Today, we had 52 players participate in our quads. In addition, today marked the start of a trend which will hopefully grow in our school. As some of you might have noticed on our registration form, we asked our participants to volunteer to write this week’s report. Thankfully, Section 8 winner Jason Visvikis stepped up to the plate; here is his commentary on the day’s events!
The Glen Rock ICA Tournament was a very fun and challenging way to spend a Saturday afternoon. The unique part about Section 8 on that day was that there were 5 people in my bracket. The operators of the tournament handled this very well and did a good job at running the section smoothly. I played two games against two strong opponents who were at my tournament level. In my first game, I used the white pieces against Max Liu. Since I was using the white pieces, I played the London System opening. In the opening and for most of the midgame, our positions were almost equal. At around the 20-move mark, I was able to convert on one minor mistake that led to me forking his queen and two rooks with my less powerful knight. This led to a rook versus knight endgame, which I was able to win after converting a passed pawn into a queen.
I then played a kid named Arjun Nair with the black pieces. I started by playing the Modern Defense opening. In the middle of the game, I sacrificed my knight after I took one of his pawns. This opened up an attack for me where I took his rook with my bishop. By the end of the exchange that followed, I had won both of his rooks and done a lot of damage to the middle of his pawn structure, while only losing one knight and a rook. With this momentum, I was able to dramatically simplify the game, which put me in a very strong position to win and led to him resigning. I was pleased to win the section against a challenging group of chess players.
Thank you Jason for your report! We hope to see many more players and parents contribute in the future so that the ICA Blog can become a true community blog. In addition we will begin offering free entry for the best writer of each week!
Congratulations to all winners: click HERE to view rating reports!
Our next Quads will be held next Saturday, June 22. Click HERE to register!
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