I picked up my c5 rook to play Rxd5. As I reached for black's d5 rook I suddenly noticed I had this problem with Qh2 that could not be resolved with a rook move. I think he might have said something if I put the rook down, said "J'adoube" and tried to play g3 instead. I played Rxd5. Hey maybe he'd make the recapture and miss the mate. Maybe I'll go 6-0 in the Open Section this weekend. Maybe pigs will fly......31 rating points forward, 29 backwards. C'est la vie!
David Harris
I made the mistake of playing 44...f4? with the idea of playing Rgxe5. Bad plan because he played 45. Be4! After 45...Rgg7 White has a very easy win. No crushing attacks needed, just simple endgame technique. The game continued 46. Rxh7+ Rxh7, 47. Rxh7+ Rxh7 48. Bxh7 Kxh7 49. c6! Black resigns. No stopping the c pawn from its' destiny as a queen.
This week I managed to redeem myself with a tough win against Dan. A typical game for us goes down to the wire with one or both of us in severe time trouble. This game was no different though for a change I wasn't the one having a time pressure meltdown.
Polly - Dan 082708.pgn
Weddings have become a major production these days. Gone are the days where one goes to the ceremony, followed by a simple reception and perhaps an after party at some body's house afterwards. Now there are all sorts of functions tied in with the big day, and one is usually pretty wiped out by the end of the weekend. All I can say is I'm glad I didn't have to pay for all of this. The hotel, hubby's tux, my dresses, shower present, and wedding present was enough. Thank goodness for end of summer sales! I could have played in the World Open instead.
I'm feeling really good about my position. I almost felt as though he thought he could get away with leaving his king in the center against me. I was ready to show him that he couldn't take me so lightly and was prepared to punish him for not castling. Sometimes I have this bad habit of thinking about what post mortem "words of wisdom" I'm going to share with the opponent afterwards, while the game is still going on. I'm thinking to myself "He can't play Ke2 because I have the fork on g3 after Bxe4. I need to tell him he should have castled on move 15."
He plays 21. Ke2. I immediately play 21...Bxe4. He plays 22. Bxe4. Without even looking at how the capture has changed the position I instantly play 22...Ng3. Not only do I play the move right away, I slap the piece down with a little more emphasis then normal. I admit it, I was being a hot dog. I was acting like one of the kids. Needless to say I was mortified when he took my knight with his queen. It wasn't quite as bad as when "Mr. White" announced mate with a queen that was hanging. However it was another example of an adult acting like a child playing against a child.
It was tempting to resign on the spot and curse myself for being so unfocused and overconfident, but I was too embarrassed at that point since a number of people had witnessed my faux pas. Even though my body language gave away my feelings about what had just happened, I decided I would try to keep my cool. I wasn't ready for my losing streak to go to seven. I figured with his king still sitting in the center I might get some counter play. Here is the actual game.
joshua-polly082508.pgn
I was rather stunned when he put his rook on on d7. I hesitated before taking it. I did not slam the queen down when I made the capture. I had been given a chance to get back into the game. I didn't want to blow it by acting like a knucklehead again. He was down an exchange for a pawn. That's not an automatic win, especially when playing a kid who has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. Hopefully both of us learned something about staying focused and not getting overconfident when the opponent hands you a gift. It was an ugly win, but I'll take the gift along with the $35 first prize and 31 rating points.
I did find an ally in my beef with the prize structure. During one of my third round opponent’s deep thinks I was wandering around near the wall charts. Howard Goldowsky was standing there looking at the sign with the prizes. Howard was one of the under 1900s who had also entered the Open Section. I asked him what he thought of this prize structure. He didn't like it either. He probably had a bigger beef then me since he already had gotten paired way down and had one point. He had come to play up against higher rated players. Like me, he was disappointed that the sections got combined.
