Hope Everyone Had a Very Merry

I did nothing chess related over Christmas except look at a blog here and there. I did receive "The Kings of New York" from my brother in law. I already have it, so I'll return it and swap it for something else. Since it came from a small local bookstore I'll probably end out swapping it for some crime thriller, or other mindless novel. Maybe I'll look at one the chess books I brought with me to get myself into some sort of chess mindset for the weekend. Hopefully the year will end better then it started.

Bye Strategy Gone Bad -Edited

It's always fun watching masters on Thursday night staring at the wall chart and trying to figure out who gonna have to play the grandmaster next round. The plotting often starts before the first round is even done. Somebody will see that they're going to miss the break and have to play the GM so they take the strategic round two bye in the hopes that come round three they will have avoided the GM and will get an easier pairing because they only have 1.5 and the other contenders have 2.

I stare at the wall chart and try to figure out whether I can avoid getting a 1 point bye in round two or three. One tournament I tried the preemptive requested last round bye and it blew up in my face. So for the most part I roll with the punches and hope for the best. So after losing the first two rounds on Thursday I was facing a round three bye, however Steve was willing to give me a way out. The way out was to take the preemptive last round 1/2 point bye. I wasn't thrilled with either choice. I was getting tired of only playing 3 games. When I saw that I'd end out playing an unrated who was also 0-2 I decided I would take the full point bye in round three. I figured I'd get a better game in round four being paired as a one pointer.

A third round bye normally sucks because I have to wait around for the fourth round. A last round bye gets me home earlier. However I just wasn't in the mood to play an unrated again. I lost to one in the third round last week. I took my bye and went for a walk during round three. I thought a little fresh air, and a chance to clear out my head after two losses might help me out. Then I'd come back and hopefully get to play someone rated 1800-1900 in round four. Maybe the worst that would happen is I'd be the low 1 and drop down to the 1/2 which would probably be Steve Chernick. If nothing else Steve and I would have another one of our crazy time scrambles that would make for good blog material.

But this was Hell Week, so even my bye strategy failed miserably. What happened? The unrated won in round three against a 1759. So now the one score group had a bunch of people due the same color. Swiss pairing rules state that unrateds don't get dropped to the next score group. The one score group consisted of a 2157, 1965, 1784, 1700, 1694, unr. The 2157 got paired against the low 1.5. That now left an odd number in the score group. The 1694 should have been the one to drop down to the .5 point score group which would have left 1965 vs 1700 and 1784 vs unr. But the pairing program will do some odd things to make colors work. Color shouldn't matter for the two of us that who gotten byes in rounds two or three. We had one of each color so it doesn't matter. We can play anyone who needs whatever color to give them 2 of each. So what does the pairing program do? It drops the 1965 (high) to the 1/2 pointer leaving me in the top half of the one point score group. I end out playing the damn unrated that I carefully was avoiding by accepting the assigned third round bye.

The full point bye might have been worth it if I had any chance of winning the under 2000 prize, but a kid with two points had taken a 1/2 point bye for round four so he already had 2.5. I ended out waiting an hour to play the same person I could have played an hour earlier and been on the 11:14 train. Was it worth waiting around for? Hell no. He had no clue how to play the opening, hung a rook and put up little resistance. I go into a tournament like the St. John's Masters in order to avoid games like that.

Edit: Here is the game in question.




You gotta love his bishop on b3 totally blocked in by pawns after 9 moves. Typically when I play against a c3 Sicilian the light square bishop is tormenting my king along the b1-h7 diagonal. At move 20 he finally gets rid of the crappy bishop, but in doing so allows my light squared bishop to get pressure along the h1-a8 diagonal. That light squared bishop was going to cause him lots of problems before the game was over. Normally I have lots of problems with finding good squares for it when I'm black. Instead it became very active. At least he defended the mate threat after 21...Qg6. However the the killer bishop would take advantage of the light square weaknesses caused by the mate defense. He finally gave up after 32 moves.

And as for me, I give up! I'm not playing at the Marshall until next year. Enough of trying avoid byes and to out guess the pairing program.

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!

Next tournament will be the Empire State Open in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Hell Week At The Marshall

Technically hell week started a week ago Thursday when I paid the extra $5 to qualify for this week's St. John's Masters. I don't even want to think about last Thursday's third round when I flagged against an unrated when I was up a pawn. This was super cracktion week for me. Tuesday was the St. John's Masters which once again I subjected myself to paying for the privilege of getting pounded on by higher rated players. Then on Thursday I returned to the scene of the crime for "4 Rated Games Tonight!" Which lately keeps turning into "3 Rated Games and a Bye Tonight!" What a week. Not my lucky week that's for sure. Maybe I should play 13 in the lottery.

In the first round of the St. John's Masters I played Boris Privman for the 13th time. For the 13th time I lost to him. He joins Jay Bonin as the second member of the 13-0 club against me. It was one of my better games against him. There are centainly other players who have more wins against me, but I've managed to nick them for a win or two. Leif Pressman has beaten me 30 times, but I've won 2 and drawn 3. Yeh, I know my winning percentage against Pressman still sucks. But .100 seems a whole lot better then .000. Hell, even .050 against King Kong looks better on paper. Though if truth be told, and I don't really need to be tell my regular readers this; .000 against a FIDE master is less annoying then .050 against a 5th grader with a rating a little higher then mine.

This is my game against Privman:




On move 20 he played Qb6+. It seems I lose a pawn after 21. Kh2 Qxb4, except I came up with the nice cobination of 22.Nd5 Qa3 23.Nxe7+ Kf8. I was content to simply win the pawn back so I traded queens with 24. Qxa3 Rxa3. What Privman pointed out afterwards that instead of trading queens I should play 24. Qc2! after Kxe7 25. Ra1 Qxa1 26. Nxa1 Rxa1 27. Qb2 Ra7. It's not an easy win since he has a rook, knight and pawn for the queen, but he felt I was better.

Unfortunately I played quieter, and though it was equal for a while the position started to unravel for me around move 50. He had two passed pawns on the b and f files. It's hard to be in two places at once. If only I could clone my king. One can see that at the end his king has penetrated, and one of those passers is coming in.

Having played a decent game against Privman I thought maybe this would be the night I might finally score a point in this tournament. Round two was against Vladimir Polyakin. He's part of my Thursday night usual suspects group. He's another one that I have a sucky record against, but I do have 2 wins to go along with the 15 losses. This particular night I'd end out with loss #16, not win #3.

Rounds three and four were against players I don't play too often, and I actually have won against them in the past. Both games went down to endings, but I had lost too many pawns earlier. In round three I missed an exchange sacrifice that when I have to give back the exchange I'm down 2 pawns and heading to a rook and pawn ending.

Round four I again lost pawns earlier. I guess it pawn dropping night. It's hard to hold an ending of opposite colored bishops when your opponent has just played 50... Kc4 and your position looks like this:

The Black king has penetrated and d4 will totally cut my bishop off. All over except the shouting. Another St. John's Masters with another 0-4 score. I felt like I played better, but I missed small things that cost me pawns early. I can't be giving away pawns, especially against players who outrate me by 300 to 500 points.

So Thursday night I return to the scene of the crime. How I played in round one against Larry Tamarkin was a crime. Second time this week someone has pushed their record to 13-0 against me. Unlike loss #13 against Privman thsi one had no redeeming features to it, and I played like crap. The only reason I didn't resign was I wanted to see which way I'd get mated. The final position gives White the choice of mating with a rook or queen. I'm not even going to post the position. It's too much like work. He opted to mate with the rook, and it wasn't enough to simply deliver the mate, he had to say "mate". Some things are best unsaid. I tend not to say mate, just in case it isn't. I'd rather let the opponent draw his own conclusion.

After Tuesday's 0-4 being fresh in my mind, one would think I'd just not even think about trying to qualify for January's masters tournament. However the opportunity presented itself to slide in so I paid my $5, and hoped that for a change I would actually score a point on Thursday by doing something besides getting a bye. Round two was not going to be the round. I couldn't believe it, I actually got paired against someone I've never played before. That rarely happens in this tournament. Unfortunately different player did not lead to different second round result. I overlooked a fork and tossed a bishop on move 25. Different day, same old crap. The rest of my evening merits its own post. This one has gone on long enough.

Blog Addiction

Pawn Shaman had a post on his blog a the blogger quiz. I took the blogger addiction quiz and scored

64%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Looking for x ray tech schools?

The most interesting question on the quiz was #9:



If something interesting happens to you, do you immediately think about how you're going to write about it on your blog?

