It started on an exciting day . I just got admitted to the prestigious university of Lagos. One of the top schools in the country , I was excited that all my hardwork and study has paid off .
I thought of a cool way to relax and just that weekend the prestigious Dannypro tournament was happening during the weekend . I quickly registered for the event and looked forward to going back to playing chess .
Over the course of this year, the Danhypro enterprise had been committed to bringing tournaments to the young minds in Nigeria. This idea gained grounds because the organization believes that with more competition, the young kids will push themselves to become better and this was one of the 4 chess tournaments that was played that year .
I had not played the previous 3 tournaments that was hosted in different states across the country .
The first one was hosted in the great city of Port Harcourt which I couldn’t attend cause it was a 15hour from the city of Lagos .
The second one was at Abuja which was a huge distance from where I stay . I tried my possible best but due to logistics issues I had to miss the event .The third one was at Enugu and that was as far as the first edition so it wasn’t even in my mind
Then the moment of true came , the chess tournament was coming to the great city of Lagos , my hometown , a city I had stayed all my life , a city I was most comfortable with , I was super excited cause this tournament had the very best of players that would compete to win the price .
It was the grand finale , that means it would be the most competitive as The Danhypro team provided incentives for juniors in other states traveling for the Grand finale in Lagos, to ease the cost of participation, as well as encourage more organizers in other parts of the country to invest in junior chess.
So the tournament had the most participants with over a 100 chess players attending, a great feature at that time .
The finale was a 9 round rapid tournament of 15+10sec per player. A total of 106 players from Anambra, Abuja, Gombe, and other parts of Nigeria . The pairing were out , I was ranked the 9 best player of the event based on the rating system, i was excited .
The first game was the easiest as I was paired with an easy opponent. I won
The second game was a bit more difficult as I was paired against a strong player and lost my first point of the event , I drew . I was so pained as this was a very competitive tournament and every point matters .
I won my next 2 rounds and I had a point total of 3 and a half over 4 . I was so impressed , I played my last game for the first day against the talented Adamu . I drew the game which brought my total of the day to 4/5 games . I went home feeling very proud of myself . I had keep my own against the best in the country
I woke up the next day late , wow my alarm didn’t wake me up . I rushed all the way to the tournament to realize my time had been started but luckily for me , my opponent wasn’t arrived and I won that game by a knockout .
I won my next game that brought me to the point tally of 6/7 with 2 more rounds to go . I was excited but trying to be very calm.
I played my 8th round of the tournament on board 2 and won the game . The game was been live-streamed on the popular app lichess . My younger brother was watching the games and called me after the round to wish me luck in the final game of the competition as the person on prefect school lost his game .
That means we were 3 players on the point tally of 7 points , It was anyone tournament . How did I get here I asked myself , from just wanting to Celebrate getting admission to playing the most important competition of my life to getting an opportunity to win the whole event .
Before the 8th round, not a lot of people gave an inkling to the emergence of myself because I have been out of the chess scene for so long. I was overlooked as a wasn’t a favorite to win the competition
Although, we were joint leaders, we were being followed closely, by Olisa Tennyson and Okeke Isaac, who were half a point behind, along with seven (7) other players who were only a point behind (a loss was very harmful to the cause). I had to play the game of my life , there was no margin for error at this point.
The final round of the grand finale And I was playing Eyetonghan Callistus the tournament leader based on board rating , I was nervous before the game but as soon as I played the first piece I became calm
My understanding of the position was flawless. So the game started and we played a calm position till he blundered his first pawn . I took a lot of time to think about it cause i was thinking there had to be a particular reason but to my surprise it was as free as possible . I played like nothing has happened and continued to apply more pressure for myself till i took another piece.
I Simplified the position and exchanged as much pieces as possible.as i maneuvered my two knights and outside pawns to full effect in the end game. Those 2 pieces that he didn’t attend to in the opening stage of the game became his downfall.
The game got to ensured a brilliant victory for myself at the tournament.
I had won , I became champion , I was so overwhelmed , I surprised everyone including myself. I was so happy.
My family called to wish me and pray for me .
I won the game and claimed the comeback king nickname at the Danhypro event that is sponsored by the company of a comeback king International Master Anwuli Daniel himself . I was been compared to my mentor in the game .
I won the tournament without losing a game, being the only player to do this at the Lagos event.
It was time for the presentation , it was At the closing ceremony, the ably present were the president and vice president of the Nigeria Chess Federation, DIG (Rtd.) Sani Mohammed, mni., and Prince Adewole Adeyinka, respectively. They graced the occasion and I was awarded the trophy
