Introduction to Chess 2

After my first tournament, I kept playing playing chess every day. A month later, I played in another scholastic chess tournament in Lansing, and got second place, and another awesome trophy: Red, white, gold, and black with a pillar with fire in the middle, and a plastic gold king head on top. Because of my success in tournaments, and my passion for the game, my parents started a chess club for me at my school. It started in October of my first grade year. There were about 20 kids, and just 3 coaches. The main coach is still helping out at our club, and he is named Derrick Baker. The other 2 coaches were my parents who helped with the beginners, as they were just beginners themselves. Just like my school, Eagle Crest, the club was for kids grades K-8. I got a little cocky, and thought since I had 2 trophies, I would beat everybody, but some 7th and 8th graders knocked some sense into me. John was an 8th grader, and he offered me a great challenge, constantly beating me. I played him every week at club, until finally I won against him, and I was very excited. The next couple of years I continued to get better at chess. In 2008, I played in my first rated tournament, scoring 3/6, and getting a best Unrated trophy. Our chess club also learned about a man named Dan Hronchek in the area, who was an International Master, playing constantly in other countries, mostly Europe. He coached me for about a year, and became a coach in our club, and still is.

In April, 2011, I learned about the Calvin College Chess Tournaments that happened every month. When Katy Ford was the tournament director, there was a Top section, for the best players in the group, a Reserve Section, for the lower rated adults and higher rated kids, and a Scholastic Section, for kids K-12 who were just starting out. Every month, I played at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, in the scholastic section. I played in that section until about September when school started back up. My rating got up to about 850, so I moved up to the Reserve section, with adults. If you don't know about the rating system, look forward to a blog article later this month. The first time I played In the reserve section, I got 1.5/4! In the first round, I played a man named Faron. He was rated about 1350, and he looked intimidating. Don't take that the wrong way. He was the first adult I would ever play in a rated game, and he had a high rating. We played out the game for a long time, but I was able to trade my knight for his rook, and later held a draw. I was so excited! The next couple of months, I kept playing in the reserve section, meeting some really nice people.

Right now, my rating is at 1477, and I continue to play at calvin college, and continue to play at my club.

Here is an instructive article if you are a complete beginner.