With 52 participants originally, this tournament was supposed to be our smoothest yet: 13 quads, no swiss sections, no drama. At 1:30 on the dot, however, two players pulled into the parking lot just as our director Diana Tulman was leaving for the day. They found her just in time, and got their requests to play approved as, because they were both rated 1800, all four players from the top section unanimously approved their participation!
One player from that section, Ido Alkin, gave a full account of his tournament experience. His account has everything, from well played matches to trash talking from one of our junior coaches!
As I stepped into the ICA building, the four of us in my section were ready to play. Out of nowhere, two 1800 rated players showed up, and the TDs asked for our permission to let them play. Everyone agreed and it was up to me. It was a hard decision since I was the lowest rated player, but I decided to take the challenge. Instead of playing Mark Kogan, rated a whopping 1857, I played Augusto Gutierrez who is 1800 on the dot.
The game started out with a Sicilian Rossolimo variation.
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 nc6 3. Bb5 e6 4. Bxc6 bxc6 black does have doubled pawns in this position, which can be really difficult to play with, but black also gets the bishop pair very early in the game. 5. B3 d5 6. D3 taking on e5 would be bad, and even worse after exchanging queens, because the doubled pawns are now doomed. With a d5 pawn, they have some purpose. Everything went through smoothly until move 29… rb7? This obviously hangs a pawn after 30. Rc5 qd7 31. bxa5, I play Ne7 trying to bring the knight into the perfect square! The engine evaluates 1.5 better for white, which white quickly gives up after g4? Looking right, but not the best. The knight secretly had two good squares, 32… nc6! and my opponent hangs the pawn back after 33. g5 hxg5 34. Qxg5 nxd4! and now black is better. 35. H6? a completely free pawn. My opponent thought that if what happened, gxh6, then 36. Rh3, he thought I couldn’t stop mate. I could always play nf4, but I played an awesome move, nf3!! 37. Rxh3 and both of us being in complete time trouble, I miss the free queen and play rg8?? Which is still better for me but only by 2! I missed the chance to win the game beautifully. We ended up blitzing through the endgame and eventually my opponent hung a pawn. He ended up flagging! My first ever regular chess game where my opponent flagged. I ended up with 88 percent accuracy and my opponent with 81. That was a great game. GGs!
In the next game, me and my opponent Goktug Bas, (1700) were about to play. Goktug constantly tells me I suck, and I’m going to get “smoked.” I know it's all a joke but seriously, tell someone they suck after a game, not before. I was white, and we played through a Caro-Kann variation, where we exchanged several pieces in the opening. Since Goktug was black, he was playing for a draw. I wasn’t going to offer the draw, but after queens were exchanged he offered a draw and I immediately accepted because it was a tied position, as the engine also showed.
In the last game, I played Mark Kogan, the highest rated player! (1857) and he was white. I was only 1600, so I was very scared. But this didn’t stop me.
Mark played a very interesting queen’s gambit variation where he long castled around move 7, which could be very scary for either side. Mark played this against me because there could be a very strong attack on the kingside, but my queenside attack was faster. Therefore Mark was just defending. Mark offered a draw, and I really didn’t want to screw it up. But I finally found something which won me material, and I ended up winning the Section one tournament, tied with Goktug, in a swiss! I had a 91 percent accuracy and just 3 inaccuracies against him! I was never losing in the game. My accuracy wasn’t 95 or higher because the game was only 21 moves. This has definitely been my best quad tournament, and I am glad I accepted the challenge from the beginning. I hope to reach 1700 from this tournament. [I did! (1702) after 8 hours I checked] Thank you for reading!
Congratulations to all winners: click here to view rating reports for QUADS!
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Section 1 Report by Ido Alkin
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