On the Road to my First Norm Tournament

Since my chess.com blogs are telling about my road to GM, I have decided to take you on the road with me for my first norm tournament and every night (or as often as possible) I will be adding updates on this blog (not a separate blog so keep checking back).  

This week and next week I will be playing in two tournaments.  First is the Copper State International Invitational in Mesa, Arizona where I will be playing in the B section with several GMs, IMs, FMs, other NMs, and few Experts.  Playing against high rated players will be tough, but that is not my first challenge (when I said on the road I meant it).  My first challenge will be the 12 hour drive to get there!  12 hours in a car, and not just any car, but a very small car, and not just my mom and I, but my mom, my grandma, my older brother (who is 6 feet 2 inches tall), and my 4 year old sister and her car seat, as well as all our luggage, snacks, pillows, and blankets for a 12 day trip!  We were planning on going tonight to St. George (4 hours away) then Arizona tomorrow, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen because my grandma got stuck at a 3-hour high school graduation for my cousin and is still not packed (though I am not exactly sure where her luggage is going to go).

The Copper State will be my norm tournament, 9 rounds through 7 days which includes the side events tomorrow night (dinner and a bughouse tournament). There is also a blitz tournament, but I don’t think I am going to play in that one.  The schedule for the actual tournament is 2 rounds Friday, 1 round Saturday, 2 rounds Sunday, 1 round Monday, 2 rounds Tuesday, and the final round next Wednesday.  And then after that, we leave on the 10th to the National Open in Las Vegas.  I will be playing in the G/10 blitz tournament that night.  I decided to do the G/10 instead of the G/5 because last year I played in the G/5 which went to 3:00AM my time after the regular tournament was over and I was actually falling asleep at the board.  One round I completely forgot about my clock because I was so tired.  I ended up dropping 50 rating points on my blitz rating from that tournament (ouch).  The National Open will be 4 days including the G/10 tournament and is a 6 round tournament (2 each day).  I really like the National Open and though I may not play as strong of players as the Copper State, it should still be pretty strong. 

To prepare for these tournaments I had a lesson with my coach, GM Melik Khachiyan, this morning and was then planning on doing some other studying for the rest of the day, but at the end of my lesson I got banned from doing any serious chess studying by Melik and was told to relax for the rest of the day.  He actually made me promise! I made sure my dad understood that it included any lawn work.

Well, I am off to help my grandpa clean the office that he and my grandma clean every Wednesday so that she can get packed.  Make sure you keep checking back for updates.  15 tournament games and 6 blitz games in 11 days…it should be an adventure!!