Upper School Chess West Texas Regionals

For the Trinity Upper School chess team, the West Texas Regionals brought a couple of different goals.

 

The West Texas Regionals brought together over 170 of the best chess playing students throughout West Texas from Odessa to close to Dallas.

 

One goal was finishing first in the team competition which meant beating rival Legacy High School which recently won the Midland City Championship with Trinity finishing second. The second goal was a personal one for Trinity's top player Tobias Slatken who finished second in the Regionals last year and is the highest US Chess Federation rated player in the Region.

 

It turned out to be an exciting event for the Chargers as three of their six players were playing in their first rated tournament, and all three turned in scores of three wins out of five games, a tremendous result for their first tournament. 

 

"It was good fun," said Thomas Pardo about his first rated event. Explaining why the team did so well, he deadpanned , "We're just that good."  He said the tournament was "very long. I never played 30 minute chess before," but he wasn't surprised by the play. "Everyone played basic moves," he said.

 

Bawi Bik was another player playing in his first rated tournament and also scored three wins.  "I was distracted by having to write down the moves," Bawi said. As far as the games went though, he agreed with Thomas. "The games were good. Mostly double-king pawn openings like the Ruy Lopez, so I wasn't surprised."

 

Being a big shot senior, Monty Campbell was already done with school when these interviews were done, so the only thing to do is what any good journalist would do in this situation, make up quotes of what he probably would have said if he were here to be interviewed.  When asked about his three wins, Monty would have said, "whether it's intercepting a pass on the football field or blocking a discovered attack with a pawn push, the answer has to be being the best you can be by being balanced just like making the best pizza in Midland has to balance just the right amount of sauce with the perfect sweetness of the crust, and just like you can get your bishop trapped in your opponent's position, you can also add one too many pieces of pineapple, and drop the easy interception."

 

Meanwhile Tobias was winning his games though each one was going to a tough endgame as he played every top player in the tournament. Playing against Greenwood's top player, Tobias said, "I got hit by a surprise in the opening. I was able to exploit his weak d5 square and eventually won a pawn." Next up was Legacy High's top player and this time it was the Trompowsky Attack. "I sacced a rook which won me two pawns. I knew the opening. In fact I looked at it ahead of time," he said. Going into the last round, Tobias had four wins and no losses. 

 

The last game was a titanic struggle that went on for well longer than an hour and drew a throng of onlookers including the judges and other top players. At one point Tobias looked to be in trouble as a rook got to his seventh rank. He sacrificed a rook to get rid of the rook and stay even. When the game was later put into the chess.com computer the rook sacrifice came back as a "brilliancy". The game stayed even after that with Tobias having two bishops for two knights which is considered a slight advantage, but what to do with it? While Tobias tried different attempts at a breakthrough, his opponent built a fortress and offered  draws. With both hands holding his head, Tobias kept turning down the draw offers while he tried to strain an attacking idea from his brain. Then the crowd was shocked when the game ended in a flash. Tobias didn't look at the clock for just a second and his flag fell, meaning he lost on time. That crushing loss gave Tobias a second straight second place finish in the Regionals.

 

While Tobias was torturing himself trying to get a win in an even position, Gavin Dorfner, Trinity's number two player was involved in his own super important game against the Legacy player who finished second to Tobias in the Midland City Championship just a few weeks before. "I was so nervous that last game," Gavin said. A win would bring him into a second place tie in the Regionals with four wins. The win would also give Trinity the team competition. A loss would have put Trinity just behind Legacy again. "All my games went down to endgames," Gavin said The one game I lost I just should have pushed my pawn one move earlier. Gavin also experimented with a new opening that he's been practicing lately It's called the Bird's Opening and it starts by moving a very unusual pawn. The story is that an Englishman, Grandmaster Bird had bad eyesight and would often move the wrong pawn by mistake so the opening was named after him. Anyway, Gavin said, "I played the Bird. I lost a pawn in the opening and I quit playing the Bird." In the fifth round game against the Legacy player, Gavin said "I pinned his king and queen in the endgame and was able to win it."  That win meant the Chargers won the first place High School championship by one point thanks to Gavin's last round win."

 

"It was a good tournament. We won," said Tobias.