K-9 National Champion!

     I went into my usual post World Youth writing slump, but now I am back! I have played a few tournaments recently, the High School Nationals, the Larry Evans Memorial, and the Junior High Nationals. In the High School Nationals, I scored 5/7, losing to the eventual winner, Darwin Yang, and Abhishek Obili. I lost a few rating points, but it wasn't a terrible tournament.

     In the Larry Evans Memorial, I played badly in 3 out of the 5 games, getting lucky in my first round. In the second round, I drew Timur Gareev, my only result against a GM so far! The third and fourth rounds were terrible; I played horribly in the opening and allowed my opponent to get two connected passers in the first game, and blundered a piece on a tactic in the second. In the fifth round, I played my friend, Rayan Taghizadeh, in the French Advanced. Everything was locked up and I didn't want a draw so I sacrificed a piece. We went into a very complicated position and eventually I found a win. Throughout this tournament, I realized that I had been playing better positionally than tactically. To prep for the Junior High Nationals, I worked on tactics everyday.

    The JHS Nationals were held in Atlanta this year, forcing me to take a 3:30 flight that arrived in Atlanta at 11:10. My dad and I traveled with my friend Allan Beilin and his dad. It was late at night and we still needed to find a place to eat. We wandered the streets of downtown Atlanta and when we saw that almost nothing was open, we returned to the hotel restaurant. I went to sleep really late, but when I got up, I still had homework to do. The first round was at 1:00 and I won easily when my opponent resigned prematurely. The second round took longer as my opponent played pretty well, but eventually I overwhelmed him in time pressure. In the third round, I played Yash Pershad. I got a better position out of the opening, but he started counterattacking on the kingside. We traded into a drawn endgame, but I thought I was better. I declined his draw offer and played on. Eventually I realized that it wasn't looking so good, and offered a draw. He accepted and I was really relieved after this game as the computer gave the position as -4 in his favor! The next round also took a long time, as I couldn't push my advantage till the endgame, but eventually I won. In the fifth round, I had no idea what was going on in the opening so I went into a line which neither my opponent nor I knew. I got a nice position after implementing my plan, and I used tactics to win. In the sixth round, I played Abhisek Obili with the same color that I had lost to him with in the High School Nationals. We played the same line, but this time I didn't make any opening mistakes. I sacrificed a pawn, but he didn't take it, allowing me to get a kingside attack. I sacrificed a queen, using nice tactics to win it back with interest. Look for the full annotated game in Chess Life for Kids. In the last round, Christopher Wu, Andrew Liu, and I were all tied for first with 5.5, but I had the best tiebreaks going into the round. I got white against Christopher and Andrew was playing down. I got a very nice position out of the opening as Christopher messed up and put his rook on a7. I slowly developed my pieces and went into an endgame. I made a lot of mistakes trying to win quickly when instead I could have slowly improved my position as there was nothing he could do. Eventually, I won a pawn and went into a winning knight endgame. I messed this up as well, leading into a drawn position, but Christopher was in time pressure so I played for a trick and he fell into it. Luck was really on my side in this tournament! Andrew and I tied for first, with me winning on tiebreaks. I was really excited because this was the first Nationals where I got the first place trophy!