Before the start of this Saturday’s tournament, two of our players, Thomas Holder and Nicholas Mccahey (who won Section 5), made an announcement to the players: for Sunday’s online ICA Show, rather than match reviews, we had a ‘Raffle and Blitz’ competition, where the viewers would have to defeat the guests in online blitz matches to gain slots in a raffle.
You can rewatch the entire show, or view the drawing of the raffle, timestamped via the above link. By winning the raffle, Nicholas won free entry to the next tournament, concluding a perfect weekend!
Our show next Sunday will feature the exact same concept: tune in for a chance to win a free entry!
Before we delve into the match reviews, I would like to bring your attention to our Spring Camp. The camp will take place next week, from March 25th, in Glen Rock, and the following week in Teaneck. You can register via this link.
Before I went to the site of the tournament I put on a green shirt symbolizing Saint Patrick's Day. It is a religious and cultural holiday held on 17 March, the death date of Saint Patrick (385 – 461), the famous saint of Ireland. At the age of sixteen, he was captured by a group of pirates from his roman village. They took him to Ireland where he was enslaved and held captive for six years. While he was working as a shepherd he developed spiritual thinking. After returning home he propagated that the Lord had afforded him the opportunity to be forgiven his sins...
Currently we celebrate Saint Patrick's Day by obeying religious observances, organizing numerous parades and displaying the color green. Even rivers are dyed green as you can see in the picture… However in my first game with Angelo a red blood skirmish took place.
Hi, my name is Jiayou and today I played in section 12. This was only my 2nd Tournament I ever played in and I was not really nervous (even
though I ranked 5th place out of 6 people in my first tournament). I felt that I was going to win today. The kids I played with were all either unrated or low rated but I won all 3 rounds.
The first round was against Daniel and it was a quick win. I (White) started off with King’s Pawn Opening and he responded with e5. On move 4 after exd4 I decided I wanted to do the Scotch Gambit with Bc4 instead of Nxd4. After Bb4+ I play c3 and he takes it with his d4 pawn. I take back and he moves his bishop. I tried Qd5 and that’s where Daniel blundered with Nf6, which gave me a Mate in 1 and a win while it cost the game for Daniel. My second and third games with Anthony and Victoria were longer and after winning both of them I was surprised that I got 1st place for section 12 in only my second tournament! I learned that practice makes things better as like I said, my first time competing only gave me a low 5th place.
In my second quad tournament this month, I played in Section 3, with ratings ranging from 1306 to 1420. Everybody in the section was excited to play, and you could tell that your opponents will play their best each game and in order to win each game, you need to earn the win.
I was playing white, and my opponent, Kian Zarineh, lost to me as black the last time I played him, so he played a different opening to avoid what I played against him the last time we met.
On move 9 I blundered, because I allowed him to take my knight and then play 10… Qa5+, picking up my bishop, and he found it. After he got the extra piece, I knew I had to create counterplay, which is why I played 14. c4.
Also, I noticed my opponent started to play very passively, so I sensed that maybe I had an opportunity to attack him and get compensation for my lost piece.
The compensation that I needed came shortly, when I played 24. Rxe6. From there I have about a +1.0 advantage. Also, immediately after 24. Rxe6, my opponent played 24… Kg7, which allowed me to get my piece back via 25. Rexf6.
After a few trades, we ended up in a rook endgame, where I was up a pawn and had a clear advantage. I just had to convert the position up a pawn, which I successfully managed to do, even after I hung my extra pawn with 42. f4. On move 54 I went below five minutes, so I stopped notating and don’t know exactly what moves were played after that.
When you are down material, you should seek compensation and activity to get as much as you can to make up for the lost material.
Even if you are up a piece, you should not play passively because even though you do have an extra piece, your opponent can still win and you should be careful to not allow him to get too much compensation for the piece, and ideally not even allow him to attack you at all.
Section 1 Report by Yefim Treger
Section 12 Report by Jiayou Mou
Section 3 Report by Brendan Roth
What to learn
Visitors: 194