In case you happened upon here randomly, allow me to introduce myself. I'm an adult improver (1533 CFC, 1830 FIDE, 2150-2200 Lichess Rapid / 2050 Chess.com Rapid) who is very serious about trying to improve.
I stream chess online and have a YouTube channel where I document my journey of trying to improve and increase my rating.
From March 29th, 2024 to March 31st, 2024, I participated in the 2024 Grand Pacific Open, which was a 6-round classical OTB tournament, and one of my favourite tournaments of the year. I made thorough post-game video recaps and analyses of every round, including background stories of of my opponents. I also have a little bit of extra footage such as what the surrounding area looks like, protests across the street, and a tour of my hotel room.
I'm sharing this here as I thought some similar-minded people may be interested, particularly other adult improvers like myself, or those who have never played in an OTB tournament.
If you enjoy the content, feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep notified of new videos.
I played in the U2000 section. Please enjoy the videos from the tournament below:
2024 Grand Pacific Open: Round 5 | French Defense (Tarrasch) | Tyler Cruz vs. Shaunavon Mu https://youtu.be/Npbfk8W5vks
Spoiler below (in case you don't want spoilers and haven't watched all the videos yet):
Despite a bitter-sweet result from the first round, this was another bad tournament for me. Overall, I think played fine, but was just in the unfortunate situation of losing to an underrated 1289 who played a perfect game and who gained 250 points after this tournament, and then later thinking my queen was lined up with an enemy rook.
Having to withdraw and leave the tournament early was a big downer, but who knows, maybe I would lost that last game too. I guess we'll never know.
This was my third tournament in a row where I lost rating. In fact, I lost 130 points from the 3 tournaments I played in 2024 so far. Chess is hard.
