Hi this is Ishaan back with another blog post. I was thrilled to be invited to play in the Oregon Closed Challengers this year.
I will share my 4-day saga of the first 6 rounds of the tournament, followed by an eventful last round. In the 1st game, I won a piece but my opponent had opened my king and he won the piece back. It turned into an endgame where he had a bishop + rook + 2 pawns and I had a knight + rook + pawn, all on the same flank. It was difficult to defend as he had created a passed pawn. It left me with no choice but to sacrifice the knight for his last pawn hoping I could defend in the rook+bishop vs rook ending. It’s a theoretical draw but you have to know the technique and I studied it a little but never tried it out and I didn’t defend the game. I lost the game after almost 5 hours. My 2nd game was a fast and easy win. My 3rd game was a draw. I brought my queen to the corner and I was attacking a weak pawn on a3, but my opponent decided he wanted to repeat moves and I didn’t have a choice.
In the fourth game, it was completely equal with no real way to make progress on either side. But my opponent blundered and resigned because he realized he was going to lose a rook. In the 5th game I won. My opponent made some bad opening choices and got a very bad position and he was losing material. In the 6th game I was playing my friend and PuddleTownChess co-founder Austin. I don’t know why but I’m always playing black against him. In this game however, we were following theory but he surprised me with a move I’ve never seen before, and I was confused. He got a very active position and I ended up losing.
After 6 rounds, I had 3.5 points, tied for 2nd. My last opponent had 4 points. If I lost, my opponent would have won the tournament. If I drew, he would either win or tie for 1st. But if I won, I would be the champion. Five minutes before the start of the round, my opponent surprised me with a draw offer. I pondered for a couple of minutes, and I remembered what my coach told me. My coach’s motto is to never offer or accept a draw, and play till the end of every game and tournament. Only by playing the whole game, I will learn, which is 100 times more valuable than a mutual draw. He said he wanted a draw. We played 10 moves, and he offered a draw again. I said I will reconsider later. So we continued to play and eventually I got a winning position, and he resigned.
I tied for first place and I was very happy with this result, and I was glad I didn’t accept the draw for more than one reason 🙂