Absolutely YES. I thought it was an odd thing to be in the middle of a chess game where something interesting was happening, and my mind would be wandering off thinking about what I was going to write about the incident. I guess it's a classic sign of blog addiction. It's bad enough being ADD, and having things run amok in my brain while I'm playing. But now it's gotten worse as I find myself be thinking about the story line for my next blog entry.

Crap! Just another thing I have to think about not thinking about as I'm playing. Maybe I need to go back to having stupid camp songs going through my mind instead.

Falling Into The Analog Clock Gambit

In the December issue of Chess Life Jon Jacobs has an interesting story about the strategic use of analog clocks in fast time controls. At one point in the article he writes the following:

"Nevertheless, analog clocks remain ubiquitous at tournaments. Since delay-capable models cost two to four times as much as analogs, it’s hardly surprising that the “house clock” at most chess clubs—pressed into use in club events when neither opponent brought a clock—is an analog.

Less understandable is that a sizable segment of the playing population continues to rely on their own analog clocks. In fact, analogs may still outnumber digitals in the real world of USCF-rated play."

I do agree with the first paragraph, but I disagree with the second paragraph. Outside the Marshall Chess Club, I rarely see analog clocks in tournament play. When I walk around the tournament hall in most weekend swisses I see mostly digitals. I might see some old timer with an ancient BHB. There are so many digital clocks on the market now, and there are a number of them that are about the same price as the old BHB clocks that I grew up using.

As a TD I go a little crazy with players coming up to me and asking me how to set their clock. Hell, the only reason I can set my Chronos is because I spent an hour with the instruction book, found all the different settings I might need, and programmed them into the user preset. If I need anything besides a one or two control game with time delay I'd have to dig up the book and find the code for that setting. If someone hands me a Chronos that doesn't have the time control format in one of the presets I'm screwed. A good rule of thumb for tournament directors is "If you can't set your own clock then you lose the right to use it if the opponent provides a clock that he can set."

In the article Jon also talks about Rule 14H. I must say I agree with his description. "Their (people who use analog clocks) persistence also is a source of aggravation for tournament directors across the U.S. who must daily interpret the infamous Rule 14H, “Draw claim based on insufficient losing chances.” This rule was the TD community’s biggest collective headache until Rule 15A came along (the abortive “move-then-write” rule, sometimes wrongly tagged as the “MonRoi rule”). The need for an “insufficient losing chances” rule is a direct consequence of the chess-playing public’s stubborn attachment to outdated analog clocks."

One of the main reasons I went to a time delay capable clock was because I reached so many positions where I had to invoke Rule 14H, and hope the TD had enough experience and chess knowledge to make an appropriate ruling on the position. Since in many cases these types of situations arose at my local chess club where I outrated the TD by 200 points. It was difficult to expect him to really know how to rule. Obviously if I was up a bunch of material it was easy to call it a draw, but in marginal positions it was tougher call. My nickname was "the queen of no losing chances". (Back then it was called no losing chances. Then they changed the wording.)

14H has become easier to work with since in a case where no time delay clock was used the tournament director has the option of placing a time delay clock on the game with the claimant losing 1/2 his remaining time with a one minute max. I remember the first time I made a claim under this new 14H rule I had to explain to the newbie manager at The Marshall who was directing what his options were. As a player I don't like being in the position of having to explain to the TD how to rule. However there was no one else around to tell him what to do. So before he went into the playing room, I told the TD, "go in and look at the position. If you think it's a valid claim call it a draw, if you don't think it's a valid claim then make the game continue and if you're not sure put a time delay clock on the game."

I was up a piece, but there were still rooks on the board so I don't think he felt a C player could hold the position against a master so he opted for the delay clock. The funny thing was a few moves after I made the claim, I hung the piece. Several moves after that my opponent hung his rook. Eventually he offered me a draw, which despite being up a rook for a pawn I accepted. I think my mindset had been in draw mode, so I just took the draw. Also at the time I wasn't as proficient with handling the clock with 2 seconds left with a 5 second delay. I've had lots of practice since that time.

Jon's observations on the clock scene at the Marshall are spot on. With the exception of Jay Bonin and Vladimir Polyakin most of the higher rated Thursday night regulars show up with no digital clock. Despite the fact that Steve Immitt has bought 4 Saitek II digital clocks, many of the old masters would rather borrow the beat up old BHB clocks from the club then use Steve's nice new digitals. This is rarely an issue for me since I bring a Chronos with me 99.9% of the time. It's those rare moments when things get moved out of my "Going to the Marshall" bag that I find myself clockless, and at the mercy of the opponent. The other possibility is when I've shown up late.

A few weeks ago I had one of those rare times when I actually showed up late for the first round. This particular Saturday I was being a jack of all trades. I started off the morning doing a 15K race in Central Park, and then doing a mad dash via subway from 103rd St. down to the Marshall. Just my luck that in the first round I get paired against Yefim Treger. He is one of the old school Russians who prefers an analog clock. So I come into the playing room in my sweaty running clothes and sit to play Treger. He's borrowed one of those old crappy BHB clocks. 8 minutes have elapsed already and I have no time delay. To make matters worse, in trying to remember to bring everything I'd need for running and chess I forgot my Mon Roi, so I had write by hand. The Mon Roi is a major time saver for me.

The clock he borrowed wasn't working properly so we needed to replace the clock. I offered my Chronos with no time delay. That would have been a permissible substitution for the defective clock. Adding the time delay wasn't permissible since one is not allowed to switch to a delay clock once the game has started. Nope. He wanted another one the crappy clocks from Steve. None of this high tech stuff for him. Having gotten to the board first and being able to start my clock without me, gave him the edge on the clock war. This was the same guy who last month made me play out R & P versus R with 5 seconds on my clock. I had the pawn. It was only someone getting Steve to come count to 50 for me that allowed me to get my draw. Had I played that game with the analog I would have needed to make a 14H claim.

I had a good game against him. Here's the first 40 moves:

I'm up a pawn, but this no position to try to make a 14H claim. Unfortunately "delay-less" time pressure caught up with me, and I ended out misplaying it. As the clock struck 6:00 this was the final position. Cinderella's position had turned into a pumpkin, and "Prince Charming" was about to become a queen.

The moral of this story: Time is of the essence both in the running race and at the chess board. Next time I'm taking a 1/2 point bye for round 1.

DUH!! Sometimes Looking Ahead Doesn't Help.

Wormwood has an excellent post about how deep players look. At times when I play my mind gets cluttered with the different lines I'm considering and the number of moves in each line. I can recall as a college kid trying to make my way through "Think Like a Grandmaster". The whole tree of analysis thing would just overwhelm me and I'd end out setting the book aside. I never did make my way through the book. 30 years and a few less brain cells later I still have no interest in picking up the book and slogging through that stuff.



What drives me crazy is when I look at something that's only 2 moves deep, and miss the simplest of moves. Take this position from Friday night's tournament:

My opponent just played 10. b3. If I spent a little more time brushing up on some of the off main line stuff that white plays against 7...Qa5, I wouldn't get myself into time trouble, and I wouldn't play stupid moves like the one I chose. Simply playing 10...Ng4 or 10...O-O gives me a slight advantage out of the opening. Instead I come up with the bright idea of 10...Nxe4? I'm looking at 11. Nxe4 Qxd2+, 12. Nxd2 Bxa1, 13. O-O Bg7 winning a pawn and the exchange. I also looked at continuations for white such as 11. Bxf7 Kxf7 12. Nxe4 Qxe4, which don't do a thing except lose material for white. So after a good 4 minutes of thought I played 10...Nxe4.

Having gotten over fixated on the idea that White would take back with the knight to preserve his castling rights, imagine my surprise when he played 12. Kxd2. It never even occurred to me that he'd recapture with the king. I forgot that Kxd2 protects the rook. When he played the move I actually said, "Duh!" I was really annoyed with myself for overlooking the obvious, especially since I had spent a decent amount of time analyzing the possibilities.

I get ticked off when I move too quickly, but I think I get more annoyed when I spend time on a move and it's totally wrong. It's easy to rationalize a mistake made because one moved too fast. The "I was low on time" card is a handy excuse. Time pressure causes us not to look deep enough, but that excuse doesn't work on the 10th move of an Accelerated Dragon Sicilian. Had I been distracted by having seen King Kong's opponent blunder a piece early and losing in 1o minutes? Did I feel the anticipated pressure of going into round 3 against King Kong knowing he was 2-0 and the best I would be is 1.5 -.5 if I won my current game? Was I having one my ADD moments where I simply over focused on one idea? I think it may have been a combination of all three.

