Brewington Wins Pan American Youth Chess Festival

I recently played in the XXXI Pan American Youth Chess Festival (September 4-10, 2021). The Pan American Youth is an annual chess tournament open to players in the Americas (North & South America) who are under 18 years of age.

Originally, this event was supposed to be played in Brazil. However, due to the COVID-19, the organizer (Confederation of Chess for Americas) decided to hold it in Hybrid Format, which means players plays online at certified location in each country. The Tournament Hall in the United States was Houston, Texas.

This was a nine-round tournament with each game having a time control of 90 minutes + 30 second increment after each move. The sections were U6, U8, U10, U12, U14, U16, and U18. They had girls and open sections. The prizes for the sections were the direct titles/norms.

In my section which was U12, the prize is FIDE Master (FM) Title for the 1st place, and the Candidate Master (CM) Title for the 2nd & 3rd. (Since this event was Hybrid Format, the direct title/norm needs to be confirmed by FIDE.)  Players were from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay,  USA, and Venezuela.


There were Arbiters (Tournament Directors) on site. To prevent cheating, all players had to go on Zoom, so that Arbiters could see everyone's screen and players' face. Also two cameras were set in the tournament hall so that countries could watch their tournament halls each other.  

I was not nervous at all when the tournament started. But I felt pressure after the 5th round when I started to lead. After the 6th round, I had 6/6 and 2nd place had 5/6. So I had a little bit of room for error but I wanted to keep a 1 or 1.5 point lead which I was able to do.

I want to share two games I played with all my ChessKid fans:

 

 
 
When I won round 8, I was relieved because I was guaranteed for the first place.
 
This is probably one of my best moves ever. Can you find the best move for White?
The answer is in the round 9 game below (Move 21).
 
 
 
 
 

My final score in this tournament was 9/9. Overall it was difficult to keep winning every game. I was very happy for winning the 1st place and also that it was over... I was so exhausted．