5-0 at the Washington Class Scholastic

There is still no editor, therefore there can not be an editor's note. Which makes me wonder how this whole note is even happening. Perhaps it is a figment of your imagination, or maybe I am a figment of your imagination- Nobody 

The above picture was taken by Varuzhan Agaian, however he used my iPad so he doesn't deserve any credit for it. Why did I mention his name then? Or maybe I should claim that my left hand took the picture, as you can't see it in the photo. But pretty much every other picture that you'll see here was taken by me, I only let him take pictures that I couldn't take myself.

Hi everybody! We are in the process of looking for a new editor! I waited a whole week before realizing that maybe the appeal to write my blogs is not as high as I wish it was. Anyways, $200 and you can write my blog! Because you know that when I don't have someone write my blogs, I take forever to make them because I am "busy" doing things I don't have to do. Anyways, now to the tournament, which yes, was 2 months ago.

Before the event I had very high hopes of winning. I was hoping to get 5.5/5, which would even be better than Magnus Carlsen. I firmly believe I'm better than Magnus Carlsen, and I have an plus score with him so far, if you count all the wins I've had on the Play Magnus App. (I beat it at Age 15 with the Traxler as White once!) Even against the real Magnus Carlsen I have a respectable even score against him. So what could stop me from getting more points than rounds?

 I got really close to the goal of 5.5, but right when I was about to give myself 2 points for my win in round 1 (my argument being that the forfeit win and the fact that I would have won anyways made me deserve 2 points), the TD noticed me messing around with his computer and forced me to go away. That's why I am making a fist in the picture above, ready to get revenge for that. Someone's (Chouchanik) trying to calm me down, but they won't be able to anything about that. I will get revenge! 

After realizing that I couldn't cheat, I realized that I'd have to win the legitimate way. It turned out to be quite tough, but in the end I managed to the be lucky enough and do it. 

I arrived at the venue quite early, around 8:30am, an hour before it was supposed to start (which means 2 hours before it would actually start), so I would get a good look around. Unlike some other tournaments, where it takes a while to find the playing area, due to the TD's efforts to keep me from destroying their tournaments, the Embassy Suite's ballrooms were in plain sight. In other words, the site was in sight. It was inciteful and insightful. Relieved that I had found the playing area, I noticed right outside that there were a number of couches, and proceeded to dump my stuff on one of them and slouch, and then connect to the Wifi, hoping to get ready for the day ahead. But I wasn't even given half an hour of peace, as TD David Martin (name may have been edited to prevent more lawsuits from taking my millions), noted that the area I was sitting in was under construction, which struck me as odd. But sure enough, I went out and noticed a sign stating that the place was under construction. Of course I didn't see anyone constructing, so I guess that means the place was constructing itself.

So in the end I had to settle for one of the more low class tables close to the playing area, and then I waited for others to come. And come they did. Some of the first to come were fellow Mercer Island players, Chouchanik (who ended up winning a prize in the Expert section of the main event), and her kids, and luckily I was able to have a place to lay all my stuff down, since I was moving around the whole day. Next the violent kids James and Anne came and both proceeded to try and cause a lot of trouble to everyone. More on that later. Of course I saw many other players, many who were waiting for the main event and were spending a lot of time preparing (such as RARyn and RookSacrifice). Every time I told them I was playing in the scholastic I was laughed at, which I thought was unfair. After all, usually a higher rating will bring more respect to the player, and yet here having a higher rating was what I was being made fun of! 

Everyone seemed to have a good time before the tournament, whereas after the tournament only the winners did. Here is some evidence of people having fun:

And as I stated, after the tournament many people were miserable:

After another half an hour of catching up with numerous players, the event started. I was paired against some unrated player, who clearly wasn't going to show up. Everyone in the boards around me started their games, and my opponent wouldn't. Since I wasn't about to sit around and do nothing for half an hour, I wrote on the back of my notation sheet "RAR! BE Scared!", and layed it on his side of the board. I could make up some crazy story that the note caused my opponent not to show up, but in any case, he didn't come. So I started off with 1/1 pretty easily! I also used the same notation sheet for my other opponents, who did show up. Some of them thought it was funny, but one said "What the ****?" Typical loser, overreacting.

Between the rounds everyone told me that I was really lucky, with more than one player telling me that if my opponent had came that I would have been crushed. 

I didn't pay attention to any of their claims, and showed them in the next round that I wasn't that bad!

Things got more interesting after Round 2, between the rounds. The main event started their games, but that didn't mean the kids decided to be quiet. In fact, they got a lot louder between the rounds! One of my buddies, Albert, ran away from the evil James Frasca, who would keep taking off Albert's shoes and then throwing them at his face. This happened for a long time, since Albert never was able to protect his shoe. Eventually, I came in and got Albert's shoes back, and in revenge took one of Jame's shoes. That might have not been a good idea. Me and Albert (or James and I, which is probably more grammatically correct) had a lot of fun tossing his shoe back and forth, while James tried to get his shoe back. After a few minutes, I told James I'd give him back his shoe if he didn't rob Albert's shoe anymore. But to my surprise, the kid decided to be honest and wouldn't promise to stop taking Albert's shoe. This was probably because he had a lot of fun getting his shoe back. He also got a few other kids, including his sister, to also start chasing me and Albert for the shoe. Eventually, I decided that I'd had enough, (James gave up on getting his shoe back, instead focusing in getting ( Albert's shoes) so I went to their parents, and since James was chasing me, came running and his parents knew that he shouldn't be doing that. He was forced to stay with his family, and the shoes were exchanged. And that ended the Battle of the Shoes.

