Big Tournament Soon
CNIA Preliminary - First Edition 2018
October 6 starts the qualifier tournament for the national championship (from Cape Verde). It is an important tournament for me because it’s part of the path to achieving one of my main goals this year. So the goal is to be selected for the national team for next year’s olympiad. Usually, the top 5 (or top 4 depending on how many players we are sending) of the national championship are selected for the national team, and this is my last chance to get into the national championship, to do that I will have to get in the top 3 in this tournament getting me closer to my goal.
Expectations
Well, the goal is to get in the top 3. I’m also going to try to win the tournament but I’m not going to force it, top 3 is good. This year it looks like I’ll be the third seed but still, there are a lot of dangerous players who are lower rated than me.
Previous Results
The first edition of this tournament was in 2018, I was the 21st seed and I got 19th place out of 27 players. It was in this tournament that I got my FIDE rating.
The second edition the next year I was the 8th seed and was able to get 5th place out of 24 players, a big jump from the previous edition and also my best result in this tournament to this date. The 2nd and 4th place already had qualified to the national championship by rating so I got to play in the 2019 National Championship.
The next edition was in 2021 (we had to skip 2020 because of the pandemic), in this one, I started as the 4th seed but only managed to get 8th place.
In last year’s edition, I was again the 4th seed but only got 7th place after a devastating loss in the last round. If I had won I would have been tied for first place
Conclusion
Lately, I have been getting good tournament results, so I hope that I’m sharp enough psychologically and chess-wise to perform well so I can keep fighting to achieve my goal.