2023-24 South Florida Grand Prix #4: Taking One Step Closer to a Championship

INTRODUCTION

This is my recap of the fourth day of the 2023-24 South Florida Grand Prix tournament. I have participated in the first, second, and third days of this Grand Prix this year. I have had great results thus far, becoming co-champion on all three days. Now, on day four, I was back and thirsty for more.

A quick glance at the playing field told me that this would be another tougher tournament, with a pretty significant number of 1000+ players. But I was not shaken. I was very much up to the challenge and ready to take it head-on.

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 round 1, I was paired with an 838, which I believe is the highest rating that I have ever faced in round 1 of these tournaments. This made me a bit nervous. I prefer round 1 to be an easy pairing just to help get my brain jumpstarted. An 838 was sure to give me at least a pretty decent challenge, and right off the bat too.

I had to force these thoughts out of my mind and just focus on getting the win. Could I get it, or would he outduel me?

That win felt gooood. There is no more satisfying feeling in chess than sacrificing a piece. I was happy to have evaded a first-round upset loss.

ROUND 2

My round 2 opponent was a 1080 (another higher-rated-than-usual opponent) who I don't remember seeing at any of these tournaments before. And when we sat down at the board, I found out why. He told me that this was his first chess tournament in 4 years. I thought maybe he was pulling a classic chess hustler troll and that he was actually a pro.

There's only one way to know for sure if he really is as rusty as he claims to be, and that is, of course, to play him. Let's find out...

That was another nice win for me. My opponent was putting up a considerably good fight until he just randomly hung that bishop. From then on, I was in cruise control.

A look at his USCF account confirms that he wasn't lying about having not participated in a tournament for 4 years... his last documented event was back in August of 2020! He played pretty well for it having been that long since he played an OTB chess tournament, so I give him props for that.

ROUND 3

I had gotten off pretty easy through the first two rounds despite the harder pairings and I was now tied for first place at 2/2 with 3 others.

My opponent for round 3 was an 1175 who I remembered from the last tournament because he had beaten my friend in the second round. Although I was slightly intimidated by him, at the same time I knew that I was fully capable of defeating him. Could I do it, or would he get the best of me?

I stopped annotating here, which is unfortunate because the rest of the game was really weird. That position there at the end is supposedly a draw, but it is super tough for white to hold. I'm pretty sure I ended up getting a winning advantage, but I managed to throw it away under time pressure and in the end it was just a draw. I don't recall the final position, so I apologize. The whole endgame honestly felt like a fever dream 😅.

Quite the goofy game that I don't know what to make of. I'm not sure if I played that endgame well or played it terribly because I couldn't remember any of the exact moves no matter how hard I tried. I decided that I just had to put the past behind me and look to the next round.

ROUND 4

This tournament was shaping out to be very, very strange. There was only one kid at 3/3 and many of the rest of the usual contenders were tied for second at 2.5/3 (including me). But the biggest oddity was that there were kids just flat-out leaving the tournament halfway through without telling the TDs. Many kids got forfeit wins in round 3. I counted 5 kids whose names were now gray and faded out on the standings. Super weird, and now the pairings were getting messed up due to the odd number of participants, with some kids having to play the same color two rounds in a row.

My opponent for round 4 was a 1240 who I actually faced in round 4 of last tournament. I had been anxious about being paired with him last time because he is only in third grade and he has been consistently very good at these tournaments, but I was able to sneak out a win in that game despite hanging my rook in a completely winning position near the end.

This time, I was again a little uneasy about playing him as he had given me a good scare last time. But I had beaten him once, now could I do it again?

Score! That was a nice, smooth win. I quickly took full dominance of the center with my pieces by pushing around his queen and I never looked back.

The kid who had been at 3/3 lost his round 4 game to the highest-rated player in the tournament, which meant that I was now tied for first place again at 3.5/4. That was exciting, but it meant that I would now have to face the highest-rated player on the top board to determine who would finish first place.

ROUND 5

I had played my final opponent before at these tournaments, back on day 2. That game was the most insane rollercoaster of a game that I have ever played OTB. It was so intense that the TDs and volunteers were crowding around our board to watch. It came down to a queen vs queen endgame, but I had a passed pawn and I managed to force a queen trade and win. That was a good win, but he had clearly only gotten stronger since then (his rating was now over 250 points higher!). I was not exactly thrilled to be playing him again, especially with the tournament on the line.

I would be playing white for the second round in a row due to the screwed-up pairings, so that was a small plus.

I told myself to just play safe, consolidated chess and see what happens. Off we go.

A draw is obviously not a win, but I was totally OK with that result. I was very proud of how I played in that game. Stockfish gave me a 96.4% accuracy score and him 97.1%, estimating both of our ratings to be 2150. Truly a high-level game by both of us in my opinion.

The only problem with the fact that we drew is that we had now opened up the door for the others in the playing field to catch up to us and potentially even finish above us on the final standings. Tiebreak scores were going to be the deciding factor once again.

CONCLUSION

As it turns out, my tiebreak scores in the end were not too great. Out of the six kids who ended up tying for first with a 4/5 score, I finished in sixth place on tiebreaks.

The whole system used to calculate tiebreak scores is extremely confusing, but it's mainly about how well your opponents did after you played them. And apparently, all of my early-round opponents did not end up doing too well in this tournament. It was a close finish, but my tiebreak scores just weren't enough.

Overall, though, I am perfectly content with the way things turned out. Granted, it was a bit disappointing to just barely miss out on placing and getting a trophy, but I have trophies and don't really have a need for another (now, of course, if it was money, that would be a different story 😉). Plus, I scored some valuable points to add to my cumulative score in the Grand Prix (my total points from all 4 days). The next tournament is the final one in the Grand Prix, and because of my success so far, I suspect that I am in great shape to potentially become champion of the whole thing!

I was also happy to see that I gained 11 more rating points from this tournament, improving to 1338 USCF regular rating.

The final day of this Grand Prix is in mid-May and I am already super hyped about it. I have a legit shot at winning it all, and I look forward to making the final push!

I hope you enjoyed this blog. Cya next time!