When the round was over the two of us made our case to the tournament director and organizer. Now it wasn't just about me. I was able to speak for both us, and even for the third under 1900 “Open” player who was not around at the time. I’m afraid when I first spoke to them I didn't exactly choose my words well. I’m afraid I may have come across as condescending or arrogant. What I first said came out totally wrong. I won’t repeat that part. It was not meant as a slight to anyone, I just was just trying to make my point regarding what I wanted out of the weekend. The gist of my comments were something to the effect of “I came to play strong competition knowing that I’d possibly lose most of my games, and possibly get a bye. I wasn't there for the money. I understand why they merged the sections. I don’t have a problem with it. Now I’m may going get paired way down, and you’re telling me I can’t win money even if I win that game. Howard has already been paired way down, he can’t win money either with this set up. It’s just not fair.”
The organizer and tournament director said they would consider our complaint and let us know what they would do. At that point there was nothing else that we could say or do.
Doing lunch in between rounds with Jeffrey and Howard.
Grandmaster Keith Arkell 3.5 - 0.5
IM Justin Sarkar and GM Timur Geerav
The picture is not of the best quality, but lacking Photo Shop and the skills to improve it I guess I will have to explain. That is a fire engine from the Pawtucket FD at the front door of our hotel. That begs two questions.
1. Why is it there?
2. Why is it so dark?
Answer: Because the damn fire alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 5:00 am. At this time of year it's dark at that time.
That was not my idea of a wake up call. I can drag my sorry butt out of bed for a 10:30 am round without outside assistance. Besides I thought outside assistance was not allowed at a chess tournament. I suppose the amusing part of the whole incident was seeing several of the grandmasters clutch their laptops as they waited to return to their rooms. We can't let our precious databases go up in smoke. I didn't have such presence of mind to take my computer with me. In fact the only reason I have the fire engine picture is because after they let us go back in I went to the room grabbed the camera and took a picture before they left.
After such a rude awaking why do I look so perky before the start of round three? Perhaps the free breakfast with the two cups of tea had something to do with it. Maybe the loud shirt awoke me from from my sleep deprived state. Too bad the shirt didn't distract my opponent from the goings on over the board. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. There was another battle to be fought besides the one over the chessboard.
When they posted the round three pairings they had put up signs with the prize fund listed. For the since merged under 1900 they stated that only the six players who had initially entered that section would be eligible for those prizes. Whoa! Time out! Let me get this straight. Since I opted to play up, I'm not eligible for the Under 1900 prizes even though the sections have been combined and I'm rated under 1900? Is this the add insult to injury clause for the three of us rated under 1900 who had wanted to play stronger competition, but instead ended out in a larger section with the possibility of playing lower rated competition?
Even before I got into my game I expressed my displeasure with this decision. The rationale though good intentioned was flawed. The TD and organizer seemed to think that these six players entered the Under 1900 Section in good faith expecting these prizes to be rewarded to the players in that section. The tournament director explained that to me. I wasn't happy with it, but for the time being I wasn't going to argue the point.
Sometimes tournament directors/organizers playing in other people events can be a pain in the ass. I try not to butt into how a tournament is being run. I know I don't like it when others tell me how to run my tournament. The last time I had butted in at someone else's tournament the TD yelled at me, even though I was right and he reversed his decision regarding prizes. That prior incident didn't even have anything to do with me, but I felt it needed to be addressed. This time it had a lot to do with me so before round 4 I was going to make my point.
It wasn't like they were changing the prizes to include 2000 players or changing the Under 1700 prize to an under 1800 prize. They were the same prizes albeit reduced since there was only a partial guarantee. The would still be 1st through 4th under 1900, 1st under 1700, 1st under 1500 and first youth under 16 years old. The only difference was there were three more players to contend for the top 4 place prizes. So there were 9 players contending for 7 prizes. In theory all 9 could have picked up a piece of the pie. A draw in my last round would have caused this unlikely scenario, but more about that later.
I got paired against a 1735 who was one of the players who had signed up for the ill fated Under 1900 section. He had lost both his games on the first day. He might have been 2-0 if there had been an Under 1900 section. Instead he was getting pounded on by Experts and A players. He was also on the list of players that would be eligible for the Under 1900 prizes. I'm sure he was happy with the announced prizes since he could go 0-4 and still win something under that prize structure. However I don't think 0-4 was what he had mind when he signed up for the Under 1900 section. Leave it to me to take care of that problem for him. Sigh.
