Five easy. Went to the final 4 rounds of the Utah Junior High State Chess Championship. In my fourth round (first for the day), I faced Eric Tokitka (or whoever his last name is spelled), and won. He was 300 points below me, so the result was unsurprising. This was my last easy (relatively) game for the tournament. Round five is when the fun began. All the top players were paired against each other. My opponent was Clancey Black, about 100 points below me at the time, though that was due to inaccurate published ratings. He had taken first in state (with me second) twice. I had played him twice before in a tournament - a draw and a loss. Anyway, I opened with an unexpected opening, causing Clancey to spend too much time on the clock - a reoccurring pattern for the remainder of our game. He attacked too early against a solid defense and ended up trading queens to avoid loss of tempo. This prevented any future attacks against my king, which caused me some relief. The game was now headed in a direction I was more comfortable with. After thinking hard on several moves, Clancey finally moved too quickly and dropped a pawn. I managed to trade off pieces and win the pawn up rook endgame. In the sixth round, I played Sam Mason, 150 points above me. He smashed me in the opening and won the Exchange (Bishop for Rook) , but like Claney before him, spent too much time on moves. He also dropped a pawn and gave me connected passed pawns which could prove dangerous if he blundered. (Hope all the chess detail isn't too confusing :-)). But Sam was still winning. My only remaining tactic was hypnosis. In chess, hypnosis is when you make moves that are not the best, necessarily, but set up easy-to-miss traps for your opponent. So it was with me and Sam. I gave him a 'free' pawn and he took it, after 7 or so minutes thought. Then the trap was unavoidable and I won back the Exchange. The game ended in a draw. I might have had a win in the endgame, but I missed it. A draw was definitely more than I'd hoped for.
In the last round, I was tired, hung a piece, and lost after a botched, desperate, counter-attack. I ended up 4th overall, and 2nd in my grade for the 3rd year in a row (but not to Clancey), and with the distinction of being the only player at the tournament to play Sam and not lose.
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