Here it comes, the inevitable and always dreaded tournament wrap-up blog. Why is it that all fairy-tales seem to end with the protagonist leaving the rabbit hole again? Whoever invented the notion that real life was a superior choice to the dream world will have to undergo a serious interrogative effort by me one day.

Alas, fantastically as this tournament began for me, I cannot claim it as my own personal fairy-tale in the end -- My final score of 3.0 / 9.0 is hardly reflective of a typically strong result -- however, the score is deceiving for how well I feel I played in this event. I began the event in strong form, drawing a WIM, and beating a master and an FM to hold 2.5 points in the first four rounds. I was only able to find traces of another half-point in the last five rounds, however, after spoiling drawn and winning positions against two strong FMs -- as readers can see for themselves in blog posts 1, 2, and 3.

In round 8 I played against national expert, Zakhar Maymin (2170). I took the initiative out of the opening to grab an early lead, but couldn't quite find the most precise way to hold it. As such, the advantage passed on to my opponent (who was playing Black). I managed to wrest it back from him after a few short moves, however, and soon developed a decisive advantage. That, too, was short lived as slipped under time pressure and allowed a perpetual check. The game was then drawn.

In the final round of the event, I lost to young expert Rahul Swaminathan (2096). He had was well versed in the opening system he used against me, and I found myself in a setup where I did not properly understand the correlating ideas. Looking over the game afterwards it seems I missed several opportunities to a state of supposed 'equality', but the positions are not necessarily easy to play from a practical standpoint. This line will be undergoing some heavy analysis by myself for future encounters.

My final score of 3.0 / 9.0 doesn't sound too great on paper, but considering my competition for the event averaged 300 points (!) higher than me in rating and included six titled players altogether, I can finish the tournament fairly satisfied with my result. Both my US and FIDE ratings will increase as a result of my performance; US will go up about 31 points in total, while I have yet to do the FIDE calculations. More importantly, I gained a great deal of experience from this event, and have learned a lot about myself and where my capabilities currently lay as far as future events are concerned.

Sadly, I must end this blog here, as they are kicking me out of my hotel room. I will work to provide a further update on our other Michigan players after my journey home, as well as revamping my previous blog postings from this event with game annotations and pictures! Possibly a video to come in the near future as well. So keep checking back!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.