August 21st Tournament Review

It was another great scholastic tournament today at the RI Chess School. We had 28 players show up on a hot August day - a great showing!

Luke Cavanagh put together a great tournament and finished 4-0 against a tough field; his improvement has been quite rapid. We had 3 players tie for second at 3-1: Max Marinello, Brendan Clark and Sebastian Case.

Of particular note was Max’s performance today - he attended summer camp last week and I could tell he has turned a corner. The small of idea of not making moves too quickly will change the game for a lot of people. It sounds much easier than it actually is to execute, but today we could see the game slow a bit for Max and it payed off! Regardless of how good you are at chess, it is pretty clear that if you take time with your moves, you are more likely to play up to your ability. And that is always the goal, to get players to play up to their ability.

There were 16 players in the unrated section which saw Ian Botelho score a perfect 4-0 for first place. In a tie for second was David Delaplain, David Casillas and Noah Thomas. In round 1, David Delaplain ended up with a king and rook against a king. The king and rook checkmate is certainly one that we teach to all of our students. As part of our teaching we have the students produce this checkmate in front of us. Then a few weeks later, we have them do it again. For students who are advancing this is not a checkmate we often review as we are moving on to more advanced aspects of the game.

At first, David wasn’t sure what to do - it seemed like maybe he had forgotten this checkmating pattern. However he stayed calm, took his time, and with recall it came to him and he was able to solidly produce this checkmate over the board! After that experience it is now ingrained in his head and he will be able to produce it with ease. It was awesome to witness.