A Mediocre Event: The NW Chess Open

My performance at the northwest chess open was anything but good. However, I did have fun, and brought along a friend of mine; Alex, who goes to my high school

However, chess tournaments are always a fun and great opportunity to meetup with friends, who's names I won't mention. It was Alex's first us chess tournament, so it was a different experience for him.

I gave enough long lectures, prompting me to be called annoying by a certain number of people. And the TD, after witnessing us running around the building, asked us "Does Fred (the usual TD at these events) let you get away with this"? And yeah, even high schoolers are immature during chess tournaments; it's really the only way to have fun. Even in the first round, an upset occurred when low rated Owen Xuan drew an expert! And I had beat Owen just 2 weeks before! However, my luck was not just meant to be. I creamed my round 1 opponent, Stephanie Velea, after blunders one right after another, a piece, another one, another one, and then easy.

And in round 2, I got a decent position against Toshihiro Nagase, but I dumbly sacrificed a knight for 3 pawns, still I had many drawing chances. It was a lucky win for him; in the next round he did even better and beat a master! Then he withdrew, almost certain because he wanted to make sure he'd break the 2000 barrier. Which is fine, I guess. In the end, I won round 3 fairly easily, but lost round 4 in just 20 moves. Then, in round 5 I blundered an exchange and had a lucky draw.

So it was not a good event, my draw was against A 1400.

Overall, it was a fun event, and I look forward to my next event, the Washington G/60 Championship.