Why You Should Never Settle (Round 2 Recap)

Welcome back to the blog! I am going to continue with my tournament recap from the recent IM Norm Invitational that I played in about a week ago. If you didn't see the tournament information and round 1 recap then you can check it out here: CLICK ME. Spoiler alert: I was able to start the tournament off with a win which was great.

In the second round I was paired against a young kid who is 15 or 16 years old named Tugstumur Yesuntumur from Mongolia. I had the white pieces this game. Let's see how round 2 goes!

A critical position for this game. Should White capture the a7-pawn or is there anything better to do? What would you play in this position?

A bit of a rough way to end the game considering I had a huge advantage coming out of the opening. Rather than winning the a7-pawn, I should have kept up the pressure and kept developing with threats instead. Despite losing the game, this was a good learning moment for me (to be less materialistic) which ended up helping me in a later round in the tournament. You'll have to wait to see that game though

I need to score 6 more points out of the remaining 7 games to secure the coveted IM norm! Will I get the norm? Check in with the future blogs to see how the other games go!

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