I came into the tournament knowing that only my best performance and, of course, a bit of luck (!) would give me a chance of coming home with the trophy, since players like Shlok and Panos came as well as many other strong players.
A quite easy start to the tournament with two wins. To my discontent I had to play Shlok in round three. I played for white e4 and he played e6, French defense. Luckily, an opening I know very well and decided to play advance variation with move 3. e5. A very close game. Putting the rook on the half-open C line and pushing my queen side pawns forward gave me the initiative. Knowing I was very low on time I offered a couple of draws which he didn’t accept. In the end I had to rush my moves because of my time, forcing me to lose the game.
Games 4 and 5 weren’t too hard. The last game was. Black against Nina to decide who’d become school champion and who’d come joint second place. Nina had a very strong attack which I had to defend against, and luckily I found a counter attack which allowed me to pin her rook to checkmate. From then on not too difficult.
Hiding my joy I shook hands and at prize giving received the Brentwood School champion trophy. Somewhat gutted not to get second or third on progressive scores, I went home. Yes, still quite a lot is remaining to work on…
Report by Dmitry Molostvov