At that point I opted to deal with his having two minor pieces for the rook and pawn. Unfortunately I think I had trouble adjusting to the flaw in my analysis so the position kind of deteriorated from there. His bishop pair was pretty overwhelming. The rest of the game continued: 11. Nxe4 Qxd2+ 12. Kxd2 Bxa1 13. Rxa1 Bf5 14.Ng5 e6 15. Bd4 Rg8 16. Nxh7 O-O-O 17. Kc3 b6 18. Ng5 Rd7 19. h3 b5 20. Be2 Rgd821. Bf6 Re8 22. g4 1-0. Knowing that I was having to give up a third piece, and he'd still have the bishop pair I decided enough was enough. I need to save my energy for King Kong.

There is the story behind the story of this game. My opponent in this particular is the kid in my lunch time chess class. Earlier that day I had done the last class of the session, and gave a simul. I let all the kids pick what color they would have against me, except Mike. I made him take black. A lot of the regulars were missing so I had mostly the 1st and 2nd graders to play. I could concentrate on my game with Mike. I knew there was a good chance he would be in my quad that evening. I just didn't know whether I'd be white or black against him. Just in case I would be white that evening, I decided I wouldn't play my regular stuff against him in the simul. Too bad I used up all my good moves in the afternoon. I was up the exchange against him when class was over.

Drawing The Line

I'm a kid at heart, and sometimes I can get very silly when playing bughouse or blitz with the kids. When I'm hanging kings or flagging in a won position I get flak from my bughouse partner. The kibitzers will rag on me and tell me I suck. They're right. My reflexes aren't so hot, and sometimes I suffer from brain freeze. It's all in good fun, and I'm among friends even though they're 40 years younger then me.

In regular tournament play it's a whole different story. Leave the snarky comments and trash talk out of the tournament arena. One needs to show respect to opponents no matter what his or her age or rating is. Sometimes I've let certain kids slide when they've made snide comments making fun of my time pressure issues or my inability to beat certain players. I've also put up with another kid from Manhattan telling me I should stick to directing because I'm a better director then player. One kid once told me player X was over rated because he's beaten me so many times when I've been on my floor. That was not a nice thing to say about me or the other player.

At one tournament one of the kids was yapping to my first round opponent on how to beat me. "Get her into time pressure and you'll crush her." Albeit true about me, IMHO it's disrespectful to talk about one's competitors like that, especially when one of those competitors is one's parents' age. Then in between rounds he started ragging on me for drawing with a 1688. "1700s aren't supposed to draw with 1600s! It gives us 1700s a bad name." Give me a break it was opposite color bishops with even material. There's 12 points between me and the 1688. I'm glad he wasn't in the room when I lost my second round game to a 1632.

Maybe I was just having a bad night, but I decided I would say something to him about his comments. I've lost to lots of kids, and unless I limit myself to tournaments for players over the age of 21 I will lose to more kids. I didn't want it to sound like I couldn't deal with losing to kids, or that my feelings were hurt by his snarky remarks. Truth be told it does bother me when he needles me like that. But I'm more bothered by the general lack of respect that I see amongst many kids. I see it in chess, and in other places. It's not just kids saying crap to adults, but to other kids. About the only place I don't see it is at the do jang where I'm studying Taekwondo. I'm amazed at the respect shown by the students to the masters, and to each other. It's a very different world in there.

The short version is, I ended out telling him with his parents present that he needs to show a little more respect, and not be so cocky. It doesn't matter how good or bad one's opponent is, or what one's record is against that person, treat the person with respect. I tried not to be harsh, but he did get a little upset. I wasn't trying to be mean, but I just wanted him to know that sportsmanship and respect are very important. Chess Karma, a new blogger hit the nail on the head when he listed his 10 things to make chess more popular. Although the post is very funny, #10 on his list strikes a very serious note. "10. When top level players play one another have them treat their opponents with courtesy and respect. I know the previous suggestions are easily achievable but I have to admit this one is a bit of a stretch." Thanks Karma for such wise words, and welcome to the chess blogosphere.

Houston Hangover

Usually I would not go to the chess club on Monday after spending the weekend at the scholastic nationals. Many trips I would not even get back on time, but I couldn't use the "My flight was delayed" card on this trip. Nationals are physically and emotionally draining, but since the last round of the club championship was scheduled for 12/10 I couldn't really skip the round. Taking a last round bye would have left a player with no game. I was going to have to be there any way to take care of the results and prizes, so there was no point in trying to reschedule my game. Also it's bad form for the TD to state every week that there were no more make up dates, and then want to make up her game. Besides I was the knucklehead who chose the dates. Note to self: Don't schedule round dates without having one's personal calendar up to date.

I played the number 1 guy on my usual suspects list. This would be our 73rd game since 1991. Number 2 on the list I've only played 58 times. (Italics for the sarcasm impaired.)Looking through old scores from pre-MSA days I couldn't find any other games between the two of us. This would be our 16th game this year. Going into this game I had 6 wins, 7 losses and two draws for the year.

Silvio and I always have amusing games with each other. Some of our blunders against each other are totally crazy. He's the player that twice went for a smothered mate against me by putting his queen on g1 (g8). Both times it was a blunder, however the second time he did I actually resigned thinking it was going to be mate. Serious duh! Pre-time delay I'd drive him crazy with my no losing chances claims. I'd be up material, but no time to win.

Monday night's game was not one of our wild and crazy games. It was pretty tame for us. Though he does have this annoying tendency to play some random move to begin, and the game ends out transposing into some position that I'm not happy with.




Lately when I end out playing against d4, I have a difficult time getting the bishop on c8 onto a useful square. Lately I've been trying a queen side fianchetto, but that hasn't been working so well. In this game my difficult piece was my b8 knight. It took 24 moves before I got it off the back rank. I dodged a serious bullet after my overly aggressive 17 ...Bd4. He blocks the attack with 18. Ne3. Every queen move seemed to eventually lose the B on d4. I couldn't sort it all out, and I played probably the worst of the possible queen moves when I chose 18Qb4. He can simply play 19. Rc4 QXb2, 20 Rxd4. I can't recapture the rook because of 21 Bh7+ winning the queen. Fortunately he did not see that move, and played 19. b3?

We simplified to rooks and pawns. Even though his rooks were more active I thought with my superior pawn structure I'd be okay. He had an isolated d pawn, but I had no way of piling on it. He ended out using it to break up my queen side with 32. d6. Eventually he won a pawn and used a Lucina type bridge to block my rock off the b file. Once he pushed 50. b7 I resigned. I guess it was a proper resignation since Fritz came up with the following mate in

This tournament was frustrating due to the poor turnout. The club lost $500, and only got one new player that had never played there before. I guess we'll think twice about guaranteeing that kind of money again. Congratulations to Lonnie Kwartler and John Kelly for becoming 2007 Co-Champions of The Bob Peretz Chess Club, scoring 4-1 each. Leif Pressman was 3rd with 3.5. Isaac Sherman won the Under 1800 prize with 3-2. Dario Dell'Orto won the under 1600 prize with 2-3. He also won the biggest upset award for his second round win against yours truly.

Photo Essay: Chess Phashion Show in Houston

If you happened to go to Susan Polgar's Blog you would have seen a picture of me and one of the tournament directors with our matching outfits. This was one of her trivia questions. Who are these people? I have a large collection of sweaters, vests, shirts and scarves that all have a chess theme. I wore a few different chess themed shirts during the weekend.

Travel day chess attire.

Parents and Friends Tournament.

The shirt matches my Chronos! It's hard to see, but there are embroidered pieces on the front of the shirt.

However I wasn't the only one wearing their chess passion.



Susan Polgar had this beautiful chess shawl she was wearing on one of the days.

Here is a smart chess dad staying warm wrapped up in a chess quilt borrowed from his son's bed. He obviously knows how cold it can be sitting in a big exhibit hall waiting for his son to finish playing. The quilt was custom made for them. Below is a picture of the other end of the quilt. I want one of these for my bed!

Houston, We Have A Problem

Preface

A Chess Player's Version of "My Dog Ate My Homework"

I was all set to write a piece about playing in the Parents & Friends tournament at the National Scholastic K-12 in Houston this past weekend complete with several interesting games from the tournament. Unfortunately the high tech version of "My Dog Ate My Homework" came in to play in the form of my Mon Roi ate my games. The four games I played in this tournament vanished in the course of trying to resolve a software glitch. Let's just say that I'm the crash test dummy for Mon Roi's latest software upgrade. I think I drive their software developers a little crazy, but with all the games I play using their device I'm a good guinea pig. Hopefully somewhere in the guts of my unit the good folks in Montreal will find the missing games. So here it goes, sans games, but hopefully still a good tale.

