Day 4 - Tournament Begins

I woke in the middle of the night around 3:00 a.m. and went online.  The pairings were already posted, and Rob had already done his homework and sent as many pgn files as he had on Cameron's first round opponent from Peru, Saavedra Espiritu Enrique Emanuel.  We woke up around 9:00 a.m. and before heading to breakfast, Cameron needed to look over all six games.  At breakfast, we didn't see too many people in the dining hall.  We were hoping to find our coach, and got word that he had arrived.  We went to the reception after breakfast because our room was being cleaned.  As we were sitting there, we saw him.  Yury Schulman was indeed in Brazil and right there in the lobby.  He was excited to find one of his students and had a lesson with Cameron right then.  I ran back to the room because we had already loaded six games from Cam's first round opponent on his computer and I brought that to Yury's room.  On the way back, I ran into the Beilin's and Vasudeva's and they too went to Yury's room to schedule their first day lessons.

After the lesson, we went back to the room to do homework and rest before lunch.  We wanted to eat a late lunch because the round could last a long time. After lunch we walked to the convention center to find out where it was and how to get there.  We ran into an unrated U10 player from Brazil, Frois Vitor Amorim.  He and his mother didn't speak a word of English, but we somehow managed to communicate who we were by pointing to the pairings on the board.  Then he wanted to play chess.  They played two quick rounds and Cam beat him both times. Cameron said, "He kept trying to talk to me in Portuguese and I couldn't understand anything he was saying!” 

After that, we went back to the room to rest.  We still hadn't gotten our badges or visited the team room.  I went off to find out about those logistics while Cam rested in the room.  About 3:15 p.m. we headed to the convention center to get our badges and the first round.  It was a crazy playing hall, way too small to accommodate the number of players.  We were trying to find the U12 section and having a really hard time. We finally found it and had to make our way through a maze of parents standing in the narrow aisles.  Cam's chair was at the end of a table and there wasn't enough room to push his chair in.  He had to straddle a table leg, putting one leg on each side of it.  They boards were very close together.  They did a brief opening ceremony and then the parents were asked to leave.  I showed some folks the playing hall, walked back to convention center and then decided to head back to the room.  I ended up going back to the playing hall an hour later which started a long wait.  I got to see a lot of players exiting the playing hall.  First Tanuj, win, then Ben Rood, win, Jonathan Chiang & Tommy He, win.  It seemed that every USA player coming out was winning.  I was sitting with Kovan Pillal and Jackie Nydick.  Kadhir and Brandon were playing exceptionally long games as well.  Ally was in and out, it was uncomfortable in the waiting hall.  Stuffy, hot, bugs everywhere.   Harry showed up about three hours into the round.  Eventually Kesav came out with a smile.  Win.  Allan came out with a win.  Which I have to mention was his first World Youth win (in 12 rounds).  If you remember last year he lost his first round and then drew 10 rounds in a row.  He was very excited.  Kadhir Win, Brandon, win.  It seemed like Cameron was the only one left playing, luckily Harry had sent Tarun to keep me company.  It was very stressful awaiting the outcome and nice to have the company.  When Cameron finally came out 4 hours and 50 minutes of playing time later, his result was a draw.  It was a little heart breaking, but we needed to keep positive and focus on the rest of the tournament.  There are still 8 rounds to play.

First round opponent from Peru

1st win ever at a World Youth Championship

We headed to the team room for game analysis.  During the analysis we had a black out at the resort.  We walked via flashlight to the dining hall.  We had to eat by candle light and flash light.  It was pretty funny.  Eventually the lights came back on and everyone cheered.  After dinner, Cameron finished his analysis with Coach Yury.  Then it was time for bed.  Cameron had a very hard time falling asleep.  The excitement and stress of the tournament was getting to him and although lights out at 11:00 p.m., he did not fall asleep until 1:00 a.m.