On The Road Again: Dallas, TX

Greetings from the big D! I'm here in Dallas for the National Junior High Championships. Here are some pictures from Day 1.

Everybody dreams of taking one of these babies home with them.

NTDs Wayne Clark and Frank Guadalupe huddle for pre-tournament planning.
These are the guys in charge of the whole directing staff.

Zeljka from Mon Roi. She's the one that gets all the live games broadcast. To see live coverage of the action, click here.
Maybe my games in The Parents& Friends tournament will be broadcast.

Wanted: A few good men and women. Heavy lifting not always required. Tom Nelson on the left is the volunteer coordinator. He's the one that gets all those people in the blue smocks to be runners and results takers. Without those volunteers tournaments like this don't run quite as smooth. He's looking to hire 20 people to work at the Burt Lerner Elementary in Pittsburgh, PA. May 9-11. The pay isn't much much, but the experience is priceless. If you're a club or local TD, or an experienced scholastic volunteer and would like to work in Pittsburgh, drop him an email at csca-scholastic-chess at comcast.net.

Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura gave a simul in the morning. I believe he won all his games.

Boys don't get to have all the fun. Sarah Chiang gave him a tough game.

He graciously signed things between moves. Here he's signing someone's board.

Shaking hands at the end of a tough game with the next to last player to finish.

Alex Paredes from IS 318 was the last one done and came close to drawing. Here Hikaru takes time to show him how he could have held the draw. Nice work everyone.