The Parents & Friends tournament is a side event that is held at all the national scholastics. It's 4 rounds played at G/45. There are two sections. One is a rated the other is unrated. It's nice little event that gives parents, other family members, friends, and coaches a chance to play. Along with gift certificate prizes for the top 3 there are trophies for teams of mom/player, dad/player, coach/player, cousin, aunt, uncle, grandparents, etc. They combine the scores of the scholastic player after four rounds and the score of his partner in the Parents & Friends tournament to determine the winners in the various categories.

This is the fourth time I've played in the event, and it's almost always an adventure. I can write a separate story on "Close Encounters With Psychotic Chess Dads" about one of the Parents and Friends tournaments I played in. However there will be another day to tell that story. There always a few masters, experts and A players in the tournament, but there are also a number of lower rated parents who play. Many of the parents are not regular tournament players so they have provisional ratings. One never can be sure what the true strength of these players are. I've yet to play anyone higher rated then me in these events, because I always seem to manage to lose to some random underrated dad. Unfortunately this tournament would prove to be no different.

In the first round I get paired against a dad whose son is playing in the 11th grade section. We exchange pleasantries. Where you are you from? How long have you been playing? How's you child doing? Etc. It turns out he's from Long Island. (Great! I fly to Texas to play someone from New York in the first round.) This is only his second tournament, and he said he's only won one game. He thought his rating was 100. I'm sure he meant 1000. I wasn't on the last board so I didn't think it was possible I'd be playing someone with a rating in the 100s. I was hoping that he wouldn't be like one dad I played in one these events that I crushed in 13 moves. I want to be challenged and have an interesting game that isn't over in 10 minutes. (Note to self: Be careful about what you wish for.)

The tournament director gave her opening speech about the rules, and keeping score. It sounded similar to the one given to the children playing in the main event. This year the tournament directors decided to take a tougher stance on keeping score, especially for the older kids. The party line was keep score until someone had under 5 minutes. If you didn't keep score then your clock would be set for 5 minutes. Ouch! IMHO I think that's rather harsh, though I understand their logic. (If you're in 4th grade or over and are playing in a national championship you have no excuse not to keep score, except for a handicap or religious reasons.)

We're getting ready to start and I notice my opponent doesn't have a score sheet or a pencil. I'm thinking to myself "Oh great, am I going to have another score keeping argument with a psycho chess dad? Should I say something, or just let it slide since he's only playing in his second tournament?" Based on our pleasant conversation before we started, I figured he was just a nice guy who wouldn't go nuts on me if I said something about having to keep score. On the one hand I didn't want to feel like I was at a disadvantage on the clock if I let it slide. On the other hand I didn't want to seem like a hard ass if I complained to the TD and made him play with 5 minutes on his clock. One of the players gave him a score sheet, and I loaned him a pen.

Sometimes I think I'm too nice to succeed at chess. I gave him a little crash course in notation before we started, and if he was having trouble with how to write something such as castling or a capture I told him what to do. The game started 1. e4 c5, 2. f3. The inner teacher in me wanted to say "You really don't want to play that move. Take it back and play a developing move like Nf3." I had remind myself of two things; one this was USCF rated tournament game, two my opponent is not a seven year old kid who only wants to move pawns. I'm playing an adult with a son in 11th grade, so no more Mrs. Nice Guy. Though Mrs. Nice Guy kept coming back and reminding him to press his clock a number of times.

After a second move like that it was tempting to play for some sacrifice on e4 as soon as possible, but I decided I would simply develop normally with 2...Nc6. The position morphed into a cross between a Closed Sicilian (d3), Rossolimo (Bb4) Yugoslav Attack (f3). He castled king side instead of queen side with the pawn storm. (Yes, I had to tell him O-O for king side castling.) He did get some annoying attacks going and at one point missed the opportunity to fork my two rooks by pushing his pawn to e7. Instead he took my knight on d7 after I had captured his bishop. So instead of being down the exchange it turned into a simple piece trade.

After surviving that scare I traded down to a rook and pawn ending. He was very short on time and had stopped keeping score, and my moves are floating around somewhere in limbo. From what I recall I was ahead a pawn and had the big time advantage. Who knows what was going on in my mind when we reached this position. This may not be exactly right, but the mating pattern is.

Assuming that this is the actual position he played f4+. (I don't think it is, since I think the queen side pawns may have been split up, but one gets the idea.) He had less then 2 minutes, and I had over 10 minutes. I ended out doing one of those dumb ass things that I tell my students not to do. "Don't try to out blitz your opponent in his time trouble." I moved Kh5?? As soon as I let go of the king I realized much to my horror that Rh1 is mate. I tried to keep a poker face, and not let my body language betray me. However this is one of those no brainer positions that I could give to a class of second graders, and most of them would find Rh1#. Needless to say he found the move. *Sigh* Another Parents & Friends tournament where I wouldn't get paired up. (Note: His rating was actually 1044 based on 7 games. He played in the unrated section at Foxwoods in the spring.)

There was nothing special about rounds two and three. I won in round two, and lost in round three. I played another New Yorker in round three. Though I did discover afterwards that my round three opponent was one of the coaches from our big rival from New York. I caught some good natured crap from the parents and kids about losing to our rival's coach.

Round four would be my version of a chess triathlon. (chess, run, team photo shoot, run, chess). The round started at at 4:30, but the photographer from mychessphotos.com was scheduled to come to our team room at 5:15 to take our team picture. I was either going to have to finish my game in 45 minutes or do a mad dash between the convention center where I was playing to the Hilton where our team room was in between moves. I was paired against a 966, so at first glance one would think I'd be able to go for the quick kill. However this 966 had 1.5 points with a win over a 1500 and a draw against a 1566. His one loss had been against a 2100, so I had a feeling this was not going to be a quickie blow out on my part.

My opponent blundered a piece around the 15th move so I thought there was hope that I would finish early. However leave it me to allow complications. Shortly before 5:15 we arrive at roughly the following position. Again I'm doing this from memory, so some of the pieces aren't on their exact squares. In one my attempts to reconstruct the position in Chessbase, Fritz had black giving mate in 5. I forgot that either my queen or bishop was covering f2.

My opponent was thinking about his move. I knew he was going to play ..Bf3. I had to figure out whether I could accept the sacrifice or not. In the meantime our team coordinator called to let me know the photographer was there. I ignored the vibrating phone, and waited for him to move. It took me awhile to determine that I could take it because I can escape with Re1. Finally he plays ...Bf3. The game continues Bxf3, Qh3, Re1. At this point I tell the TD I'm leaving for the team picture, and run across the street, and up the two escalators to the third floor of the Hilton. The photographer is there, but not the other coach. He's in the bathroom changing into the team shirt. I quickly scoot into the ladies room to put on the team shirt. In the meantime I'm thinking about the position, and about the possibility that he'll sac the knight and try for perpetual.

Finally we have the whole group together to do the picture. The kids are goofing around a bit and make it hard to get a decent picture. I keep saying "Hurry, my clock is probably running." We finally get the picture done. I go running down the two escalators, and back across to the convention center. This entire process ended out costing me 7 minutes on the clock. It's a good thing I'm in shape and can run. I managed to avoid cheap shots and perpetual checks, and traded down. My opponent offered me a draw thinking that I would not have time to figure out how to win with so little time. I turned him down since I was up 3 minor pieces and the queen and a pair of rooks had been traded off. He offered me another draw when I got down to under 30 seconds. I ignored the draw offer and kept moving. I was not taking a draw up three pieces, time or no time. With the 5 second delay I had time to figure things out. With 19 seconds left I finally mated him. Phew!

When I came back to the team room everyone was glad to hear that I managed to win the game. That was a little too much excitement for me. Also my grossly underrated opponent made the game too much like work. Maybe dealing with psycho chess dads wasn't so bad after all.

Wearing My TD Hat: Observations From The Other Side

On Sunday I directed a scholastic tournament in NYC with 166 kids. What's amazing about the New York City scholastic chess scene is there were 3 other scholastic events going that day on within a 80 block radius. In addition there was a another scholastic event on Saturday. I'm not sure how many the other events drew, but there were plenty of options. We even lost a few players who were traveling in from New Jersey and Connecticut whose parents couldn't deal with the icy roads, and the snow. Damn! December arrives, and the sucky weather comes right with it.

