The rar attack: July Tornado Rounds 3

Attacking is really fun in chess. But even more special than a normal attack is a rar attack. It involves not only attacking, but saying "rar" as well, adding intimidation and a pyschological element to the game. That's how my 3rd round game against Owen Xuan went. It also happens in all my blitz games. Including the online ones against my friends. However, all of them seem to be computer geniuses, and starting with RookSacrifice, and then other users have been firing back .rar at me, saying that it's a file type. So that means the rar attack will kill your rar files, so you better stop reading this or it will get worse! But... I have hacked your computers with this blog so you won't be able to shut it down until you read the whole thing! Mwhahaha!

After my first 2 rounds, I felt like I was playing pretty well. I should have beaten an expert. In the small break between the rounds I didn't do much since there wasn't much time to have fun due to my long game. It takes a few minutes to convince chess players that having fun is fun, and I didn't have that time between the rounds.

However, when the pairings were out I was quite happy, and surprised. I was going to play Owen Xuan! As usual, I have to give my history of my expierence with this young prodigy (Perhaps I should have kept the same title as the last blog): 

I first met Owen Xuan at my first tournament in Washington, the 2015 Emerald City Open. I saw him a few times, but I didn't get to play him until a scholastic event, the Washington Class Scholastic. It was here that I discovered his main weakness. No, I'm not talking about his chess weaknesses, because of course I already knew them: Young chess players are bad at positional chess and try to checkmate you (Except for me, I am bad at both). I found another weakness, my favorite school iPad. In it, there is a camera app, and even a photo booth! I didn't use it, but you can have mirror effects, and kalidescopes (typo for sure). It turned out to annoy him quite a lot. Before the game I took a video of him looking away from the camera. Then the game started, and the first board in the tournament (I had 3/3 and he had 2.5/3) turned out to be last board in good sportsmanship. We proceeded to "J'adoube" our pieces, and many times in crazy ways (Like moving it to a clearly different square, a knight from f3 to e7, pushing a rook off the board, or something like that). Of course, I thought it was funny, because we would put the pieces back, but then Owen thereatened to tell the tournament director if I didn't stop, even though he was doing it too! So I stopped, and soon after he fell into an obvious pawn fork, leading me to win the game.

Flash forward to the Lakeridge Elementary Tournament (yet another scholastic event!) and in the last round we are paired together, me and him in clear 2nd and 1st, with me having 3.5/4 and him having a perfect score. My play was quite bad in this tournament, but I probably didn't need to say that since the reader already knew that (See all my other games). It was worse than normal anyways, and not helped by the fact that I got black in 4 out of the 5 games. Eventually, with both sides having under five minutes he had an easy win, but missed it and drew me. He was really upset and proceeded to say all the ways that he could have won. Although we weren't as immature as the time before, we still had a few jokes. 

Flash forward again, and I'm saying (Maybe yelling, shouting, proclaiming, exemplifing? In English class they tell you to use different words to describe the word "said" when writing so that the reader will read it. But if the reader has already gotten this far, an impressive feat, even though your computer has been hacked, I figured that they are going to finish reading this anyway.) "Yes! I get to play Owen!" and then I rush out to tell my opponent the good news. His reaction? "Oh no." 

Since I knew that he was an attacking player (and he plays the Sicilian), I figured the best way to beat him was to get him out of his prep and start attacking him. It appears that the best attackers are the worst defenders. Here's when the title comes in. It was a rar attack because I said rar before the game, after the game, and even once during the game! He said oops and "oh no" in reply. You can maybe guess who won the game, the optimistic one, or the intimidated one. Indeed, always intimidate your opponent. (Except if they are me).

Before the game I still had plenty to say, but the only joke that I remember saying to the prodigy was that there were rating ceilings based on your age and that since he was 8 that he could not be rated over 1400. Since he's so young he asked "Really?", in belief and disbelief. I told him I was just joking. Another common joke that I made in the tournament is that you can draw by repetition of draw offers.

And now, right before the game, I have to list all of his accomplishements to make me feel better about myself, and impress everybody.

At the age of 8, Owen is an impressive 1594 and has been over 1600. He is #32 in his age group in the nation, and he told me once that he has five coaches. He's drawn an expert before and beaten an 1800, and against me, well he definitely wanted to win. Then he could have a lot of bragging rights and tell me that I was terrible. Also, gaining rating points is also pretty exciting for him. 

But I beat him in the tactics. See if you can solve them yourself.

And finally, the game!

Since the puzzles describe the whole game I won't put many notes.

After the game, I was able to learn 3 things

1. Getting your opponent out of prep is a great idea! Owen self destructed right out of the opening.

2. Hope chess, while not good, is actually an effective idea in fast chess. However, unless you're playing me, don't play Hope Chess in your games.

3. I'm terrible at chess. This is pretty self explanatory. My game is a shame to all 1800's who surely don't play Hope Chess. 1800's, except me, also don't go for checkmate if it is unsound. 

The virus has come off your computer now, but when my next blog comes out your computer will immediately force you to read it.

Who knows when Round 4 will come out, if you look at the link I was planning to put both games in this blog but as usual I got lazy.

RAR!