day of this Grand Prix is in mid-April. I will post a blog recap of all of the tournaments I participate in, so follow my blog and stay tuned!

I hope you enjoyed this blog. Cya next time!