This particular tournament has 6 sections including 2 unrated sections for K-1, and 2-3. There are 4 rated sections including one for players rated over 1400. I'd be lucky to get a plus score in that top section, especially since King Kong was playing. I'm convinced spending too much time watching the unrated sections causes your playing strength to go down by 200 points. I saw one game where a kid had mate in two and offered his opponent a draw. I'm sure he had no idea there was a mate so soon, but he was up a queen and bishop. Who knows what what going through his head at the time. You can never predict what a 7 year old is going to do. Though there's no guarantee crazy stuff doesn't happen in the higher rated sections either. The final game in the Championship Section (Rating range 1000 to 1399) ended in stalemate with a player being up two rooks.

Sometimes my role as a teacher and coach crosses over with my directing role. The mom of one the kids on the team I'll be assisting in Houston came up to me. She said her son looked very upset when he came out of the room to use the bathroom. She also said that he was slumped over and shading his eyes while sitting at the board. The body language was all wrong. She was curious as to what might have happened, and asked me to take a look. I always try to be very careful with requests like this so that there is no appearance of a conflict of interest. With this particular kid I've never coached him before and this is his first year at the school that I travel with. I don't know him all that well, though he and I made excellent bughouse partners at the team season kickoff party in October. We were close to unbeatable.

I had no intention of saying anything to him, but since I was going into the playing room to check on the progress of the various games I figured I'd at least take a peek at the position. Sure enough he was not only slumped over the board, and trying to hide his eyes he was totally flushed, and looked like he had been crying. Yes, boys cry over chess too. When he saw me he told me that he had accidentally knocked his king over while reaching to write his move down and that the opponent made him move the king since he didn't say adjust. I asked him when did this happen. He said three moves before. I explained that if he wanted a ruling on the situation that he should have gotten a TD when it happened.

I did explain to both players about accidental touches such as knocking a piece over while reaching for another piece. Who knows if the opponent was being a hard ass or just didn't understand about incidental contact with pieces. Hopefully I set him straight on the matter, and hopefully the other player learned an important lesson about how to handle questionable situations in the future. Far better to learn it in a local event then at the grade nationals next weekend. The king move had cost him a knight for a pawn, but he did fight back and drew the game. That was a nice comeback from an unfortunate situation.

Even when I don't have to play King Kong, somehow he still manages to be in the picture. In the last round he beat one of the girls in the section. His opponent Maddie was really ticked about losing to him. I told Maddie's mom that she should not feel bad about losing to him considering that I'm 0-8-1 against him. I said I lost to him when he was 1100, and have continued to lose to him now that's he's higher rated then me. Mom tells Maddie about that. She also tells her that she should go over the game with Kevin, but she's too annoyed and says ."He's mean. I don't like him." Spoken like a 4th grade girl!

After I had gone back into the playing room Maddie's good friend, Lilia got Maddie to sit down and look at the game. Yes, this is the same Lilia who smacked me around at the Marshall a few months ago. Lilia also has lost to King Kong. Maybe he just does well against the fairer sex. So the two girls are looking over Maddie's game and trying to see what she could have done. As they're analyzing the game Kevin comes over and starts putting in his two cents. Then Kevin's friend Mike comes over, and the four of them are looking at the game. When they get tired of analyzing the game they decide they want to play bughouse. Girls versus the boys. Maddie's mom told me about this, but she did not say who one the bughouse games.

What a great way to end a rough day of hard chess. None of the four kids had a great tournament. Poor Mike had a horrendous tournament. This is the same Mike from class who crushed me, and didn't make a big deal about it. He not only handles winning well, but he handles losing well. How nice that at an age when girls and boys aren't too crazy about each other they can bond over a few games of bughouse. All of them will be in Houston for the K-12 grade nationals. I'm sure at some point I will see them hanging out together between rounds. It's nice that players can butt heads over the board, but when the game is done they can be friends with their fellow competitors.

Oddities With Chess Publisher

If you have tried to follow my game against Anatoly Tsinker, you will see a very strange thing happen. For blacks' 18th move of Ng4, it takes the knight from a4 and moves it to g4. Then for black's 19th move of Bf6, it plays Bxf6. (It's capturing it's own knight.) Move 20 for black is supposed to be Kc3, forking my rooks. Move 21 is supposed to be Nxa2. Then the rest of the game seems to play normally. I checked the pgn file, and the moves are fine. It plays through normally on Chess Base. I even reloaded it on Chess Publisher and edited the post with the new link. Same thing! I'm too tired and it's past my bedtime so it's staying as is for the moment.

Anyone else seen this happen before?

It's All In The Timing

In my last post I discussed my little debate with King Kong regarding my resignation in our game. Either nobody is paying attention or everyone thinks I was right, and that there is no need to discuss it. :-) I was expecting at least one person to say "You give up too easily" or "Damn kids wanting to drag it out." That post started out being an introduction to my Thursday night follies, but I decided it was long enough.

I was at the Marshall on Thursday for my weekly cracktion fix. I lost to one the usual suspects in the first round. In the second round I would have one of those mind meltdowns where one overlooks the obvious, and sees things that aren't really there. This game was a classic example of that.


After Black played 13...Nxe5, I went into this long debate over whether I should play 14. Nxe5, followed by Bf4 after he recaptures with the queen, or play 14. Bf4, pinning the knight. I decided to play 14. Bf4. What I was totally oblivious to was that the knight was attacking my queen. When he played 14...Nxd3 I was in total shock, and acted accordingly. I let out one of those "Damn I can't believe I just hung my queen" groans, slumped in my seat, and knocked my king over. My opponent is looking at me funny as if to say, "What's your problem? You're only losing a pawn." At that point I realize "Well duh! You played Bf4 because you were pinning the knight to his queen, and you can now play Bxc7." He puts my king and pawns back on their proper squares. In the meantime I had stopped the clock. He starts my clock back up and points at the board. Okay that's a new one. Not only has my opponent refused my resignation, but doesn't invoke the touch move rule. After all I did "touch" the king. I guess he was treating it as an "accidental touch, with no intent to move it."

After losing my composure it was a little difficult to pull myself back together. I was only down a pawn but my next few moves were insipid at best, and pretty crappy if truth be told. I'm not sure if I was having "survivor guilt" and just playing aimlessly in order not to give myself drawing chances, or just was too distracted to focus on the game. It also didn't help that my husband called twice during the first two rounds. He never calls unless it's urgent. The phone did not ring, and I did not answer it on my move. Not that my husband could tell me anything that would be at all helpful. This is a guy who forgets that pawns capture diagonally. My opponent did not refuse my "second resignation" when I was down to 1 second, and he was up the exchange and two pawns.

There had been an odd number every round, so it looked like my turn with the bye was coming up in round 3. Fortunately someone had dropped out so there was an even number. This set up the match up Steve Chernick having White against me. Oh joy! Just what I needed after the second round meltdown. I had already decided that regardless of what happened in round 3, I was not playing the last round so I could get home and hour and half earlier. Steve and I always have totally bizarre games, and for awhile he really had my number. Before King Kong there was a gorrilla named Steve. Though this fall I was actually winning more then I was losing against him.

It started out pretty quietly and I actually like my position, but then I started playing chicken. I had attacked his b pawn with 18...Rb8. He ignored it and made one of his crazy pawn pushes. Instead of ignoring it, and grabbing the free b pawn I played h6, to stop him from pushing h6. Despite playing defensively for a few moves, I still have an excellent game with some good attacking possibilities. Fritz had me ahead by 1.4 through move 31. Unfortunately the clock was getting to be a factor. No I had not left myself with 10 minutes, and it caught up with me.

When he played 34. b4, played cxb4 almost immediately. I figured we were simply trading pawns, and that he'd capture with the queen on d4. I had not even considered the knight capture, and when he did make it I almost moved my rook away until I realized my queen would be hanging. Ouch! At this point I'm just making moves, and proceed to drop two pawns along with the exchange. After dropping the second pawn I almost gave up. However he went from having about 8 minutes to my 10 seconds to having less then 2 minutes. Knowing his history of blowing big time advantages, and some of the crazy things that have happened, I decided to suck it up and keep playing. One premature resignation for the evening was enough.

Sure enough on move 43 the implosion came. I had played 42...Rb7. He took the rook with his queen thinking that after Qxb7 he plays Rc7+, winning back the queen and trading down to a easliy won ending. In fact I was on the verge of just knocking the king over when I realized he was in check, and that I would have time to move my king and avoid the fork. The score stops a couple of moves later because we're both blitzing.

This is the final position. He flags, but I ignore the clock, and deliver the mate. I had 2 seconds left. Though as a footnote, payback is a bitch. Today we played again. He was black, and mated me with 5 seconds on his clock, and 2 on mine. That was after he gave back a 9 minute time advantage. One might make the observation that the two of us have clock issues that we have not resolved yet.

