I won the Reserve section at the 2025 Austin Summer Open!

The best tournament I've ever had.

• Published: 18 August 2025
• Chess

Last weekend^[1], I played 5 games of chess at a large Austin chess tournament. I somehow managed to win all 5 games and emerged victorious with a perfect 5.0/5.0 score, 1st place in a section with 58 players, and a prize of $540.

I want to discuss the tournament, but also my general thoughts on chess tournaments. First:

General Thoughts

• My games were very long due to the G/90 i+30 time control:^[2] each game lasted—on average—3 hours. Now, you may think "that's a super long time!" and it is. But it never feels that long, because you are so focused on just your game and nothing else. I believe playing long games of chess^[3] is one of the best ways to combat the negative effects of brainrot from scrolling on social media, because you must focus on a singular thing for a very long time.
• Chess tournaments are typically played in large, enclosed areas with lots of table space. This means the bigger tournaments very frequently occur in hotel ballrooms. Let me tell you: even after playing 50+ tournaments, it still feels bizarre to be in a room with 250+ other people playing 125+ games of chess and for it to be incredibly silent. Sure. There's occasional coughing, shuffling, and ambient noise from normal gameplay. But 95% of the time, no one in the entire room is talking. It's wonderful and crazy.
• Most people at chess tournaments are quite friendly, and will go over a game afterwards regardless of the result. Even my opponent who lost to me in the last round (where the game had $400+ on the line) discussed our game afterward with me for at least 15 minutes. I know us chess players have a rep for being introverted, but when it comes to discussing all things chess, we become quite extroverted.

Tournament Thoughts

This tournament was scuffed. Here's my commentary on each round (PGNs are attached in next section).

1. As White, I played a pretty smooth, convincing game against Alexander Ramey. My opening was nonstandard, but I eventually managed to remanuever my pieces into a surprise kingside attack while his major pieces sat useless on the queenside. Rxe7+ was a nice tactical finishing touch.
2. As Black, I played an extremely symmetrical closed game against John Ramey^[4]. I thought the game would devolve into a long positional grind, but he dropped a rook + pawn for a knight on move 19, subsequently dropped another piece on move 23, and resigned.
3. As White, I played a very poor game against my friend Dang Nyugen. I was in a worse position practically the entire game, but because I got him extremely low on time^[5] and generated some questionable counterplay, I swindled him into blundering checkmate in 4.
4. As White, I played a very complicated yet ultimately drawish game against Shams Pirani. Despite my efforts, the game looked like it would be a draw: until he played Qe6?? and offered a draw. I said "I'd like to play a little longer" and then obtained his queen for the price of two knights. Then I easily won the endgame because of my semi-passed pawn on b5.
5. As Black, I played an initially cramped game against Lawson Brown.^[6] I was down significantly in the opening, but managed to turn things around by safely castling queenside and taking control of the c-file. The most surprising thing: in the middlegame, we both missed 25... Qf1# after 24...Rc3 25. Bd2. Yes, the two best-performing players in the tournament both missed an elementary M1 tactic.^[7] He later tried to attack my king on the queenside, but ended up losing all of his pieces and eventually resigning due to imminent checkmate.

See what I mean by scuffed? 4/5 of my winning games were decided due to tactical mishaps, and I missed a mate in one with tons of time on my clock!

Ultimately, though, I think my meta strategy was good. In all five games, I played quite quickly, which caused my opponents to run into time pressure and make considerably worse moves. I know I'm supposed to play slow in classical, but I have pretty good move intuition from playing a lot of blitz and bullet.

PGNs

[Event "2025 Austin Summer Open"]
[Site "Austin Southpark Hotel"]
[Date "2025.08.15"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Brown, Nathan"]
[Black "Ramey, Alexander"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 c5 3. e3 Qb6 4. b3 cxd4 5. exd4 Nc6 6. Nf3 g6 7. Be2 Bg7 8. c3
O-O 9. O-O d6 10. Qd2 Re8 11. Na3 a6 12. Rfd1 Qc7 13. Rac1 b5 14. c4 b4 15. Nc2
Nh5 16. Be3 a5 17. Nfe1 Nf6 18. Bf3 Bf5 19. Bxc6 Qxc6 20. d5 Qb7 21. f3 h5 22.
Nd4 Bd7 23. Nd3 Rec8 24. Rc2 Be8 25. Rdc1 Nh7 26. Nf4 Nf8 27. Qe2 Nd7 28. Bf2
Ne5 29. Re1 Rc7 30. Nd3 Bd7 31. h3 Rac8 32. f4 Nxd3 33. Qxd3 Be8 34. Rce2 Bf6
35. Qf3 a4 36. f5 axb3 37. axb3 Bd7 38. fxg6 fxg6 39. Qg3 Kh7 40. Rxe7+ Bxe7
41. Rxe7+ Kh6 42. Be3+ g5 43. Qxg5# 1-0

