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![image.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYzmfuKwsrtq32CdZsai7cqT5urvEo5gYtpSaHrNKhtga/image.png)
<sup>Tournament announcement image</sup></center>

I've previously done posts talking about chess in my country, the situation it's going through and how we could implement chess at Steem, but.. I haven't written posts about what tournaments are like here exactly (at least not a full post talking about a chess tournament). 

*So, this will be the first post I make talking about an important tournament for my state: **The Cadet State Championship ASOAJEDRENE 2020.***

Chess tournaments are obviously one of the most important activities to keep this sport active in the state, the more chess tournaments, the more people are interested in the sport and thus maintain a good performance of athletes who have been participating for years. Children are also a fundamental part of the development of chess, not only in the case of Venezuela, anywhere in the world they are. This is why tournaments at the children's level are important so that they can develop in this discipline, which is why the idea of the creation of this tournament arose. 

The Cadet State Championship is a tournament for the categories U-8 (years 2012-2013), U-10 (years 2010-2011) and U-12 (years 2008-2009). The number of children participating in the tournament is considerably large, with a total of 47 participants in all categories. Being: 

* 27 participants in the U-12 category: https://chess-results.com/tnr509922.aspx?lan=1
* 16 participants in the U-10 category: https://chess-results.com/tnr509921.aspx?lan=1&art=0&turdet=YES
* 10 participants in the U-8 category: https://chess-results.com/tnr509919.aspx?lan=1&art=0&turdet=YES

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![image.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQma36hi2YGradaGKsEGxFhEQLB92rmj6gr5aqMRB32RSwF/image.png)
<sup>Photo taken by the tournament organizer: <a href="https://ratings.fide.com/profile/3902510">Hernandez Bermudez, Ulises Eduardo</a></sup></center>

This tournament was held at the Costazul shopping center, a very well known shopping center in my state and where we have been allowed to hold chess tournaments before. The place where to make tournaments has been too complicated, previously we made tournaments in hotels, but due to the economic situation of the country we have had to make tournaments in public places (that, in many occasions ends up hindering the experience).

The Venezuelan chess community is really big and active, although we have had better times, we still do what we can to keep fit in the sport through tournaments and training. Even though I have not been able to participate in this tournament due to my age (I am U-18), a super important tournament is coming up for me: the youth state championship this year from February 7 to 9. If I manage to qualify, I will be able to go to the youth national from February 19 to 24, *but that's for another post*. 

As I mentioned earlier in <a href="https://beta.steemit.com/promo-steem/@flaws/how-i-want-to-promote-steem-using-chess-in-my-country-or-an-idea-i-ll-be-working-on-from-now-on">my idea to use chess to promote Steem</a>, we can use this amazing sport to get an entire community (in this case, the chess community in my state) to join Steem. @jaki01 has this amazing chess community to attract all the people who might be interested in joining Steem through chess. 

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![image.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcu1WEtgsmLAwo8SqrftDwrhLCq332ktvxyxU93nM6TvX/image.png)
<sup>Photo taken by the tournament organizer: <a href="https://ratings.fide.com/profile/3902510">Hernandez Bermudez, Ulises Eduardo</a></sup> </center>

On Friday I attended my chess training for the first time after a long time, if you are not a frequent reader of my blog, I explain: The school where I study is a sports school, half of my schedule (all morning) is sports training (in my case, chess) and the other half are educational classes, that's how simple my school works. My schedule is from 9 a.m. to 3-4 p.m. depending on the day and if there is lunch at the institution.

So, I talked to my trainer telling him that it would be a good idea to have chess students create a Steem account to participate in this community. Although they will most likely use Spanish, the important thing is that they become familiar with Steem through chess and participation in the chess community created by @jaki01. My trainer told me that it would be a good idea to start integrating Steem little by little in the chess of my state, so from Monday I will be attending chess classes for myself giving the talks to the students of the morning shift and the afternoon shift in order to start having a base to present in the youth state championship.

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![image.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPsCWAf94vQqz9q9MnmHmGd7HWnrXCyCcNdkUuYV8coQr/image.png)
<sup>Photo taken by me @flaws in the room where we train chess</sup></center>

I feel that Steem is an incredible platform for the chess community in my state to be a part of here, the only limitation I see is the language barrier, but maybe that can be fixed by gaining the trust of curation groups and thus encouraging chess players to continue to participate here so that they begin to integrate Steem more into their lives. Tomorrow I'll start giving the talks, so it's really exciting all this haha. 

Incredible things are coming :) 

-- Jean.