When Is It Time To Resign?

My post from the other day certainly evoked a lot responses regarding what appeared to be a resignation that got turned into a stealth draw offer. I've been thinking about chess etiquette a lot lately. I was surprised by how people reacted when I mentioned the noisy food incident. Often there are debates about whether one should play out a game to mate, or resign when it is a hopeless case. I had an interesting discussion with King Kong the last time I played him.




This was the final position. He just played 29...Rc2. He's threatening to mop up my queenside pawns, and run his two pawns down the queenside. He's also threatening d3. I can break the pin by playing 30. Kf3, but that's easily answered by Re3+ My rook is tied down to the e2 pawn. My knight is horribly out of play. There are no forking possibilities the way the position is set up. Time was not a big factor here though he did have a 4 minute advantage of 10:30 vs 6:30. Given the time difference if anyone was bound to implode in later time pressure, it would have been me. It was the last round. All Kevin needed was a win or a draw to wrap up the section. I saw no reason to play the position out so I resigned.


Afterwards Kevin said, "I don't know why you resigned there. You should have played on." I told him that I felt it was an easy win for him, and that I don't like to drag out positions like that. He said he knew was an easy win, but he would have played on. There were no extenuating circumstances such as his having 10 seconds left. I told him I know kids would play it out, but I told him that as one gets older and more experienced one tends to concede the hopeless position out of respect for a player who totally out played them. It had nothing to do my track record against him. There was no feeling of intimidation. I felt pretty good about how things had gone that evening. It was actually one of my better games against him until I got sloppy with my attack, and dropped the exchange. Things just fell apart after that.


Would I resign that same position every time? I would be more likely to play on if I out rated my opponent by 700+ points, or if the clock was a major factor. Then I'd want the opponent to prove that they have the skill to it finish off. In this situation I didn't need King Kong to prove to me that he could win the game. I knew he could. It was my way of making a quiet statement about playing out hopelessly lost positions. Maybe my resigning took away the pleasure of totally crushing me, by promoting the queenside pawns. I wasn't going to hang around to find out.


In my next post I'm going show two games from my weekly Thursday night "cracktion" tournament. One game I lost despite my opponent making me retract my ill timed resignation, and the other I won because I didn't resign a pretty much lost position based on Steve's and my history of time pressure implosions. As they say those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

What is A Draw Offer?: Learning The Hard Way

At the National Chess Congress they have a few sections for lower rated players that have no cash prizes, just trophies. Many kids play in these sections, but because they're not scholastic tournaments there will also be low rated adults in the sections. (Note: I may gripe about losing to 10 year olds, but at least their ratings are 4 digits. I'm not sure if I could cope with having a rating under 1000 and playing and losing to children with such ratings.) The other thing about these sections not being scholastic, is the neurotic chess parent can hover near by, thus making the tournament director's job much harder. I think my favorite scene in "Searching for Bobby Fischer" is when the tournament director locks all the crazed parents in the cage. My tournament director fantasy is to be able to do that to crazed mothers and fathers when they get in my face.

As I was walking out of the tournament room after my fifth round loss there was a big argument going on between the father of a little girl in the Under 1000 section, the opponent of the girl, players sitting at adjoining boards, other spectators and the poor tournament director. And people wonder why spectators are not allowed near the players at the national scholastic championships. As much as I did not like losing another game, I much preferred being able to leave the room to mark up another zero, then have to make a ruling on what was happening in the Under 1000 section.

The last thing I heard the father say was something to the affect of, "You're grown men taking advantage of a little girl." I asked the director later what that was all about. The girl was crushing her opponent and had mate in a few moves. The opponent was shaking his head and muttering. The girl thought he was resigning and reached out to shake his hand. He interpreted the extended hand as a draw offer, and promptly accepted. That was not her intention, but that's how it came across. I guess the other players seated at the adjoining boards felt that was what happened. The father felt the opponent was taking advantage of her youth and inexperience by claiming a draw in a hopeless position. However the director did rule that it was a draw offer. Not having heard what the witnesses had to say or what the player herself said, I can't really say whether or not the ruling was right or not.

Fortunately her tie breaks we better so she did come in first any way. It would have sucked to have not won the section because of that error. It also would have sucked if there had been money and she ended out with less because she was in a tie for first instead of clear first. (BTW the under 1600 section was won by a 7 year old who got $3,000.) Hopefully she learned not to offer or accept a handshake without hearing "I resign" from the opponent.

I've had more then one kid ask me what my intent was if I stopped the clock, said "Good game", and extended my hand. My adult opponents accept my resignation in that manner. The kids want to see a tipped king, or hear "I resign." Though recently a tipped king was not enough for one of my young opponents. He still asked me what I meant. I know he knew what a tipped king meant, but I think he just wanted to make sure that it wasn't a big j'adoube that was disguising a stealth draw offer. That's not my style, but I'm sure the kid must have been burned once with what he thought was a resignation, but actually was a stealth draw offer. It's better to be safe then sorry.

Going Out With a Bang!

My last round game was interesting, but another loss. I was totally caught off guard by White's 23rd move of f5. Afterwards I thought maybe I had gone terribly wrong by playing 23...gxf5, but I'm actually okay if after 24. Rd4 I play 24... Kh8. Fritz came up with 25. Rh4 f6 26. exf6 Rxf6 27. Qg5 Rg8 28.Qh5 Qc7+ 29. Rff4 with it being minus over plus. The other line Fritz found was 24... Rg8 25. Rh4 Kh8 26. Qh6 also minus over plus for black. I'm not sure of the ratings of the guys who were going over the game with my opponent and me afterwards, but nobody found these lines. Everybody thought I should have played 23...f6 or exf5 instead. Fritz gives equality to f6, and a slight edge for black after exf5.

The losing move was 24...Qc7?? There is no defense to 25. Rg3+, Kh8, 26. Qh6! He has the simple mate threat of 27. Qg7#. That's simple to stop with 26...Rg8 or 26...Qxe5. Unfortunately there is no defense to the queen sacrifice of 27. Qxh7+!!

Normally I'd simply resign under those circumstances, but it's funny how I start thinking when I know that my game is being shown in real time on the Mon Roi website. I don't know if anyone was watching my game at the time. I think the games on the top boards in the Premier Section had a larger audience. However just in case I did have an audience, I figured I make it entertaining. I played 26...Qxe5, 27. Qxh7+, Kxh7, 28. Rh4#. Another game that will make interesting instructional material. "Okay boys and girls, white to move and mate in two."

I once had a button that said "Losing is an educational experience. Let me be a teacher." I don't think the person who came up with that meant it quite the way it comes out in my case. Oh well!

Live From Philadelphia Part 2

If you tried to find my round 4 game yesterday on the Mon Roi site, it wasn't there. The TD's system crashed during the round. It should be up later as will my round 3 win. I would not let him take the Round 1 & 2 games. I figure my little blog readership was enough. I don't need the entire universe seeing me suck so bad yesterday.

I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning because I got really annoyed with the little kid sitting next to me during this round. Usually I don't get bothered by people I'm not playing, but this kid was driving me nuts. First he was coughing and sniffling like crazy. Like I want kiddie cooties! I get exposed to enough of them during the week. He wasn't covering his mouth. I moved my tea and water to the other side of me so he would cough all over what I was drinking. I also put my iPod on so I didn't have to listen to all his cold sound effects.

My game was interesting, and both of us were using a lot of time. My opponent was using more. One of the problems I have after playing "cracktion chess" is trying to stay focused when my opponent is taking a lot of time on a move. The position was kind of cramped, and so I made some pawn pushes that opened up my pieces, but unfortunately gave his pieces even more space. I probably should have sat back longer. I think in hindsight 18. e4 was too risky.

The kid had stopped coughing, but then he has a bag of potato chips, and his crinkling the bag, and chomping on the chips really loud. I kind of let him have it, as nicely as I could. I told him it was rude to eat noisy foods at the table, and that he should leave the board if he wants to eat that stuff. He put the bag aside, and later on I noticed that he had switched to eating a piece if pound cake. I get hungry when playing a long game, but I try to stick to quiet foods, and when I have a sandwich I walk away from the board. The kid's opponent earlier on had come in with a hot dog with sauerkraut on it. Can't stand that smell! I almost said something to him, but he was sitting across from me so I didn't want to lean over. The hot dog incident was before the potato chips. The chips were the last straw.

One round left. Hopefully I don't get paired against that kid since he's been beating and drawing with 1900s. He's rated 1673 which means he's really 1873. Besides after my little "etiquette lecture" he might be extra motivated to put me in my place.

