Last month I played in the Dewey Beach Open in coastal Delaware. It was my first OTB event in nearly a year and I thought to record my experiences. I ended up being the highest-rated player in the event (and the only titled player) but that doe...
I've been asked a few times if I was going to write a new blog lately. Particularly over the summer, when I briefly broke 2000. In retrospect I'm glad I didn't blog that tournament. It was the best tournament of my life, but blogging it now would ...
It took me two years and over 200 rated tournament games (since I first got to 1800 in January 2015), but this month, after a streak of good (lucky) tournaments, I finally broke 1900 USCF. In this blog I'll show you the tournament that got me over...
...that I drew as white from this position (black to move): ...and that I won as white from this position (black to move): ...and that both of my opponents were rated over 2000 USCF, would you believe me? Just taking a poll. I'm slo...
It took almost two years and an inordinate amount of frustration, but I have finally managed to defeat an expert for only the second time in my rated chess career. To start off, I have to preface this by explaining that this post is going to ...
Those of you who have read my blogs in the past may recall that the 2015 Philadelphia Open was not only the worst tournament of my life but maybe one of the lowest moments of my life in general. Starting 0/5 against mostly lower-rated opposition w...
The Atlantic Open has a special significance to me in that it's the only Open tournament that I've played in more than twice (I've played in it four times now, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015). In addition, it was the tournament that signaled my return to ...
Since I'm at CTY in Carlisle, Pennsylvania studying moral philosophy and ethics, I am not playing in the World Open. But that's not stopping me from studying chess. I have been doing tactics at a rate of about an hour a day and I have been tryi...
The first time I went to the Arlington Chess Club, which was last month, I lost all my games and dropped more than thirty rating points. It is always a tough tournament for players like me; I am always going to be one of the lower seeds, and addit...
Since my school year is wrapping up, I am ready to begin spending even more time on chess every day. I will have at least three or four hours every day to spend on chess, and therefore, I think one of the first things I need to do is go over all o...
This past weekend, as part of a grand trip to do some college visiting during my Spring Break, I played in the 2015 Philadelphia Open. It was a great tournament. There were so many prodigies and famous players that I was thrilled to be able to pla...
So I managed to qualify for the MD Sweet 16 this year, since I was the first alternate when someone dropped out of the initial roster. It was extremely fun, as I had a lot of friends there and I enjoyed the feeling that I had accomplished somethin...
The 53rd annual Baltimore Open took place last weekend and turned out pretty well for me. While I certainly had some lucky results, I played, to my mind, fairly well, and I even managed to net my second-highest rated win of my chess career in Roun...
I got 4.5/7 at the Eastern Open this weekend in the U1900 section. Although my rating went up from 1770 to 1793, I would say that on the whole I played very poorly for my standards of play. The main issue was not calculating things correctly and m...
I played in the Greater Baltimore Scholastic Chess Championship on 12/20/14 in the High School section, and with a couple of lucky breaks I was able to get clear first place, making myself the 2014 Greater Baltimore High School champion. Here are ...
I haven't made a public blog of a tournament before, but this tournament was an interesting one for me, and even though I only scored 2/5, it was the first tournament where I showed that I could compete with Class C-B level players. Coming into ...
