Tournament, Part 1

I have been doing some sports lately. For the last six months I've been in a tournament. It started in early February and now in late August there is the 3rd round going on. This is the last round before the finals.

In the beginning there were 65 of us in 17 sections. My first round was against Julieann, Ivica and Encho. Julieann did not make a move and was dropped immediately. Against Ivica from Belgrade I had an aggressive opening and won the first in 24 moves and the second in 31 moves. Ivica won Encho in both games. I lost my first game against Bulgarian Encho, but the second one was to be an easy win. After 41 moves I stopped playing and so all three of us got to the 2nd round.

My father, so called coach of mine, was a bit angry at me letting the others continue as well. I was very pleased and thought, that my first round could not have ended in a better way.

The 2nd round was in 5 sections with 21 players. In my section the others were: Ed from Singapore, Eric from Malaysia and Charly from Argentina. Ed came late complaining he had been overseas. Charly and I did not find the excuse good enough and so Ed lost 4 games ´cause he did not do his first moves in time. Malaysian Eric was to be an easy one for Charly and me. Instead between Argentina and Finland we were to have two tough games.

With my black pieces I missed Charly's mistake at the 9th move. I could have won a pawn. At the time I was spending my Summer holidays in eastern Finland. At the next move I tried to sacrifice my bishop but Charly did not take it. After eight moves I offered a knight to get an attack towards his king. He again did not take it instead he took a pawn allowing me not to attack that dangerously.

After fifteen moves more and several combinations I had to change my rock with his bishop. There was another surprise to come. I sacrificed the other rock to get a draw as an immediate result.

The other game with Charly was to be very interesting as well. After 44 moves I was desperate in a complex situation. There was only one winning move for Charly to do and after that I would have surrendered. The material was even and it was not easy to find the right move.

My brother was visiting me at the time and we talked about chess. He told me in a desperate situation there is one more thing to do. That is a draw offer. I thought the opponent might be offended by such an insult if he had already found the winning move. After one day of consideration Charly accepted my draw offer and both of us got to the next round.

What a tournament so far! I wonder, if letting others go through in the previous round had something to do with this?