Whoever I play it would be nice to score another point. There is still the hope of gaining rating points since my bye loss in the Premier Section will be rated first, then they'll rate the under 2000 afterwards.

Live From Philadelphia.....

It's the Rocky Polly Horror Show! Let's do the time warp again! It's in between rounds 3 and 4, so I will give you a brief synopsis of how my day has gone. I'm playing the two day schedule, and opted to play up in the Under 2000 section. First round I get the dreaded "Please Wait". (Bye) Nothing like getting it over with early. Before I even get a chance to look at the pairings David Mahler from DC asks me if I would be available to play his student who got the bye in the Premier section. Not having seen the pairings yet, I said "I'm playing." pause "Or did I get the bye in my section?" My next question was "What's his rating?" When I found out it was 1800, I was willing to play. I'll on pass 1100 rated cross-pairs.

Second time this week I've gotten a bye, elected to play, and played like a moron. This was ugly. Ranks right up there with the 11 move loss to Eric Hecht. This took 12 moves, and about 20 minutes. 1. c4 e5, 2. Nc3 Nf6, 3. g3 c6, 4. Nf3 (I'm not sure why I played this move. I hate c3 Sicilian as black. Why should it be any better as White in reverse? I should have played d3.) ...e4, 5. Ng5 d5, 6. cxd5 cxd5, 7.d3? (7. a3 prevents all the crap on b4.) h6, 8. Nh3, Nc6, 9. dxe4 d4!, 10. Nd5. (I'm so proud of myself because I saw that Nb5 loses to Qa5+. That feeling didn't last long, after what follows.) ...Nxe4, 11. Ndf4. Bb4+!
I'm looking at this move, and just shaking my head. It's the freaking 11th move of the game, and I'm dead meat. Goodbye queen or king. It continues 12. Bd2 Bxd2+. I resigned on the spot. Damn! Should have just taken the freaking bye without playing.

The result was recorded in my opponent's section. The bye point was posted in my section, so I have 1 point, and was paired accordingly. That game wasn't much better. 18 moves. It was a "pick your poison" position. Move to one square it's forced mate in two. Move to the other square, king and queen fork. Another quick resignation. That game lasted about 45 minutes. The time limit is G/45 with 5 second delay. So I had lots of time to hang out.

It's funny, but I can cope much better with games where I just get crushed early. I guess maybe because it's over quickly so the pain doesn't last long. I guess if I'm going to lose, might as well make it quick, and not have my hopes up. I decided I couldn't think about the first two rounds, so I went back to the room and relaxed a bit to settle down my wild thoughts. Round 3 I'm paired against another player with one point. It was a wild one. I dropped a pawn, and then just started hurling stuff at his kingside. At this point I have nothing to lose. It can't get any worse. I end out up a piece with rooks still on the board. I was in time trouble for most of the time, but when all was said and done, he flagged, and I had 5 seconds. I'll add that game later too. It's a humdinger.

If you want to see my live, you should be able to pick up my round 4 game on Monroi. Hopefully you don't have to give up your first born. Gotta scoot, round starts in a few minutes.

Later. Somehow my game didn't end out on the broadcast even though my Mon Roi had my pairing. It was actually a very instructive position that demonstrated the superiority of the bishop versus knight. There were too many mates and promoting pawn threats that could not be stopped. Tomorrow is another day. More tough pairings ahead with my fake 2-2 score.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

There will be no wining about chess today!
Cheers!

Next stop on Polly's Chess Tour: Philadelphia for the National Chess Congress.

Reality Bites!

Last night I took my second stab at the St. John's Masters at the Marshall CC. When I played in September there were only 15 players including the house player. There was less then a 100 point difference between me and the next to last guy on the wallchart. Not that it mattered since he dropped out after the second round, so I didn't get to play him. I was shark bait for the experts who were losing to the IMs and GMs. This time there were 24 players including the house player. However this time there was a 300 point gap between me and #23. If I could simply win a game, I'd be a good candidate for the upset prize. Easier said, then done.

In the first round I played Boris Privman. I'm 0-11 against him. I actually had a good game against him. It would be my best effort of the night.

In this position Privman had just moved his king from f6 to e7. I had less then 30 seconds at this point, so I was blindly making moves. I played 47. Kf3. Several people including Privman thought I had good drawing chances with 47. Rc5. However Fritz came up with an even better idea. 47. e5 Rxe5 48. Rc5 Rxc5 49. Rxc5 Kf6 50. Rf5+ Kg651. Be4 Kh6 52. Rf8 Bxc6 53. Rf6+ Kg7 54. Rxc6 Rxc6 55. Bxc6. It took Fritz a few seconds to come up with this stuff. Even if I had found e5, I doubt I would have figured out the rest of it in the remaining seconds I had.

The remaining moves that I recalled were 47... Ra6 48. Bf1 Raxc6 49.Rxc6 Rxc6 50. Rxc6 Bxc6. It looks like I should be able to hold by staying on the b1 diagonal with my bishop, but his king can come in, and my passed e pawn isn't going too far. Eventually he was able to take advantage of my weak pawn structure, picked off the e and a pawns, and started marching his a pawn down the board.

So one would think after a near miss against the highest rated player I'd play all evening that I would be inspired in the next round. In theory that's what should have happened, but who said anything about me following theory? Reality check! Instead I got the bye and played the house player, Dolly Teasley. Everyone always gets a chuckle out of the Dolly vs Polly pairing. However there was nothing amusing about blundering a piece on the 9th move. Geez! I should have just taken the bye and saved myself the aggravation of losing so stupidly.

Once again Wright's Rule of Pairing comes to pass. "If there are only two women in a tournament they will get paired." Round three I play Iryna Zenyuk. This game was good knight-bad knight. Guess who had the bad knight? Though if you ask Iryna she probably say she had a bad night, having lost to a lower rated player in round two. I was holding my own out of the opening. This time I managed not to blunder a piece. I simply played too passively and gave her too much space to work with. At one point late in the game I look up and notice Grandmaster Yudasin watching the game. Too bad I couldn't read his mind, and get his analysis of the position. Though at that point perhaps even a grandmaster would not have been able to hold black's position.

Lately I've been getting into pretty aimless positions as black against d4. I do okay if I can play my Nimzo-Indian, but if they play stuff like the Colle or Stonewall I tend to muddle about. Both of my female opponents played d4 against me. Maybe I need to bring the Dutch Defense out of retirement. I actually used to play that in college.

In the last round I played Leif Pressman. The last time I played in this tournament I played him in the first round. This tournament was much stronger so he played Nick De Firmian instead of getting feast on shark bait. Even for a player rated 2192 there aren't easy games in a tournament this strong. After losing the first round he gets "paired down" to a 2113. That game is a draw. Round 3 with a half a point he gets "paired down" to a 2153. He was winning, and overlooked mate. Even high experts miss stuff. Finally he gets his true "down pairing".

I don't know if he thought this would be an easy match up for him, or whether he was just trying to annoy me. He went 27 moves without the clock going below the original 25 minutes. Time delay is a wonderful thing unless your opponent is making all his moves on delay. I didn't adjust the speed of my play to counter his blitz mode. I've had too many time scrambles with him where I came out on the short end of the position and/or the clock. Needless to say, I ended out with a significant time deficit. I messed up when I gave up my queen for two rooks, because I forgot he already had a piece. The best I was going to get out of the position was a rook for a knight and bishop.

So it was another 0-fer night. My lifetime record in this tournament now stands at 0-8. Outside the butt ugly loss against Dolly it wasn't such a bad night. The games were interesting, and against Privman I actually played well. On Chessloser's Blog he talked about not wanting to play in an open tournament where he'd get his butt kicked one round, and then kick some 900's butt in the next round. There was some spirited discussion about the merits of his thinking. As evidenced by my williness to pay for the privilage to qualify for the St. John's Masters, I don't mind the butt kicking. I'd rather lose to those guys then beat some clown who doesn't have a clue. Though sometimes I wonder do my high rated opponents think the same about me? I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question.

Small Chess Club Blues

The Internet sucks! Not really. I love the Internet, but at the same time I hate it what has happened to local chess clubs that have lost players to Internet chess. I belong to two local clubs in Westchester County. The Bob Peretz Chess Club meets on Mondays in White Plains, and the Westchester Chess Club meets on Wednesday in Scarsdale. Both clubs run USCF rated events on a regular basis, but the attendance has been slowly dwindling over the last couple of years. The Westchester Chess Club Championship drew 14 players. There was no announcement in Chess Life. It was simply email, and website traffic. All of the participants were players that drift in and out of the club during the year. 6 to 8 of players come almost every week and the rest come now and then.

