Denker Tournament 2006

For the second year in a row, Jason Young from Morgantown CC represents West Virginia in the Denker tournament of High School state champions. Last year he exceeded expectations and scored a respectable 3 from 6 against strong opposition. This year he was looking to do even better. Although Jason once more scored a respectable 50%, the opposition he faced was weaker than last year.

1. Win against 1369 (Alaska)
   Jason played the much lower rated champion from Alaska, and was lucky to get away with a win.
2. Loss against 2139 (Ohio)
   Jason writes: "so....i got to play the 2139 representative of Ohio today. I messed up on the 8th move, lost a pawn, fought my way through the middle game to almost equality, got hungry, made a fast move and went out to eat some chips (since i only had 20 mins left), came back and realized that i just dropped a second pawn......and everything went downhill from there. so....hopefully i do better tomorrow, lol."
3. Draw against 1672 (Iowa)
   Jason writes: "it seems like i'm meeting with a bunch of under rated people. today i played the 1672 rated rep from Iowa. we reached a rook pawn end game with me up a pawn, and he played it very well, i made a mistake, and we drew. oh well.....i think i liked last years games more lol."
4. Draw against 1823 (North Dakota)
   After another draw, Jason seems caught in the middle of the scoreboard. Jason writes: "So, I got to play the 1823 rep from North Dakota and I was black. Happily for me, after playing a normal Sicilian opening, I found that my opponent played a Yugoslav-like pawn-storm. Unhappily for me, i misplayed the opening (yeah I know......how the heck did I do that seeing how I almost always play the yugoslav pawn-storm against the Sicilian?), quickly dropped a pawn and went into a losing middle game. However, he managed to misplay a critical pawn push and I reactivated my pieces for a draw. :) So I guess all in all I'm happy to not have lost this game, but unhappy because I'm drawing/almost losing to lower rated players. (Who, I might add, are almost definitely all under-rated. This was painfully proven to me when I played the 1300 (rep from alaska) again in a blitz game. We played the same opening as our tournament game, and this time he completely crushed me :( Hmm....maybe i need to start playing 1. c4 like Mike Felton keeps telling me lol)"
5. Loss against 1723 (Alabama)
   True to his style, Jason launched and all-out attack in the penultimate fifth round. Unfortunately it drizzled after solid defence from his opponent (the Alabama HS champion). Jason writes: "Well, I've got both good news and bad news. First the good news: I got to attack. in fact I attacked almost the entire game. the bad news: I lost. In fact, when we looked over the game, it was agreed that the best I had was a draw assuming he didn't make any serious mistakes. I could have forced a rook pawn end game with me up a pawn, but I didn't think it was a win for me, so I decided to try and win in the middle game. he found a few great moves, and I ended up down an exchange. ah well, it was a fun game. I wouldn't have been happy with myself if I had taken the draw...and the attack was just so beautiful.....lol "
6. Win against 1846 (Soth Dakota)
   Jason finishes off on a high note with his second win. He writes: "this was like a help win....seeing how the entire game was a dead draw until he tried to win and ended up proving to me that he had no idea how to play an endgame. :)"