My First IM Norm Tournament! (Round 1 Recap)

Hi everyone, long time no blog! I just finished competing in two back-to-back tournaments where I have been playing chess 6+ hours per day in 10 out of the last 14 days with a total of 18 games being played. That being the case, I am completely wiped out but still wanted to begin a blog series where I analyze my games from these recent tournaments and give my insights and show the educational moments. Hope you enjoy and learn something new!

The two tournaments I just finished were the Chicago Open and the James Altucher IM Norm Invitational. The James Altucher tournament was actually the first IM norm round robin event that I had ever played and it was a lot of fun. With that in mind, I'm going to start the blog by analyzing the first round from that tournament and I plan on getting around to the Chicago Open games later down the road.

If you've never heard of a IM norm round robin event, the way it works is that 10 players are invited and sign up for the tournament. The 10 players must include a few IMs or GMs, some players from different federations/countries and the average rating of the 10 players must be above a specific level (somewhere in the low 2300 range I believe). In the tournament, each person will play the other 9 players and you must score a specific amount of points (7 out of 9 for this tournament) in order to achieve an International Master "norm" (or performance). In order to become an International Master you must achieve a rating of 2400 FIDE and also have 3 IM norms. At the moment, my rating is around 2280 FIDE and I don't have any IM norms yet so there is plenty of work to be done You can see the list of players in the tournament below:

Alright, so enough about the tournament overall, let's get into the games! In the first round I was paired up against Mike Zaloznyy and I was playing the Black pieces. You may need to flip the board to see it from Black's perspective

Now it's your turn to find the best way to play. Black to move!

I was pretty happy about the start to the tournament here with this win. I got some nerves out and began with a good result. Only 6 more points to score out of the last 8 games to secure the coveted IM norm! Will I get the norm? Check in with the future blogs to see how the other games go!

Did you enjoy this content and my teaching style? Message me or visit my website NextLevelChessCoaching.com if you are interested in personalized online lessons. I'd be happy to help you on your journey to chess improvement!