How I Got My Second National Champion Title

Hey Chesskids! I am back to talk about my experience at the 2022 K-12 National Chess Championships, which was held at the Maryland National Harbor.

This tournament has 7 rounds in which you can only play opponents that are in the same school grade as you. I am in the 8th grade, so I played the 8th-grade section and was the second-highest-rated player in my section.

This is the story of how I got my second National Champion Title, alongside some tips on how I mentally prepare myself during these big tournaments.

What To Do During a Tournament to Maximize Your Performance

I have played many of these national events and found that my issue when I was younger was that I spent all of my energy outside of the games, which resulted in me being tired and playing poorly in the final games.

I only began to do well in these tournaments when I learned from my past and decided to relax and restore my mental energy between the rounds, so that I could do the best I could in every game.

I also take every game one at a time and avoid thinking about the title during each game, because that would result in me feeling a lot of stress and pressure, making me play worse.

The key to having a good performance in long tournaments like national championships is to save your energy for the chess games, and to not get distracted by anything and stay focused during the game.

Me at the board before Round 6 began.

Round 6: Ryan Wang (2072) vs Brewington Hardaway (2369)

At this point I and my opponent were the only two people with 5/5. I was planning to go for the win so that I could claim a half-point lead heading into the final round.

My opponent played an interesting move in the opening which caught me off guard. But after that I hit him with a nice tactic, giving me the bishop pair and giving him weaknesses which led me to win the game and go to 6/6.

The Key Moment: Can you find the move black has to claim a big advantage?

You can find the answer on move 13 for black in the game below.

The Full Game:

The Solution: On move 13, I played the brilliant move Ng4! It might look like the knight can't move there because the pawn on f3 is guarding that square. But when I move the knight, my bishop on e7 is now attacking white's h4 bishop. Ng4 forced my opponent to give me the bishop pair and I got a huge advantage because of all of the weak pawns he had.

After winning this intense game, I was in clear first with 6/6, with only one other person close by with 5.5/6. I was playing the person with 5.5 and I knew a draw would secure me my second National Title.

I was white and made a slight error in the opening, but at the end it was a solid 27-move draw, resulting in me getting my second national title with 6.5/7.

After defending a dodgy game and securing my second National Champion title, I was happy with how things went. Most of the games I played were interesting and I had a great time playing in the 2022 K-12 National Chess Championships.

I hope you enjoyed reading. Come back next time for an update on my journey to reaching the IM and GM titles!