On the comments from my last post somebody asked me what I thought of the time control and the 15 second delay. It would have been okay if they didn't deduct 10 minutes off the first time control. 40/90 is deceptive enough. That's 2:15 per move. It seems like plenty of time, but often moves 25-40 are during a complex part of the game, and the time sneaks away. 80 minutes is even worse. That's two minutes a move. The delay makes it 2:15 per move but it doesn't seem the same as 40/90 with no delay. The 15 second delay doesn't compensate for the 10 minutes. Even though in theory it's the same amount of time, I feel as though having 10 minutes chopped off my time from the get go is like wasting 10 minutes in an opening I know. For the first 5 to 10 moves a 5 second delay is plenty. There have a number of games where I've made the first 10 moves without my time moving.
I'm sure this sounds very strange coming from someone who plays "cracktion" chess almost weekly. "The queen of cracktion is worrying about the difference between 80 and 90 minutes when she normally has 25 to 30 minutes for a whole game?" I think there is a different mind set when one is playing a single sudden death time control versus x moves in x time followed by sudden death. In a single sudden death time control if there is time pressure it comes and then it's over. Either one survives it and wins, or implodes and loses. With two time controls one can go through time pressure twice. How the first time control is handled can play a big part in what happens during the second time control. Often when I'm playing a control longer then game/30 I have to remind myself that I have more time and make use of it. However sometimes I lose track of the time and have to hustle to make the 40 moves in time.
The organizer was the one who came up with this particular time limit, but it was ironic that his TD is against subtracting time from players using delay clocks. Ken had put up a motion before the delegates at the US Open regarding the subtracting of time. He feels it penalizes players who are using the prefered clock with time delay. His motion would have abolished that practice. I always would like to have the extra time, but I realize in tournaments with a tight schedule one has to take the time off of delay clocks to compensate for the extra delay time.
End of the time control rant. I guess the answer is "No I didn't like the 15 second delay." I can't blame the clock for all of my problems in this game. However bad decision making in time pressure did bring the game to a sudden end.
In the past week I've had three games as black that have opened d4 and transposed into the French. I don't even like the French. Note to self: Stop playing 2...e6 after 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3. The first one last Thursday I walked into a book trap from 5. Qg4 and got my queen trapped on move 9. This time I was better prepared for Qg4 and did not walk into that line again.
Richard-Polly 081708.pgn
It would have been a struggle even if I had played the right move. The problem was getting into that mess in the first place. The trade off was I didn't have to deal with two bouts of time pressure, and it gave me time to line up an ally in my battle over the prize fund.
They were seated next to me. He hung a piece early against Ken, and then everything got traded off to a king, knight and five pawns versus a king. Ken opted to promote one pawn to a bishop and work on his bishop and knight checkmate technique. Ken executed the mate quite nicely. He never had to bail out and make a pawn move to reset the count. It's funny because despite having played over 3900 games of tournament chess I've never encountered that ending. It's one of the few times I've seen it done in tournament play. Here is the game starting from the pawn promotion.
Dean-Ken ending.pgn
I probably would have just taken a queen and gotten the game over with, but Ken's approach was a good exercise for both of them. He got to practice the bishop and knight mate in a tournament game, and Dean got a chance to see a rare checkmate. After the game was done he wanted Ken to show him how to do it. Dean's perseverance paid off for him as he won $75 and a book for top youth under 16. The other kid under 16 won the under 1500 prize.
I tip my hat to Dean for displaying excellent sportsmanship and handling himself so well under difficult circumstances. Mom and Dad should be very proud of their son. When he plays in his first scholastic tournament the other kids better watch out. I'm sure he's going to kick some butt.
