Not having been to a state level competition before, I had no idea about quite what to expect. Sure, I had brought my son to other local USCF tournaments and so expected some of the basics to remain the same. Even so, this was a state level scholastic tournament so some things were bound to be different.

A little look at the website a couple of days before the tournament showed that there were 192 in the K-3 section, 224 in the K-5, 172 in K-8 and 96 in the K-12. Throw in a handful of college guys and you have a total of 688 registered. That's a lot of players. If this is any sign of the health of scholastic chess in Virginia, I'd have to say that it looked pretty good.

We got to the location (Lake Braddock Seconday School) early and grabbed a table and I took a quick look at what the playing area was like. They had used the gym and divided it up and it looked like this.

The organizers and volunteers had already set everything up ready for the first round to start at 9AM. Pairings were pasted up at 8:20AM. A quick briefing later and things could get started without too long a wait. That's why they had the policy of no tournament day registrations. These guys had their act together. Pretty soon, the kids were seated and the parents started to leave the playing hall.

As with any situation with that many kids, it was noisy. Almost everyone was excited and you could recognize some of the more serious players at the top boards from previous rated tournaments. However, for many of the kids, this was their first USCF rated tournament and they seemed to be having a ball.

At the K-3 and K-5 level, there were many school teams from the Northern Virginia area, especially Fairfax County. The Richmond area was also extremely well represented with a good number of school teams. From what I've learned, these two areas have very healthy chess programs. Also new to me were the sheer number of chess coaches and teachers that were there. Some of these school chess programs are well supported and some not at all - the end result being that the coaches pay for much of the expenses themselves and all for the love of the game and wanting these kids to learn about life from the game we call chess.

476 players were from Fairfax County. Henrico County had 58. York, Newport News and Chesapeake counties had 12 each. Chesterfield had 13. Louisa county had 14. Roanoke had 23. How many did Loudoun have given the fact that the location is only an hour away? Loudoun County had only 10 players registered in the tournament even though the population is about that of Henrico County's. Obviously Loudoun County has some catching up to do. Any volunteers willing to help? Any scholastic players?

Anyway, I went over to the K-12 section to catch up with Craig Estep. Here he is before the start of a round waiting for his opponent.

As many of you know, Craig finished 13th in the K-12 section. Congrats Craig. He had quite a few tough games from what I hear.

Congrats also to Carlo Del Mundo - also from Leesburg Chess Club. I'm sorry I haven't met you yet.

One of the best things about the tournament was the vendor selling equipment and books. He was letting his books go at a substantial discount and so I grabbed a couple. It is almost worth it just to go see and take a look at all those books in one place and at aggressive prices.

The other thing that was different was that there were quite a few parents there that were shall we say intense. The end result is that some of the kids pick up on that and it adds pressure to their already challenging games. Sure, some kids need some focusing but some parents take this very seriously. Don't put more pressure than they can handle. There will always be the occasional kid that breaks down after losing a game but the thing that parents and teachers/coaches need to do is to help that kid learn to accept that loss, learn from it later and focus on the next round. All the breakdowns weren't necessarily from the lower boards either.

On the first day, Joseph lost a game he shouldn't have and was upset at himself. The result was that he dropped down quite a few boards. The best thing was that he was able to get past that loss and slowly claw his way back up without losing any more games. Here he is in red.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Too late for that now. He learned to fight on and for that I am glad.

Having gone through a few of his games, I am also seeing results from doing chess puzzles. They actually do work. There were a couple of points that he actually searched for the best move and sometimes, the opponent gave him the opportunity on a platter but you have to be able to see it first before deciding what the best move would be. Here's one just after his opponent moved ... Re8:

This was a well run and organized tournament. I must give my thanks to all the TDs and volunteers.

Overall, this tournament was still a blast and I am looking forward to the next one.

Here's a couple of photos from the prize ceremony for the K-3 section:

Parents and supporters at the ceremony.

There are a few more photos over at flickr here. Enjoy.