[Event "2025 Austin Summer Open"]
[Site "Austin Southpark Hotel"]
[Date "2025.08.16"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Ramey, John"]
[Black "Brown, Nathan"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. c4 c6 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Nc3 d5 6. cxd5 cxd5 7. d4 O-O 8. O-O
Nc6 9. a3 Bf5 10. Nh4 Qd7 11. Nxf5 Qxf5 12. b4 Rac8 13. Bb2 Rfd8 14. e3 e6 15.
Rc1 Nd7 16. Na4 Bf8 17. Qe2 Nf6 18. h3 h5 19. Rc2 Nxd4 20. Bxd4 Rxc2 21. Qb5 b6
22. Qa6 Rd7 23. Nc3 e5 0-1

[Event "2025 Austin Summer Open"]
[Site "Austin Southpark Hotel"]
[Date "2025.08.16"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Brown, Nathan"]
[Black "Nguyen, Dang"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. e3 Bb7 5. Bd3 c5 6. c3 Be7 7. Nbd2 Nh5 8. Bg3
f5 9. Ne5 Nf6 10. Ndf3 O-O 11. Qe2 d6 12. Nc4 b5 13. Ncd2 c4 14. Bc2 Ne4 15.
O-O Nd7 16. Rad1 Ndf6 17. Nxe4 Nxe4 18. Nd2 Nxd2 19. Rxd2 Bh4 20. Re1 Bxg3 21.
hxg3 Qg5 22. Rdd1 h5 23. e4 f4 24. Qd2 Qg4 25. gxf4 Rxf4 26. Qe2 Qg5 27. Qe3
Raf8 28. Rd2 h4 29. Kf1 Qh5 30. Qh3 Qh6 31. d5 Bc8 32. e5 g5 33. Bd1 exd5 34.
e6 Qf6 35. Qe3 Re4 36. Qxa7 Qxe6 37. Rxe4 dxe4 38. Qe3 Qe5 39. Qb6 e3 40. Rxd6
Bf5 41. Bf3 Bd3+ 42. Kg1 e2 43. Rg6+ Kh8 44. Bxe2 Qxe2 45. Qd4+ 1-0

[Event "2025 Austin Summer Open"]
[Site "Austin Southpark Hotel"]
[Date "2025.08.17"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Brown, Nathan"]
[Black "Pirani, Shams"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. c3 d5 5. e3 Bd6 6. Bg3 Ne4 7. Bd3 Nxg3 8. hxg3
h6 9. Nbd2 Nc6 10. e4 cxd4 11. cxd4 dxe4 12. Nxe4 Bb4+ 13. Kf1 Qb6 14. a3 Be7
15. b4 Bd7 16. Nc5 Rd8 17. Bc4 Bc8 18. Qa4 O-O 19. Rd1 Bf6 20. d5 exd5 21. Rxd5
a5 22. Ne4 Be7 23. b5 Rxd5 24. Bxd5 Na7 25. Bc4 Bd7 26. Nc3 Bc5 27. Nd5 Qg6 28.
Qb3 Be6 29. a4 Rd8 30. Rh4 Nc8 31. Rf4 Qh5 32. Nc3 Bxc4+ 33. Qxc4 Bb4 34. Qc7
Re8 35. Re4 Rf8 36. Rd4 Ne7 37. Rd7 Rc8 38. Rd8+ Rxd8 39. Qxd8+ Kh7 40. Ne4 Qf5
41. Qd4 Ng6 42. Kg1 Qe6 43. Nfg5+ hxg5 44. Nxg5+ Kh6 45. Nxe6 fxe6 46. Qe3+ Kh7
47. Qxe6 Nf8 48. Qb6 Nd7 49. Qxb7 Nc5 50. Qc6 Nxa4 51. b6 Nc5 52. b7 Nxb7 53.
Qxb7 Kg6 54. f4 Kf6 55. Kf2 Kg6 56. Kf3 Kh6 57. Ke4 Kh7 58. g4 Bd2 59. Kf5 a4
60. Qa6 a3 61. Qxa3 Be1 62. Qa8 Bg3 63. g5 g6+ 64. Kf6 Bxf4 65. Qb7+ Bc7 66.
Qxc7+ Kg8 67. Qg7# 1-0

[Event "2025 Austin Summer Open"]
[Site "Austin Southpark Hotel"]
[Date "2025.08.17"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Brown, Lawson"]
[Black "Brown, Nathan"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. c4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. cxd5 cxd5 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. f3 e6 6. e4 a6 7. e5 Nfd7 8. f4 Nc6
9. Nf3 Be7 10. Bd3 Qb6 11. Bc2 Nf8 12. O-O Bd7 13. Kh1 O-O-O 14. a3 Kb8 15. b4
Na7 16. Rf2 h6 17. Be3 Rc8 18. Na4 Bxa4 19. Bxa4 Nb5 20. Bxb5 Qxb5 21. Rb2 Nd7
22. a4 Qb6 23. a5 Qb5 24. Ne1 Rc3 25. Bd2 Rc7 26. Nc2 Qd3 27. Ra3 Qe4 28. Raa2
Rhc8 29. b5 axb5 30. a6 b6 31. Ba5 Ka7 32. Qb1 b4 33. Rxb4 Bxb4 34. Qxb4 Rxc2
35. Bxb6+ Nxb6 36. Rxc2 Qxc2 37. h3 Qc1+ 0-1

Conclusion

Overall the tournament was great. I saw some friends from UT chess club as well!

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