Since the silly shoe scuffle stealed some (alliteration!) of my time,  I had to make sure not to miss my next game, which was against Ryan Cho, the only player that I'd played before, in fact it was last year in the same event. The previous year I had a very embarrassing end to the game:

He was only 1100 at the time. Now he was 1250, and I decided that I better be able to get revenge! Before the game I tried to joke around, talking about my RAR attacks, and asking him why he beat me last time, to which he reacted by swearing. That wasn't very nice, so I told him that it hurt my feelings. After more back and forth talk, the game started, and suddenly we were all quiet. 

After getting my revenge, I decided to have some fun and take photos. However, despite the fact that the kids liked being recorded, they also wanted an excuse to attack me. There were so many of them (around 8), and only one me, and since I couldn't hurt them, they actually got hold of my iPad. After an extremely annoying struggle, in which I learned that they had hid my iPad, I finally got my iPad back, just before Round 4. Crazy kids!

 Interestingly enough, the #2 seed was 1512, which surprised me as usuall the #2 player in these events would be in the 1300s. Which meant I would have some tougher opposition. However, I still continued making less mistakes than my opponents.

For the first time in this blog, I think I'll actually decide to talk about the tournament situation. I was in clear first with 4 points, with a number of players behind me with 3 points: Joshua Lewis Sandy, who I'd just beaten, Ryan Cho and Andrew Lebindensky, who I had also beaten. There were a few others but they were much lower rated. As usual for Swiss pairings, they tried to pair the highest rated player possible against me in a vain effort to stop me from achieving a 5-0 score. So I played Daniel Wilke, rated 1378, who was the highest rated player with 3 points that I hadn't played yet.

So I got 5-0, as expected! Or maybe it wasn't expected, as many players seemed to be surprised, they all thought I would lose at least one game. Others complained that it wasn't fair that an 1800 won. They were fine with me playing, but if I won, they were not fine with it. 

Unlike most "adult" events, at the end of every scholastic event there is an awards ceremony. I remember as a kid playing in the School Chess Association events, whenever I finished with 4/5, hoping that I would win a trophy on superior tiebreaks (they only gave trophies to the top 5 players). However, the Washington Scholastic events are different, albeit a lot more boring. They award trophies based on your score in the event, which might seem nice, but I like it better when they award it be place, it's more exciting and no one knows how well they did (tiebreakers were way too difficult to calculate, since they use many different tiebreaks.)

So everyone knew if they were winning or not, 3 points or more would win a $10-20 trophy, which I noted was less than the entry fee. But that's fine, because the reason anyone's playing chess is for fun, the prizes are not a very important part.

 Since there were no photographers planning on taking pictures of the winners, Chouchanik thought it would be better if I took the pictures for the awards ceremony, and then post them on Facebook. However, I ended up not posting them anywhere, except here of course, which means this is exclusive material! If you see someone you know, you might not want to tell them, except if you know they are fine being in photos. Then again, the Washington Chess Federation does have the right to post pictures of players, so why can't I? Besides, if the Washington Chess Federation doesn't post the pictures, then someone has to, otherwise taking them doesn't make any sense.

The Awards Ceremony

As usual every player with 3 points or more was awarded, so that led there to be a lot of winners.

Winners in the K-3 U800 section

Winners in the K-3 Open section. There weren't many people in the section, thus the low amount of winners.

Winners in the 4-6 U900. They should be happy they can play in such a low section!

Winners in the 4-6 Open. For those of you that noticed, the fingers in the bottom of the photo belong to this kid, who was very upset that he wasn't a winner, in fact he rose his hand to ask why he wasn't.

Then of course, last, and therefore anything but least, was my section, the 7-12 open.

They also have team awards at these events. Had they counted every player from Mercer Island, we might have had a chance at one. But it is separated by school, which made me the only player in MIHS, and therefore wasn't even eligible for a team award. Because if there had been MIHS players, I bet we would have had really good chances.

The 3rd place team fights over the trophy while still trying to smile.

The 2nd place team appears to be more mature.

A picture of someone else taking a picture. I think someone took a photo of my picture as well, so there was probably a very confusing effect on that picture as well. Congrats to the 1st place Team!

So there ends another event. I had an amazing time, and met a lot of new people, while also reconnecting with others I'd met before in the causual and informal setting of a scholastic event, which by the way makes them more fun than slow events. The next 2 days, I had to settle down and play some serious chess, in the Washington Class Championship. I battled with players of my own strength, or at least they supposedly were (I get the feeling that they are a lot better when I play them). Did I prove myself to be a true Class A player? Or did I play like I did in this tournament, and not get away with the bad positions I reached?