February Aquinas

Hey Everybody! Today I went to a monthly chess tournament at Aquinas Chess Collage. I go to this tournament regularly, and it is very well organized. Thanks to the tournament director, Eugene Brumley for organizing such a fine event, and for Antowine Jordan from the Calvin Tournaments for assisting Eugene.

The tournament went very good for me, and I was happy for it. In my first round, I was playing my friend Bill Ignasiak as white again. He decided to play 1. ...d5 against my 1.d4, and so I headed into a queen's gambit, which he is not used to. He didn't get any advantage out of the opening, but I can't say the game went bad for him. Here's how it went:

Joshua Posthuma - Bill Ignasiak
1571                       1565

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 h6 Black is aiming to stop white's bishop from coming to g5. 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.e3 Be7 6.Bd3 0-0 7.0-0 c5 Gaining equality in the center. 8.b3 a6 9.Bb2 Nc6 10.cxd5 exd5 11.a3 cxd4 12.Nxd4 Nxd4 13.exd4 IQP games... Atleast it means open files. Re8 14.Re1 b5 15.a4 Around now, I have about 5 minutes left (plus a 5 second delay), and my opponent had about 15.  15. ...b4 16.Ne2 Be6 17.Rc1 Qd7 18.Nf4 Bf3 19.f3 Bxd3 20.Nxd3 Bd6 21.Ne5 Qb7 22.Qd2 Rac8 23.Rxc8 Rxc8 24.Rc1 Rxc1+ 25.Qxc1 Qb8 26.Qc6 a5 27.a3 g6 28.Kg2 Kg7 29.Nd7 Qe8 30.Ne5 Qe7 31.Qb6 Bc7 32.Qc6 Qd8 33.Kf2 Ng8 34.Qd7 Forcing the queen trade. Now he either trades or loses a bishop or gets mated. At this point I have about 3 minutes and Bill About 6. 34. ...Nf6? A blunder missing the mate. White to move and mate in 2: 35.Qxf7+ Black Resigns. The checkmate would continue 35. ...Kh8 36.Nxg6#
1-0

The other two games went great for me also, and so I ended the tournament with 3/3. I won $10, and had a fun time. My rating climbed into B class, and I'm now rated 1633! Here are the rating crosstables, and also congradulatins to Adam DeHollander from our chess club who won his section. Even though he has only played chess for 2 months, he is climbing very quickly, and is very talented.

I'll have a post on my next tournament, the Michigan Junior Championships at MSU. Talking about Junior Championships, look on the Holland Chess website for the flyer of the Second annual Holland Junior Championships on the 24th.

Exciting Christmas Present (A little late, I know!)

In Early January, our family including grandparents and cousins met together for Christmas. What we did was an invention by my aunt, 'secret santa.' The idea was that in November, we would draw the name of a relative out of a hat. Whoever's name we drew, we had to make or give a present to that person. You were not allowed to buy anything, forcing it to come completely from the heart. =D I drew my father's name, and made him a video on youtube for him about his life in the past, and how he has helped me in life, including a slideshow of different accomplishments in his past. Unfortunately, I added a Toby Mac song into the background when I was editing. Even though we owned the song, we didn't have permission for copywright, and the entire audio from the video was disabled. : ( After that, we didn't have time to fix it, and ended up needing my dad's help in order for us to download it and burn it onto a CD properly. Then my dad figured out that I drew his name. Even though that didn't go that great, the present I got was amazing, and my main reason for this post. 8~D

Little did I know, the person who drew my name was none other than my Uncle, Bruce Conroy! You must know that my Uncle is amazing at making things out of wood, and carving different designs. Less than a year before, my uncle and my cousin Isaac, who is 16, made me this chess board out of wood. For Christmas, he made a great wooden table for the chess board. He had my dad measure the chess board while I was away at school to make sure he had the right measurements for the table. Together it was an amazing gift!

Overall that Christmas went very well. Thank you Uncle Bruce for making me such an amazing gift that I will contiinue to use for years and years!

 With his amazing talent, and knowing I love chess, he made me the perfect gift.

practice makes perfect

Recently, I have been interested in top 100 lists. One main important list I hope to get onto is the National age 11 lists. My birthday is on June 5, and I'm eleven right now. My rating right now is 1571, and as you can see I need a 1640 rating to make it on. In order to make it on this list, I will need to not only play in more tournaments, but practice! Unless you practice, you won't improve. Right now I practice atleast 2 hours a day. Sometimes it can be over 7 hours! One problem I think I have is that I don't like reading books. : ( I think reading some books could teach me alot, but I just have to train myself to do it. When I was at Barnes and Noble one day I bought the Reasess Your Chess Workbook. Unfortunately, when I bought it, I didn't see that it was a workbook. That book and others like it have been good investments, and I think reading more books will help me alot. Another thing I should be working on is my tactics. Doing this will help me look for good moves. I am always looking for improvement, and to get better. This is why I named my blog 'Path to Promotion'. For now I will keep on training, and try my best to improve. Bye!