Brew's Brazil Trip Part 1!

When I was in 3rd grade, I was 8 years old and played in the U8 World Cadets Championship in Poços de Caldas, Brazil. That was back in 2017.

This was my first time going outside of the country so it was a great experience and I had a great time. This was the my second FIDE-rated tournament. That means international rating.

I qualified for this tournament when I hit USCF (United States) rating of 1600. When I heard the news I was so excited because this was my first tournament outside the US.

 "Brazil Brewington" in his first international tournament. Photo courtesy the family.

The tournament had a time control of 90 minutes with 30 second increment, and after move 40, both players get another 30 minutes. This meant that most games would be 2-5 hours. That means some of my game could be as long as watching your favorite movie three times in a row!

The tournament has a tradition of giving your opponents a souvenir from your country every round if you wanted to. I prepared NYC key chains.

My chess preparation for this tournament consisted of doing puzzles and studying my openings. I analyzed older games to learn from my mistakes, and tried to play a bit slower because at the time I didn’t move the slowest.

During the trip we saw many different things during the trip like large buildings, tall trees, monkeys, and more!

We arrived to Brazil a couple days before the tournament started. I wasn't excited because I just wanted the tournament to start. But my mom wanted to go outside to see what Brazil was like. Then we took a small tour with other people on the USA team. When we visited a mountain, we saw some monkeys on a tree! It was very cool to see things you would never see in NYC. We also saw huts, buildings, large trees, and tons of animals.   

There were 72 players in my section. In the first round, I played against a player from India whose FIDE rating was 1492. I had white against him.

I played 1. e4 and he played the Sicilian. At that time I played the Smith Morra Gambit, which is 1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3. Black can play a couple moves after 3. c3 which are 3...d3, 3...dxc3, 3...Nf6, 3...d5, or 3...g6.

My opponent accepted the gambit 3...dxc3 and I played 4. Nxc3. I sacrificed a pawn to get quicker development and the open c-file. Eventually we both developed our pieces but I had more active rooks. Then I made a mistake that was letting him force a trade and make me have doubled pawns.  Eventually it was a king-and-pawn endgame but I was down a pawn so I lost that game.

In the 2nd round I had black against a played rated 1100 from Brazil. He played 1. e4 and I replied with 1...c5, another Sicilian but this time with me as Black.

After nine moves we reached a position where only 10. Nde2 wasn't losing but he instead played 10. O-O-O. In this position I went 10...Nxc3 and after he took with the pawn my queen invaded on c3.

11...Bxc3 was actually the better move because it is going to force mate or win a lot of material. He could have taken my queen on c3 (remember "When to Trade"?!) and just been down a pawn but instead they played 12. Ne2 thinking that he was going to do 13. Qd8 next move but I had 12...Qa1 which was checkmate. So I won round 2, my first win of the event!

 

See more of my games and the final results in part 2!