Chess Tournament

Matt played in his first chess tournament this past Saturday.  It also happened to be the Mississippi State Scholastic Team/Individual Tournament.  Matt started playing chess in October when Ezzard Beane came to the LEAP classes at school and taught the LEAP students how to play.  Matt loved it immediately and started playing against me and watching YouTube videos about chess.  So, roughly four months later he and three classmates when down to Ridgeland and the team placed 4th in the State Team and Matt finished 6th in the State Individual.  Each player played five rounds and the only player who beat Matt is the boy who won the tournament undefeated.  Great job Matt!

It was a long day but we really enjoyed it and look forward to playing in more tournaments in the future.  Here are some pictures from the day.

 

Olde Towne Middle School in Ridgeland - the site of the tournament.  Evidently, they have an abundance of "E's" in Ridgeland.

 

Dad cooked waffles in the hotel lobby for breakfast!

 

Matt's first opponent was one of his teammates, Arthur.

 

One school had matching "Chess Commander" t-shirts.

 

Lunch!

 

This was supposed to be his second round match-up but they ended up switching pairings before the round started.

 

As luck would have it, his eventual second round match-up was the boy who ended up winning the tournament.  Matt played him a close game and they were the next to last game to finish that round.

 

Round 3

 

 Playing between rounds

 

Round 5 game

 

Top 10

 

4th Place!

 

6th Place!