By: Alex Chu

On July 11, I went to a chess camp called the Master Tour Chess Camp for under 1800 rated players (I am 1694 rated). I was very nervous and very excited. The camp started at 10:00 am but I arrived a 9:45. The camp is located in Charlotte Chess Center. I met my friend Vihaan Purohit (1524 rated) and I played a game against him which I eventually won.

At 10:00 am, I went into the playing hall to do the tactical warmup from my workbook per our instructor’s instructions. I did the assigned puzzles correctly in 7 and a half minutes (mind you we were allotted 15 minutes to complete this task). I received a shirt as a reward!

Then at 10:15, our instructor Dean Ippolito talked about how to play in a tournament which I found to be boring. Then we started round 1 of the tournament. This tournament was split into various sections: section A for 1300-1800 rated, section B for 800-1300 rated, and section C for 1-800 rated.

I eventually beat my opponent, Joy Zhang (1475 rated) with a brilliant sacrifice. Then we analyzed the game. At 12:00 pm we had lunch for 30 minutes. After that, we went into our respective sections for our lecture with the instructors. In the first lecture, we had a lesson with Coach Mark about Kasparov’s Immortal Game vs Topalov. After that, we got to play bughouse (a game with 4 players with two boards) for 15 minutes. We had our 2nd lecture at 1:45 with Dominique Myers about opening comparison and how to punish your opponent because they compared wrong. Then we had a snack break. After that, we had a lecture with Peter Giannatos about punishing bad development. Then we went home.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we followed the same schedule as the day before. I won a set of chess pieces as a reward for completing the tactical warm up in the fastest time. Then I lost to Vihaan Purohit in my 2nd round game because I didn’t want a draw because he is higher rated than me. We had 2 lectures with Daniel Naroditsky about piece placement to get help us develop brilliant tactics and then 1 lecture with Dean Ippolito about opposite side castling.

Wednesday

Wednesday was also the same schedule and like usual I won the tactical warmup and received another t-shirt prize. I eventually lost a match in my third-round game. Then I drew Luke Zimmer (1725) really quickly. I wanted a draw with him because Zimmer is higher rated than me to a draw would increase my rating.

Then I sat through a lecture by Daniel Naroditsky about puzzle solving and endgame studies. Then there was another lecture by Dominique Myers about calculation and picking the right move out of 2 choices. And lastly, I listened to 1 lecture with Peter Giannatos about Kasparov vs Elmar and how to attack a king properly.

Thursday

On Thursday, we followed the same schedule again. Like usual, I won the tactical warm-up and won a set of pieces. I also beat Aaron Wang (1390) in one of the most brilliant endgames I have ever played. We had 2 lectures with Dominique Myers about picking the right move again and sacrificing to rip open the opponent’s kings. At the end of the day, we listened to one last lecture with Naroditsky about sacrificing correctly.

Friday the Last Day

During the last day of the week, I started off by winning the warmup but didn’t get a prize this time. I beat Sophie Li (1533) in the fifth-round game. My friend Vihaan got a chess clock because he won the 1300-1800 section tournament. We had 2 lectures with Ippolito about rook and pawn endings and 1 lecture with Dominique about Alb David vs Maxime Vachier- Lagrave.