That's him! Daniel Shubin! My amazing boss took this amazing photo. Let's hope he forgives me for posting this too late... I need the money-editor
My editor is the worst! He always forgets to write my blogs for me. Then when he finally does finish writing the blog, he gives me it, and I see a bunch of boring stuff. For example, this is what my editor (who is supposed to write my blogs for me, but let me get all the fame, sort of like speakers who don't write their own speeches) wanted me to write for this event. The following is so bad, but I am so lazy that I can't write my own blogs, it takes too much skill and energy. So I will give him just one chance. Here is his HORRIBLE report: (My comments in italics)
The SCC Extravaganza was held on the weekend of November 11th-13th, 2016. (First of all, tell me something that I DON'T know. Anyone can use the MSA to look that up. Also, a weekend is 2 days, at least I think so) This memorable and fascinating 7 round tournament was held at the spacious and high class Seattle Chess Club. I don't think I will ever again go to such an amazing and interesting tournament as this one. (One thing editor, NEVER LIE. This was one of my most boring and least fascinating events ever, and the Seattle Chess Club is small, gloomy, and low class.) In the 21 player open section, Victor Pupols (2200-2217) and Alikhan Irgaliyev (2244-2249) finished well ahead of everyone with an impressive 6/7. Clear third went to Daniel Shubin (1618-1757), who I played in the second round. He got 4.5/7. (A few things wrong. One, you NEVER focus on the boring open section, instead only focus on the all-important games in the reserve. Also, if you must mention the winners, you do it at the end, not the beginning! That is a problem with tournament reports. I want to feel like I am experiencing all of the tournament at the moment, and when they tell me the winner before everything else, I lose all of my interest. When I lose all of my interest, then I lose money, because there is too much inflation. I like interest. I have an interest in my interest.)
I lost my first game against Anthony He, a talented young junior who appears to win every game against me. The only upset in the first round in my section was Daniel Pogrebinsky beating Addison Lee, a 219 point upset! (Why don't you talk about all of the jokes I made between the rounds, and all of the tension for the next game? Oh yeah, you weren't actually there and you have to make this all up. Still, you should know what is going on, and if you don't, then just fake it editor! I mean blog writer.)
Anyways, there I was again at the SCC, ready to face the drawing master, Daniel Shubin. (Drawing master is not a title. And also, why didn't you mention that I beat him before? A better introduction for the game would have been this:
"Going into the game, I did not know what to expect (See, this adds tension and attention, and it activates and encaptivates everyone) While m record against Daniel Shubin going into this game was 1 win and 2 draws, I find it quite hard to beat him. He excels at thinking on his opponent's time, and then moving very quickly, which is very unfair and should be against the rules. Let's all hate Daniel Shubin! (All writing must have a call to action. In this case, it is to hate Daniel Shubin) I made sure to prevent that in this game, but it didn't prevent it from entering the result that not only us, both the whole world feared- a dra-"
This is really unfair editor. You are supposed to be the editor, but now I am the editor! What has happened? A role reversal? Terrible. This is completely messed up. I can't even bear to read the rest of the report, which "I" wrote:
After this game the event was not going too well for me. I had lost to a master and drawn a lower rated player, so my rating would go down if I didn't start winning some games. (Stop stating the obvious!) Next round gave me a chance to redeem myself. The pairings came up, and I saw that I would play the prodigy Naomi Bashkansky. Here is the game:
Clearly you don't know what happened before the game, so once again I must explain. Ugh. After the pairings were up, I remembered hearing that Naomi plays the QGA (Queen's Gambit Accepted) I knew that this must be a bad opening, and sure enough my engine agreed, even though as you can see it almost never does. I only had around 10 minutes to prepare, but I took advantage of it. I saw that she played the main line in the QGA, and I had an option to trade down into a slightly better endgame. I'd like to think that I am a good endgame player, even though I am not, so I decided that I would play this variation. Naomi, who appears to like sharp positions, like every other kid, would probably not play as well. At least that's what I thought. In the actual game, it became clear that neither of us knew what we were doing, as usual. I did get the right opening in, the QGA, but, well you will see what happened (I'm trying to make this as much of a surprise as possible, which my editor appears to be unable to do).
This was a very encouraging win, and it was in fact my first victory over an expert ever! (Once again, tell me something that I don't know. Everyone reading this blog has searched me up and knows that this is the first expert that I beat.)
The tournament seemed to get better as I was paired against an up and coming "Prodigy", Oscar Petrov. Even though he was lower rated, I couldn't be sure that I would beat him. I decided that since he seems to be a normal type of kid, aggressive, that I should play my boring opening, that is, the Petroff. It even makes fun of his name! (Actually, you got it all wrong, except his name and that he was lower rated. I was sure that I would beat him, and the Petroffs is the most exciting opening ever. Also, I played it because I used to always play that opening! You are the worst editor!)
However, after this game things seemed to get worse. The next 2 games clearly showed that I was back to my normal self, making ridiculous moves that no one understood. My opponents made sure to take advantage of this. (Why is my editor mentioning the games that I lost? I wanted everyone to think I got 2.5/4, why is he mentioning the bad part of the tournament? Terrible, only mention my good games please! That way my future opponents will thinking that I am an extremely underrated 1800 player, not the other way around! At least he didn't analyze the games.)
First, I played the talented and expert Arayn Despande. (Who I refer to as RARyn, he RARs me every time I play him.)
Then in the last game I failed once again against Travis Olson.
I got a full point bye in the last round, not because I was bad, but because I was the worst player that hadn't withdrawn, oddly enough. So I finished with 3.5/7, maybe not ideal, but at least it started well! Also, I gained 2 rating points, became 1852, and since rating is the purpose of my life, I was really happy! I also imagined how much happier I would have been if I had withdrawn out of the tournament after the first 4 games. Or if I had won the remaining games. I used the rating system to calculate how many rating points I could have gained in each of the 54 scenarios, and it was a lot more than I did gain. For the next week I only thought about my rating, which is the only reason for anything. (I don't care about my rating! Why do you think I would! Stop making false assumptions about me!)
I've decided after this horrible report by my editor that he will be fired for his terrible work, which is much worse that the editor before him, who was bad enough. As a result, it appears that I will have to be my own editor, except I have one last hope! Will you, the reader, be my editor? Since I am rewarding you for this, you must pay me to write my blogs for me. Starting costs are only $200, and going up! Notify me if you are interested.
Anyways, that ended one of my most boring events (in terms of rating, the meaning, I mean, the least important thing in chess) that I have ever played in. After this tournament though, I didn't have too much time to wait around. I never seem to be able to do that. The next weekend, I played in another tournament, the Washington Class Championship, where I played in Class A, but most of the players were in Class B. So I was actually playing in Class B. In other words, I played down, instead of them playing up. However, that didn't mean that I won, because I didn't. See how I miserably collapsed in my next report on this nerve-racking event. It will be much better than this report, where my silly editor messed everything up!
