The tournament on Sunday, April 15, was a tournament I was looking forward to for a while. The tournament was called the Vandemburg Cup, in memory of Mr. Vandenburg. I obviously am to young to remember or know Mr. Vandenburg, but the fact that they host a tournament in memory of him is awesome, and I thought I should play.
Before that day, on Saturday, Andy Catlin had invited me to come to play chess with him, Tony Nichols, and Ratko Bojanovic as a warm up for the tournament to get me prepared. It was a great experience and I was honored to go to play. I went into it not having high hopes for scoring anything, rather hoping that I would just play good chess games, learn, and have fun. And that I did. Andy set it up as a double match, so I play 2 of the 3 possible opponents 2 times each.
In the first round, I was playing Tony Nichols as white. It was a good game, where he got a slight advantage going into the middlegame, but then made an interesting move that I thought just dropped a pawn to a remove the defender tactic. Unfortunately, instead, he let me take the exchange for a pawn, but he gets alot of compensation for it... a little to much compensation. He ended up winning with a huge attack.
In the second round, I played him again as black. The game was even for the most part, until he made a knight sacrifice for 2 pawns. Unfortunately, afterwards, he tried to grab a third pawn, and lost his queen to a tactic. The game was a quick win from there.
My last 2 games against Andy Catlin were losses, as expected, but it was fun to help him make dinner when our game finished early. Overall that experience was great, and I learned alot.
On to Sunday:
My mom drove me out early in the Morning to stop by Bill Ignasiak's house to pick him up. After that, we continued onwards to Lansing, reaching our destination at 8:30, when registration starts. After waiting around for about 30 minutes, I suddenly saw several kids flood the room. 25 kids or so who looked like they were from Detroit, (and were) went into the room, all from one school in Detroit. This was their "warm up tournament" for going to Nationals in May. This largened the U1800 section that I was in by alot.
We finally started the first round, after being late by 45 minutes. I realized I was the second highest rated player in my section.
In the first round, I was playing one of the Detroit kids named Donald Dameron. Although being one of the clubs better players, I was able to grab a pawn from him using a nice tactic, and later win another pawn, and a bishop. The endgame was easy from there.
In the second round, I was playing Douglas Reist as Black. The game was even for the most part, but I later won a pawn, and was able to trade a pair of rooks. He tried to create counterplay with a pawnstorm on my king. It was frightening, but didn't work because I gave him a backwards pawn and he could not make progress without trading queens, which would also end his attack, which he did. I traded queens leaving me a pawn up and a rook and bishop vs. rook and knight. I was able to trade rooks bringing me into an endgame that was probably drawn, but a pawn up, and positioning my bishop, king and pawns correctly, I was able to create a passed pawn, and sacrifice it. I would get a piece exchange and a king positioning in front of his pawns, winning. I made this idea unavoidable unless he let me promote, which was worse. I won with little time left.
In the third round, I was playing Bill Ignasiak as White. He played a standard king's indian against me, closing up the center completely, and then trying for an attack on the kingside. The closed game went nowhere and his attack failed to work, so we agreed on a draw in an unprogressable game.
In the last round, I was playing Scott Faust as black. He played an English which transposed later into a queen's indian after I responded 1. ...Nf6. The game was even for the most part, very closed yet possibly sharp. Scott later looked like he was beinning an attack, but never broke through. Later he made a move that looked good, but actually just simply lost a pawn. After my knight blocked off any sacrifice he might have, I got away with queen winning knight fork after he touched his knight and then saw the fork. Being down a queen for a knight, his game fell apart, and he lost.
Overall, I got 3.5/4.0. Aaron Venia won the tournament with a perfect 4/4, and I lost on tiebreaks to another competetor with 3.5/4.0. Although I missed getting a cup because of bad tiebreaks, I did get $32, barely covering the entry fee, but had a great time and played some good games. I will have my games put up in a couple of days with notes. For now, bye!
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