Becoming the Top Female in America: Part 1

Hi Chesskids!

Some of you may have already read my "becoming an IM article," where I mentioned crossing 2400 FIDE, achieving my second international master norm, and becoming the number-one-ranked female in America. Here are the deets on that!

FIDE's official rating list as of September, 2019

Before summer started, my FIDE rating was at 2289. For those who don't know what FIDE is, it's the international rating system, while USCF, which probably is what most of you are used to, is just within the United States. 

Also, international master is the second-highest title in chess, just one step below grandmaster! It takes three "norms" to get the title (you can think of a "norm" and simply having an awesome event).

Anyway, with a series of tournaments, including my US Junior Girls Championship first place performance, I managed to gain nearly 150 FIDE points. My rating skyrocketed to 2425 FIDE, thanks to two big tournaments where I gained 100+ FIDE points: Washington International and US Masters.

Washington International occurred first, so we're going to start with that! My FIDE rating going into this tournament was exactly 2300. First round, I played Evan Ling (2239 USCF) and this position appeared on the board. Black to move and win! (By the way, all the answers are posted at the bottom of the article.)

After my win against Evan, I drew IM George Li (2488 USCF) with the white pieces. In the third round, I was paired against IM Michael Mulyar (2471 USCF). I won with a nice tactic, and while this position didn't occur in the game, it could have. Here Black has a sequence of forced moves to win. There are a lot of tempting moves, so consider them all carefully!

Following my win against Michael, I drew IM Atulya Shetty (2546 USCF).  Sitting at a solid 3/4 and leading the tournament, I then faced IM David Brodsky (2536 USCF) in round 5. After an exchange sacrifice, we reached this position. I'm sure Black wins in many different ways, but there is only one mate in three! 

Next round, I beat GM Magesh Panchanathan with the white pieces. After the nice positional win, I had more or less secured an IM norm and had good GM norm chances. Unfortunately, in the seventh round, I faltered and lost to GM Mark Paragua. In the last two rounds, I beat Jennifer Yu and lost to GM John Michael Burke. 

Picture credits to Maryland Chess Association

My performance was over 2500 FIDE, but since I didn't play enough foreigners, I wasn't able to get a norm. While this was disappointing, I gained around 60 FIDE points, bumping me up to 2360 FIDE. Moreover, it felt that I somehow broke a barrier and the level of my chess jumped significantly. The past two years, I was fighting for IM norms without feeling like I truly was at IM strength. But now, I was confident that my norms would come as long as I kept playing like this.

Answers to tactics are here!