The Bob Peretz Chess Club is currently holding its club championship. We have a free space at the White Plains YMCA, so we don't rental expenses anymore. Our Treasurer got the bright idea that we should hold the tournament as a Grand Prix with a Tournament Life Announcement in Chess Life. I figured we guarantee $500, but Alan wanted to do $1000. He figured we only needed 20 players at $50 each to cover the prize fund. Surely $400 first prize would attract some different people to the club, and give us some new blood. There are also some nice class prizes, and an upset prize.

I brought my computer to do the pairings, thinking we'd have a good turnout. Nope. On the first night we got 8 people. First round I'm paired against number 1. I was so bummed by the lousy turnout, and how much money the club was going to lose. I couldn't concentrate and walked into a mate on move 27. We do a "second" first round the following week to give people an option to start a week later without taking a 1/2 point bye for round 1. I sent out more emails. We got one more player the following week. I finally was able to get a 10th player so that I wouldn't have be giving byes.

Maybe I should have let there be an odd number. The 1300 who would have gotten the bye was my second round opponent, and I managed to lose a game where he blundered a bishop on move 13. This is the same kid who I've played twice in the last few months, and offered me a draw in an even middle game with lots of pieces still on the board. Both games I turned down the draw and he blundered away a piece a move or two later. Then he simply imploded after that. I remember after the second game I told him, "Don't simply offer a draw against a higher rated player in the middle game. If there's any play in the position they'll turn you down. Keep looking for play in the position." This also the kid who I "checkmated" when I was in check.

I guess he took my advice this time because he played aggressively as black, and despite blundering his bishop on move 13 just kept attacking. I think he plays better when he's not simply trying to draw against a higher rated player.



Starting on move 19 he just started shoving pawns down the kingside. I was a little concerned but felt that since I was up a piece I shouldn't have any problems. Keep in mind that this was my first game since my weekend meltdown at the Marshall, so my thought processes were still a little off. The other factor was I had found out earlier that day that I won a week's trip to Seville Spain to run in the Seville Marathon in February. (How cool is that?) So I'm thinking about how I'm going have to train to complete this marathon by the 5 hour cutoff, I'm thinking about the game, and I'm telling myself "You're up a piece, forget about the marathon for the moment, and try not blow this game."

I spent about 5 minutes trying to decide what I wanted to do with my rooks. Did I want to double on the f file, move the bishop and double on the g file, or have the rooks on g1 and f1? I decided I would play 24. Rf2 so that I could either double on the f file or eventually double on the g file after moving the bishop. I thought this move would give me a little more flexibility once I saw which way he was going to try to open up my king position. I thought he might play h5, but he pushed 24..f4. After 25. gxf4, gxf4, I had a major brain fart. My plan is to move the bishop off g2, attack the queen by moving my rook to g2, and then sliding the other rook over to g1. If he puts his rook on g8, I still have Rg2. I force the queen away and I can trade off a pair of rooks. (Trade pieces when ahead!) Great plan, except I overlooked 26...Qg3+! Oh crap! I can't play Kg1 to protect the rook. Suddenly I'm down the exchange, my king is exposed, his rook can grab the open g file and his queen is sitting on the seventh rank. Can anyone say "Up the proverbial creek, with no means of propulsion"?

Sigh. Another blown game. The funny thing was, it did not bother me as much as the game I blew on Saturday. I think maybe I had a chess hangover from the weekend, and my mind was too dulled to even care at that point. Perhaps I've mastered SonofPearl's Art of Losing so well that games like this just bring me to a deeper understanding of why I keep playing this damn game. Truth be told, I think I was too pumped up about winning the trip, to give a rat's ass about this particular game. Oh well at least I can rest assured that the upset prize in this tournament will not go to someone simply beating a player 100 points higher. This was good for 400 points.

One of the problems I have as a playing tournament director is after losing a game like that, I can't simply walk out and go home to mope. I have to deal with the rest of the games and getting results. The other problem is dealing with a small tournament spread out over many weeks. People have to reschedule games, people get sick, or have emergencies. The third round of this little 10 player tournament gave me more headaches then the 165 player scholastic tournament I directed on Sunday.

It started last week when one player told me he had play the 3rd round on the makeup date. The straight, by the book pairing would have matched him against the player who already had a game to make up. So I made a slight pairing transposition to avoid that problem. Monday I get an email from Dario's mom saying he's sick, can he play on the makeup date? The problem is he's paired against another player who has a make up game, so I look to see if I can make a reasonable switch. Dario has one point, and he's paired against the highest rated zero. I switch him to play another player from the zero score group. Actually the pairing was better because it got rid of all the ugly color problems. So I make various phone calls and get everybody rescheduled.

Then one of the players who is 2-0 calls. He has a family emergency, and can't come. His opponent has already left for the club. I really don't want to award a forfeit on board 1. I get to the club and have to explain to Isaac that John can't make it. Fortunately he is willing to play next week. Then I had a nervous moment when one of the other players hadn't shown up. I'm thinking to myself, "Did he misunderstand my email and think that he was playing next week, and not this week?" Finally he walks in at 8:30. He's a college student that comes up from NYC. He had missed the train, and had to take a later one. Catastrophe avoided! Despite all the chaos, I managed to win my game.



I felt like he had the better position early on, but I just kept defending. Eventually he wasted time, and then after he traded down I wasn't afraid of his advanced passed pawn. I had the squares covered, and it was weak. Eventually I won two pawns, and then squeezed out the ending. I like these types of games. I'm a tenacious defender, and I hate when the opponent plays boring "squeeze em" chess. Those types of games I end out fiddling around, and getting into time trouble. This one I was behind on the clock, but the time limit was long enough that it did not become an issue. I had lots of interesting things to consider which I think kept me more focused.

I Broke A Board In Half Today

No I didn't get pissed off after losing and smash a chess board over my opponent's head. Today I took a trial class in Tae Kwon Do, and I actually broke a board with my hand at the end. I've been kicking around the idea of taking some sort of martial arts for a few years. Even before starting to read Waitzkin's "Art of Learning", the idea of developing mental and physical discipline from martial arts has intrigued me. I had taken one semester of judo in college, and found the discipline and ritual of the class fascinating. However at the time I had too many other sports and stuff going on to really follow up on it.

I've had a number of my chess students over the years participate in Tae Kwon Do. My most hard working and disciplined students were the ones who also had great success in Tae Kwon Do. I had one student who I started working with in second grade. As a third grader he went 7-0 in the Primary under 800 section at Nationals. (His tiebreaks sucked so he ended out in third.) His rating peaked around 1500, and yes he's another one of my former students who's beaten me in a few tournaments. He's now a sophomore at Cornell and on the Tae Kwon Do team. (Damn that makes me feel old!)

This past spring I checked out a couple of the martial arts academies in my town, but either their adult classes were full or on my chess nights, so it was just one of those things that got set aside. Last Friday I was in a shopping center that has a Do Jang (Tae Kwon Do School) there. I've gone by it many times when they've had children's classes going on, and I had even asked about adult classes. However I've never summoned up the courage to give the trial class a try. This time as I went by there was an adult class of mostly women participating. I guess seeing all these women there inspired me to at least go in and ask about classes, and they sold me on trying a trial class.

So today I came and took my trial class. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was surprised by what we covered in this 45 minute class. By the end he had me kicking and hitting targets. And yes I actually did break a board in half. There was a lot to think about in terms of form, breathing and movement. My balance needs work, and I need to focus on technique.

What does this have to do with chess? I think the focus that it takes to master the various forms and movements in Tae Kwon Do will help in the focus I need to master positions I encounter over the board. It will be interesting too see if it helps me stay focused down to the end. I signed up for a year. I start next week. We'll see where this all takes me. Now I guess I have finish the Waitzkin book. I got bogged down once he stopped talking about chess.

It may have been coincidence, but I had a very good game tonight. My opponent was attacking like crazy, but I defending well. He made a few mistakes giving up the tension he had built. I stayed calm, and avoided little cheap shots. This was my first win after my Saturday meltdown. I had lost 5 games and had one draw since Saturday. Getting past the mental block of blowing a won position, and staying on track was important to me emotionally.

Tomorrow will be a good test. It's the monthly St. John's Masters at the Marshall. This is the tournament for players rated over 2100, but players lower then that can pay a qualifier fee and try be the top score on Thursday night. This time I managed to win a game on the night I paid the qualifier fee. In September I was the only one who paid, and I went 0-4 in the Thursday event, and followed up with another 0-4 in the masters tournament. Stay tuned for my report.