There were 28 participants in Saturday’s Thunder Quick event.
The new player was Kevin from Weber Elementary. He did not have a concerning rating but most were aware that he was the Weber's number one player.
Top players missing in action were: Austin, Nolon, and Wyatt (TQ4).
There were no significant matches in round 1 but in the second round, Max was playing white against Aydan. Max was the higher rated player but had the bad side for most of the game until this instance where Aydan chose to self-pin with Rf7 instead of moving the king. Max took advantage of the pin (Bc4) and went on to win this game.
Kevin (Sillyyoda) had cruised through his first 2 rounds and was paired against the slightly higher rated Aryan (VikRex).
Kevin miscalculated a capture early in the game that resulted in him losing a knight in exchange for a pawn. It appeared as though Aryan would put an end to Kevin’s streak but, over the next 10 moves or so, he amassed enough pawns to balance the bishop. It looked bad for Aryan and got worse after he accidentally lost his bishop for nothing.
Going into round 4 there were 3 players with a perfect score: Leon, Max, and Kevin. Kevin was the lowest rated of the three and was paired down against Farhan this round.
The game between Leon and Max featured messy pawn structures from both sides. White had an opportunity to mess up black’s kingside pawns but allowed him to advance the f-pawn and create a dangerous space advantage. The sneaky move here was moving the king to f7 to reveal an attack on the c5-knight. White overlooked the threat (Bxc5) and moved his rook instead. Max picked up the piece and went on to win.
The Epic Final Round was Max [4.0 Wickham] versus Kevin [4.0 Weber].
This game did not live up to its hype. Max had made the mistake of giving a knight away (Na3-Bxa3) and Kevin had just sacrificed his knight for 2 pawns (they were good pawns in his defense). The following move had white throwing away his knight (Nd7) to enter an utterly hopeless position.
Kevin won this event with a perfect 5.0 score.
Congratulations to everyone who attended.
See you at the next Thunder Quick!