First Day of the MSSD Chess Compeition...

Well, today, I went for the first day of the MSSD Petaling Perdana Chess Competition at SMK Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah.
I arrived at school at around 7.20, I think. The rest of my school team were already there.
After Ashman finished helping teacher to fill up some documents, we jumped into the van, and before we knew it, we were on our way to the big competition!

Along the way to SMK SSAAS, I snapped a few photos in the van we were in.
Here they are:


Ummm, when we got there, we had to go through all the registration stuff, yada, yada, yada...
Soon after that, it was time to enter the SMK SSAAS "Tun Sri Lanang" hall, because the first round was about to begin.

Alright, for the first round, I remember had to play with a guy named Clarence.
He was White and I was Black. He played 1. e4, and I responded with 1. ...e5. The game continued with 2. Nf3 Nf6 - The Petrov Defense.
Later in the game, I was putting immense amount of pressure on White's Kingside. However, White's Queenside Knight had a dual threat: Taking my "en prise" ( free ) Bishop, or forking my Queen and King. Of course, when I was faced with this situation, I had to make a difficult choice. In the end, I realised that I could use my threatened Bishop to gain a very strong counterattack on White's King. So I ignored the threat to my Queen.
In the end, I managed to regain my Queen - I was threatening checkmate with my dual Bishops and Knight, and the only way for White to stop it was to block my Bishop with his Queen.
Soon, I exchanged off my Rook for his, and since I was in a winning endgame position, he resigned.

As for the second round, I was White this time, and my opponent ( some guy named Teh, I think ) was Black.
I played 1. e4, and he countered with 1. ...c5, the Sicilian Defense. The opening commenced like normal, except for the fact that the guy took a VERY, VERY long time to think! Seriously! Hari was sitting next to me. When he and his opponent were finished playing, me and my opponent were still in the opening stage!
Anyway, I made two critical mistakes in this game, because honestly, I wasn't very familiar with the concepts of the Sicilian Defense, especially since I was the White player.
First mistake = I blundered a Knight.
Second Mistake = I castled Kingside ( In main line Sicilian, White should actually castle Queenside ).
So, these two mistakes cost me the game. His Rook and Queen were attacking my Kingside like crazy, so I had to resign.

Moving on to the third round. I was Black this time, and my opponent ( his name's Kelvin, I think... ) had the White pieces. The game went 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d3 Bc5 4. Nxe4 Nc6 5. Nxc6 dxc6. I got really excited when he played 6. Bg5, which will eventually lead to the Petrov Trap ( Go and check it out! It's really awesome! ).
Eventually, he realised he was falling into the Petrov Trap, so he replenished his position by protecting his f2 pawn with his Queen. A few moves later, he blundered his Queen - I pinned his Queen to his King with my Bishop. I had quite an easy game after that. He resigned when I had a Queen, 4 passed pawns and King versus his lone King...

My fourth and final game of the day is with a Malay guy ( His name is Syahmi, if I'm not mistaken... ). I was White and he was Black for this round. I played 1. e4, as usual, and he countered with 1. ...c5.
Honestly, I was a bit scared when he played c5, due to the fact that I lost to the Sicilian Defense in my second game. But now, I have a chance to learn from my mistakes in that second game...
We were opening normally, except this time I did the right thing: I castled Queenside.
And now, I took extra precautions before maneuvering my Knight.
In the end, I managed to force checkmate his King on the Kingside using my Knight and Queen.

The results for the day:
1. Me - 3/4 points.
2. Ashman - 4/4 points.
3. Hazwan - 4/4 points.
4. Hari - 4/4 points.

Ashman was super happy, because our team has an incredible 15 points. Which means we might have shot at getting the gold medal for the "Best Team" award!
Soon, we were in the van again and on the way back to school.
Again, I took pictures!Well, tomorrow, we have to go back to SMK SSAAS for the second day of the MSSD Petaling Perdana Chess competition.
There's gonna be three more rounds tomorrow. Three more rounds!
I should get myself prepared for tomorrow...
Hopefully, my team will make SMK Bukit Jelutong proud! [ smiles ] Then the Headmistress won't have to complain about us not trying to "mengharumkan" nama SMKBJ!

Well, wish me luck for tomorrow!

May the Force be with you...