About

Before Today

My dad bought me a marble chess board when I was 3 years old. I looked at it in awe. I wanted to learn how to play chess. When I was 4 years old, after pre-school, I went to a chess club. I used a website called Maurice Asheley Teaches Chess. I learned a lot from it. My mom bought me it. I used it a lot.

I started playing more serious chess. I went down to St. Peter, that was always the Day of the Dead (the day after Halloween). I did good. Then I went to the SCA State Championships. I was the 2nd best Kindergarten kid there. I started going to SCA tournaments, getting a range of 3-4 points. Only in grade level tournaments, I would get 5.

After I while I went to Nationals. I got 5/7. I enjoyed it. Then I started traveling for chess. Mostly around the Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin region, unless I was playing in Nationals.

Then I started going to chess tournaments at the Chess Castle of Minnesota in Minneapolis. I became better because of the variety of experts there. I tried and got better until I could draw to one and drraw to another. I slowly started going more. I played think tournaments (7 round tournaments with a time control of G/60 w 15 sec delay). I also played FIDE tournaments.

I never did really good at Nationals, but eventually I won one. I had won my first 3 rounds with ease. My 4th round was a little harder, but I pulled it out. On my 5th, I won against somebody who is now my friend. Then I drew to Maxwell Beem, somebody who seems to stop me from beating him. On my last round, I dropped a knight, but he missed a two move checkmate and I won. I needed Max Chung to at best draw to Aravind Kumar for me to tie for 1st. And thats what happened. That meant I tied for 1st with Chung and Joseph Wan. I got 3rd on tiebreaks.

I played chess, got new friends, and won a few state titles. I went to Ed Zelkind Chess Camps which were fun. I went to St. Olaf Chess Camp which was also fun.

And then I went to the World, and I didn't do very good.

I went to the Minnesota Scholastic Championships. I got 4.5/6, losing a round 2 game in the K-9 section.

I went to Supernationals, another good score in Nationals. With 6 points out of 7. It was very fun. And 1 month later, I won all 7 games of a Think Format tournament, winning the same amount of games as an undefeated tournament in Nationals.

I kept playing strong and gained 100 points over the summer to hit 2200. I peaked at 2219, but fell down to 2149 during the schoolyear. Currently, I am a 2175 and am looking to get back some more rating.