My First USCF Tournament in Years! ❤
At the start of this year, I had the privilege of participating in The 8th Annual Neil Dale Memorial Open. Since I don't currently live in the States, it's always nice to get as much OTB chess experience in as possible when visiting, and it's always even NICER when the results turn out favorably too. I certainly couldn't have asked for much more from this tournament held at the Portland Chess Club in Oregon. 
I was coming into this tournament with a provisional rating of 1562 USCF, and was matched up with a 2000+ rated player in my first game:
From move 30, we stopped writing down our moves as we were playing on the 10 second delay we were getting for each move. A 10 second "delay" is different from an increment that piles up over time (you don't save the left over seconds from that "delay" each turn). We couldn't risk spending those precious seconds scribbling down each move, so after move 30 the actual moves in the game may have differed slightly from the game shown above.
I managed to outplay him in the time scramble though, and win the resulting pawn endgame. Based on how poorly I played in the opening and middle game, I was ecstatic to save the game with 25...Qc8 trapping the rook (which I had prepared with the silly 22...Nxf2 last ditch attempt to not lose).
In my next game I had the white pieces against Ethan Morehouse (1843 USCF):
This was probably my smoothest game this tournament. After trading his fianchettoed bishop holding his kingside together, his dark squares proved to be too weak to hold up the defense of his king and my pieces were able to sneak in.
In round 3, I had the black pieces against a USCF Life Master by the name of Carl Haessler, former champion of the Portland Chess Club. It was the last game of the day, so I wanted to end on a high note:
The following morning I made my way back to the Portland Chess Club and was entertained as I overheard some kids expressing their shock at this "Joel Fruit" guy being at the top of the list in the standings. Another guy expressed his bewilderment to me at the fact that despite my rating I had beaten the top two rated players in the tournament.
The 4th round game was one against the only other player who didn't live in the Portland area. He also was having an impressive tournament run being on 3/3:
This one was a tough fight despite the peaceful result! We kept waiting for each other to make a misstep, but it was all peaceful waters until the Marianas Trench blunder from myself when I played 52. Kd5?? throwing the game away (as shown below in the analysis graph from that game):
We both, having almost no time on the clock, missed the win which was 52...h5! for black, saving his h-pawn before going after my g-pawn with his king. This path would have led him into a winning pawn up ending.
The last round game was for all the marbles. I was matched up against a 1900 USCF rated player who was on 3/4. Both my previous opponent and I were on 3.5/4 going into this last round so we didn't have the freedom to let up off the gas pedal:
The last moves in this game are missing as a result of time pressure, but my three connected past pawns were not to be stopped and I got the win by simply pushing them up the board with the support of my king. I was super grateful white allowed the rook trade at the end which simplified my task a great deal.
With this final victory, I finished the tournament in first with a score of 4.5/5 (and my rating jumped 300 points 
)! Andrew Rankin also won his last game, so we shared joint first place and split the prize fund. There was also an "upset bonus" which was a prize offered to a lower rated player winning against a higher rated player with the greatest discrepancy between the two ratings. I thought I was sure to get this as well since I had beat Carl Haessler, but it turned out a 1200 had beat a 2000 rated player this tournament.
)! Andrew Rankin also won his last game, so we shared joint first place and split the prize fund. There was also an "upset bonus" which was a prize offered to a lower rated player winning against a higher rated player with the greatest discrepancy between the two ratings. I thought I was sure to get this as well since I had beat Carl Haessler, but it turned out a 1200 had beat a 2000 rated player this tournament. 
