The StarWalk Chess Tournament 2006 was concluded earlier today... it has been a great day with me having a great tournament finishing 4th, beating some of the best players from the country... and getting a lot of prize.. bravo the star newspaper..
It started as a great day as I was early at the venue so I get the chance to meet up with some juniors from my secondary schools (we all dont know each other, just that they were wearing their school t-shirt :P)
They remind me of the time I started to get involved in chess. I initially started to play xiangqi (chinese chess) when I was 9 years old. My involvement that time was solely playing socially to finally representing my secondary school. Then around 15 years old I started to shift my interest to chess and due to xiangqi, I basically picked up chess quite shiftly as I was able to beat most of my friends after learning the moves (due to the method of thinking in xiangqi can somehow be applied to chess)...
Back to the tournament... The first half of the tournament was considered okay for me. Things started to get exciting when my next opponent was the famous stonemaster. BTW, the tournament was a 8 rounder with 20 minutes to each player. This is the first time I play 1.d4 in a tournament and the first time I had beaten stonemaster, all previous encounter was draw with me taking Black. Today however, I had beaten the stonemaster on his favorite line, the Stonewall Defence!!!
Next was another win due to my opponent missing a few tactical themes. Looks like my solving of 4500 puzzles at the Chess Tactics Server within 1 month really help, especially in this kind of rapid event.
My winning streak was beaten by my old nemesis and thus increasing my personal encounter deficit against him to +1 -3 =0
Final round was a roller coaster for me, first I won a pawn but I was under attack due to my opponent's strong bishop. Then with critical time trouble, I think I had less than 30 seconds on the clock my opponent refuse my draw offer (hoping that I will lost on time) but finally it is me who flag him!!! So finally +7 -1 =0 for this tournament. 7/8 !! with overall 4th placing among 207 players!!
Conclusion:
My chess study of 20 hours +- per week is not a waste of time as some had suggested studying on books is not that helpful... :P
Changing of opening from 1.e4 to 1.d4 was a right choice with me getting the position that I like!!
Until next time,
EuHong
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