The boys played at their first ever chess tournament today.
Big-Boy-O ended up ranking 18 out of ~60 players in the Under-10 category, with a performance rating of 1041. The winner of the Under-10 was actually a 6/7 year old girl (born in 2016), with a performance rating of 1761 (national rating of 801).
And Baby-F ended up ranking 24 out of ~50 players with a performance rating of 881. The winner of the Under-8 was a 7 year old boy (born in 2015), with a performance rating of 1701 (no national rating).
It was an interesting / enlightening experience for me – how surprisingly intense the tournament is, with 5 rounds of matches. And I think it’s a really great experience for the boys, to experience some form of performance pressure and challenge. Because I don’t think they are really academically challenged at school. And we never put any real pressure on them for school work / exams. And despite Big-Boy-O’s moaning about how much pressure I put on him for violin, I really don’t put that much pressure on him at all. I just want to make sure he doesn’t take *everything* lightly, as he tend to do. Or maybe that’s the way he deals with pressure.
I think Baby-F did relatively well for having just started to learn chess a few months ago. He refuses to play with me because he doesn’t want to lose, even though I am very very average (read: poor) at chess – I’ve lost to Big-Boy-O twice now! We almost didn’t register him for the tournament because we thought he wouldn’t play well enough, or that he might cry if he loses. In the end, he did alright, winning 2 games, drawing 1 game against a little Chinese girl, and losing 2 games against top-10 finishers.
Big-Boy-O probably slightly underperformed his potential. Because He won 3 games, and lost 2 to eventual top-10 finishers, both of whom play in chess clubs. And in fact, one of them was the top-ranked player at the start of the tournament, with a national rating of 982, the other being the fourth-ranked player coming in, with a national rating of 801. Weirdly enough, he was ranked 18, the fifth among players with 3 points, despite having a higher performance rating (1041) compared to some of the 3-point players ranked above him (#15 with performance rating of 1032, and #16 with a performance rating of 899). But he did end up at the table with very experienced players, most of whom had done multiple tournaments, so all things considered, he has still done quite well.
They are both quite excited and keen about playing more chess, so will probably need to look into this.
