Royal Riches in Romania Part 2

Hi ChessKids! Did you miss me? Well, I'm back (in Romania!) with the second half of the article about my tournament there. Check out the first part here.

Round 6: I was playing the second seed who has played before in this article. I played the Sicilian Alapin in which queens were exchanged off very quickly and went into a few endgames. It finally went into a drawn pawn ending in which I managed to grind out to a win. After Round 6: a perfect 6.0/6 and it turns out I was now in the sole lead!

 

 

Round 7: I was now playing the first seed named Samunenkov Ihor. It was a Benko Gambit in which I exchanged queens, creating a winning rook endgame where I was a full pawn up. Slowly and steadily, I managed to win that.

After Round 7: 7.0/7 which meant I was doing a "Caruana" (winning 7 games in a row as he did in 2014 at the Sinquefield Cup). I was now one point ahead of second place and the clear favorite to win this as I had beaten all the top seeds. 

Round 8: I was now playing Giang Tran Nam who was on 6.0/7 and had lost to his country mate Hajdu Marton Abris, a guy I had beaten. It was another sharp Sicilian Dragon line. I was really excited and was not concentrating properly which made me forget theory. I tried to exchange queens which is normally quite sensible, but I missed a zwischenzug (an intermediate move) which made me lose a piece.

I had no counterplay because the queens were exchanged off as well. I eventually lost that game. After Round 8: 7.0/8 which made me feel terrible, but I had recovered from that and was ready to give it my all for the last round…

Round 9: I was playing an under-rated player called Camlar Arda (1361), he had also beaten the top two seeds.

    Before the start of the 9th Round                          

I played my usual Catalan but in a line that I had also forgotten. I was a pawn down, very passive and thinking about my devastating loss yesterday… Suddenly the momentum had shifted, and I got to play my natural attacking chess. This immediately put him on the back foot which helped me win.

 

It was a very nice win that got me secondnd (joint first but I had come second because of my loss to Giang Tran Nam in the 8th round as the tiebreaker, he became the winner after winning the last round). It was a very nice trip overall, and the prize ceremony was equally as memorable. 

Open U-08 prize ceremony