6 days after the Michigan Junior championships, I played in our club's annual tournament Called the Holland Junior Open. My parents ran this tournament for the second year in a row. The night before the tournament, I was up until 11:00 helping my parents enter final pre-registrants, look up ratings, etc. My mom accidentally didn't save work she had been doing for the tournament for 2 full days, and it took her a long time to get it back, and was very stressed. After that long night was over, I went to bed. It feels like I barely even crawled into bed, and my alarm clock blared the net morning at 5:45. I was still exhausted, but there was so much work for me and my parents to do yet at home, and setting up at the tournament site. I think my sleep deprivation was the main reason for my poor play at the tournament.
Before I talk about the tournament itself, I think there is a simple way to improve my chess play. Sleep! Everybody needs sleep, especially 11 year old kids right before the day of a big chess tournament. I think with more sleep, I won't want to fall asleep at the board, and I will be able to concentrate and think through variations. So my goal for myself for the next couple of months will to be to get at least 9.5 hours of sleep the night before any tournaments.
Now on to the tournament. In the first round, I was playing my friend from the Holland chess club, Adam. Adam originally signed up for the unrated section, but my parents asked him to play up because otherwise we wouldn't have an even amount of players. I won the game, but overall Adam played well.
In the second round, I was playing another friend of mine from the Holland chess club, Andrew. Andrew is a quickly rising chess competitor, and definitely showed it in our game. I played a line in the french that I had played against him before at our chess club, and liked for me, but played it very poorly. Andrew took the initiative at the perfect time, forcing my pieces into the corner. With not enough space to maneuver, Andrew crushed me in a very amazing way, and ended up mating my king.
In the third round, I was playing Chirag Rudrangi from grand rapids. Our moms are friends, and so I knew it would be a very interesting game. Chirag kept the game even for almost the entire game, and got me in time pressure for the third time today. Thankfully, I was able to force his rook away from the defense of one of his pawns, winning it, and later won his rook in a fork.
In the fourth round, I was facing Joshua Vander Meulen. This junior from spring lake has been climbing rather quickly in recent tournaments, breaking 1,000 with this tournament. In our game, it was relatively equal for the beginning, but Joshua got me in time pressure fairly early on. I snatched a couple of pawns, and ended up checkmating him with only 3 seconds to spare.
In the last round, I was playing Isaac Zylstra. He was the highest rated player in the event, and won the tournament last year. In our game, I was black, and he played the english. I played 1. ...e5, and after 2.Nc3, 2. ...c5, with a solid, stonewall like structure. The game was equal almost the entire way through, but he ended up getting a slight edge in in a rook and pawn endgame. After I made a calculating mistake with pawn trades, I was left 1 pawn down, and in a worse position. Later, I made another mistake, allowing him to grab another one of my pawns. Now, being 2 pawns up, I could still hang on... maybe... but with only 3 seconds left, I couldn't, and lost on time while thinking in a deep position.
So, overall, I got 3/5. This was a poor performance for me, and I lost 31 rating points. (1609) It was a good learning experiance, though. I learned 2 important things.
1) Sleep before big chess tournaments is very important.
2) Taking your time in a G30 time control is not wise.
Even though the tournament did not go great for me, it helped me to see some important things to change in the future.
My next report will probably be on the April Calvin, if I go, or else the Vandenberg Cup. Look forward to an article on one of those tournaments soon, too.
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