Road to FM

NM ParagonFighter

Nov 15, 2024, 6:49 AM | 8

Recently I played in a Norm Event which was hosted by the 1000GM organization. They have lots of strong players in event, which makes it harder to score a Norm. For the people who doesn't know what is a "Norm", here is the definition:

A norm is a high-level of performance in a chess tournament.

If one wishes to achieve the IM title or the GM title, 3 norms are required. Now you may be thinking:

"You're not even FM yet, so why try to get IM?"

You have a solid point; although I do suck from time to time, I did come very close in scoring 7 points (!) out of 9 rounds. But as we all know, being *close doesn't mean anything. So, I will be sharing some of y games, and stories. Incidentally, Brewington is also playing in a tournament, and he got GM later, so cgs to him. Tani, Ryo were playing here as well, but they are better at Chess, sooo they are playing in a higher section.

The games are also live on Chess.com and lichess, the tournament is over, but if you wish to see it there here is the link:

https://www.chess.com/events/2024-ny-gm-im-fall-invitational-im-c/games

P.S. This is a long blog, but if you do make it through, DM me word the cookie

The Playing Hall:

Round 1:

A pretty good game overall. My opponent unfortunately just blundered...

Taking the Train

Round 2:

Since the next round doesn't start until 6pm (I finished at around 2:30PM), I decided to play billiards against my friend Carter Ho. Yes, apparently they have a pool table in the hotel. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos, but this is what he looks like.

Carter

Tani and Ryo finished later, so he decided to join us. But don't get me wrong, Tani is a tremendous Chess player (I admit he is better than me lol), but his pool skills need improvement, so Carter and I had to teach Tani and Ryo how to hold the cue. For reference, this is Ryo and Tani:

Tani is in the bottom left and Ryo is in the bottom right

And yes, they are both prodigies, and are both playing in the GM section. OK, time for round 3 lol:

Round 3:

Round 4:

After this game something very interesting happened: When I played pool with Carter and Tani, Brewington joined us. He thought adding a clock to pool is a good idea, so we set up a chess clock on his phone and claimed that whenever we make a "move" we have to hit the clock. It ended up into a complete chaos...

But ok, here is round 5:

Round 5:

Not the best performance from me, but my opponent played well there.

It was also at this moment where I got my new profile picture (A director took this picture):

Round 6:

Before I went into the playing Hall, I saw "Levy Rozman" as one of the players in the GM section. The next second, people are telling me that Levy is downstairs... So:

GothamChess!

Round 7:

Winning round 7, 8 and 9 would give me a score of 7/9, which is the scoring point for an IM norm. The issue is, I have to beat a GM in the process. But first, I have to win my round 7 game:

Ok, now I need to win my last two games to qualify for an IM norm...

Round 8:

I didn't qualify for the norm

Although drawing a GM is not too bad, I could have won if I didn't suck...

Out of inertia, I played for a draw for my next game.

Round 9:

Reflections:

This is a good tournament overall, I gained almost 100 FIDE points and is really close to getting FM. But still, it's a pity that I failed to convert the advantage to a win against the GM...

I also gained 30 USCF

Congratulations! You have made it the end! Any questions, comments, feel free to leave it below.

*Looking for a Coach, Private/Group Classes to improve your Chess? More information can be found on my profile/bio:
https://www.chess.com/member/paragonfighter

Website: https://paragonchessacademy.com/

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Thanks for Reading!

Road to FM

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