My first International Tournament Part 2

Hi ChessKids! Did you miss me? I'm back for Part 2 of my article. For Part 1 of my first international adventures, click here!

Round 5: I was playing the top seed who was called Vetokhin Savva and is now a FM. He played a Stonewall (four pawns making a light-squared "wall") and put me on the back foot for quite some time. He let me activate my pieces and I found quite a nice tactic that was good enough to win but it turns out there was an even stronger one.

See if you can find a winning move for White. Bonus points if you find two winning moves and also analyze which one is the best:

                                                   

   I played Ng6+ attacking the queen and making use of the back rank weaknesses. See if you can figure out what happens if ...Qxg6. However, Nh5! is an even better move with the same idea.

I managed to win, and this was a huge confidence booster. Later that day me and my parents went to explore Greece more in a very happy mood . After Round five I had 4.0 out of 5.

                                                  

Round 6: I was playing Mammadov Ziya who would eventually win the tournament. He played the Tarrasch Defense and I managed to win a good center pawn on d5 very quickly.

He was resilient and fought back very well to keep a draw which denied my lead. After this round there was him and the second seed, who I would beat later, whilst I am on 3rd place with the same number of points as Savva (4.5).

The entire English team decided to have a fun night out which really helped me cheer up my mood after a game I could have won.

                                        

Round 7: I was playing a Turkish boy called Yildiz Egehan. I played quite aggressively and managed to make his King go to e2 thus resulting in me winning a piece very soon. I won in 28 moves. After Round 7: 5.5/7, I would be awaiting a tough match up in the next round.

Round 8: I was playing the 2nd seed, Ribstein Orel, and my coach had promised that winning would not be easy. Fortunately, his preparation had helped me against the Benoni (a line I had not even heard of at the time). I stayed active and managed to trap his knight which felt really good. Soon enough he resigned.

After Round eight I had 6.5 out of 8. I could get first place possibly; I just needed Ziya to lose and myself to win. Couldn’t be that hard? I had beaten all the strong players. All these thoughts concluded on the next and final day.

Round 9: I played against Emir Doruk in the final round and got off to a terrible start and was losing. I offered a draw later on and he accepted. A fairy tale ending to a great trip in which I came 2nd place! 

                  

            At the very right is 1st place, then goes down in descending order toward the left. 

Ending: It was great fun and enjoyed a bit for the final day with going swimming.

    

I got my Candidate Master title (CM) through this although I would get it anyways in 2017 in an even better tournament.

Coming up later, I'll tell you all about that tournament, too!