I came to this tournament prepared to get a severe butt kicking since I was playing in the Open section that was limited to players rated over 1600. Not that I was assuming the worst, but I’d rather be prepared for the worst and play for the best. I figured I’d be sitting at the bottom of the section, and would just have to hope the numbers were even or that they’d have decent house player hanging out. I suppose I could have opted for the pre-emptive last round bye, but I was here to play four games of chess. I was willing to take my chances with potential byes. I wasn’t going to make myself crazy over the bye issue.
Initially only 4 entered the Under 1900 section so they ended out combining the sections. That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, and sure wasn’t what I wanted. Despite combining the sections I was still only ranked 27 out 31. There was a 1600, 1500, 1300 and the new kid below me. I was wondering how many rounds it would be before I got paired down to the 1300 or the unrated. The bright side, so I thought would be avoiding the bye, or at worst getting it in the last round.
In the first round I got paired against a 2165 from Calgary, Alberta. He had played in the New England Masters. He couldn’t stay for the weekend, but with a late flight he wanted to play one round if possible. Since there was an odd number they put him in, and paired normally. Treating him as a house player and slotting him against the player assigned a bye was another possibility, but would have been a big mismatch. Then again considering how badly I got crunched it was a mismatch anyway. It was a pretty ugly game. I was half asleep during the game. This position was a wake up call but by then it was too late.
I was concerned by Bxh7+ so I played 14...h6. I totally forgot about the knight going into h7 instead. I had one of those serious DUH moments when he trapped my rook on f8 after playing Nh7. Hello!!! Anyone home?? I didn't like 14...g6 because I was concerned about 15. Qh4. Actually Qh4 isn't that big a deal. The game rapidly fell apart after that. 15. Nh7 Nc5 16. Nxf8 Qxf8 17. Ne4 Nxe4 18. Bxe4 Bxe4 19. Qxe4 Rc8 20. Qb7 Black resigns.
My opponent spent a lot of time with me afterwards going over the game so at least I got a decent lesson out of my thrashing.
The time control was a strange one. It was 40/90 followed by G/45. However if you had a delay clock it was 40/80 G/40 with a 15 second delay. I’ve never played with such a long delay and I’ve never seen time subtracted from the second control. I couldn’t tell whether this was a slow or fast time control. The first game didn’t last long enough to notice whether the time control was long or short.
The second round I got paired against a 1906. It was a long and hard fought game. In this game I thought the time control seemed long and I found myself getting antsy. My opponent would spend a long time on a move and I’d get up and wander around the room looking at other games. At one point I looked at the pairings and the wall chart. I’m thinking to myself “Even if I lose this round I’ll probably get paired up again.” Then I happened to notice that the player ranked right below me got the bye in the second round. “Crap I could get the bye in round three if I lose this round. That would really suck!”
I didn’t want to focus on pairings and byes so I stopped wandering to the back of the room where the pairings were. I needed to just concentrate on the game. The position was very blocked up. I wasn’t sure whether I should just sit on the position or open things up. I wasn’t in the mood to try to grind it out so I gambled by making a few pawn pushes that probably weren’t so sound. I knew he'd get a lot of play once I tried to free up my pieces. What the hell, I was losing patience with closed nature of the position and was willing to take my chances. I think even towards the end he missed opportunities, so we ended out drawing an opposite color bishop ending with even material. Here’s the game.
polly-georgew081608.pgn
Fortunately by simplifying to the drawn position we got done at a reasonable hour. That gave me the chance to catch up wih some friends and grab a bite to eat. One of the charming things about playing in a small tournament at a small hotel in a little New England town is the chance to venture from the confines of the hotel and try one of the local establishments. The organizer recommended the East Side Irish Pub to my friends and I. He said they had good food and 40 different beers to choose from. I guess he must really like it because later on the tournament director and him showed up.
It's a good thing that my friend from New York and I are die-hard Mets fans because we were deep into Red Sox Nation. We figured as long as we didn't mention 1986 or Bill Buckner we were safe. Pawtucket is the home of the Red Sox minor league affiliate. This place had lots of televisions including one big projection screen and I think every single one of them had the Red Sox game on until it was over. Then we got the Olympics. Though the Olympics didn't rate the big screen. That got rolled up and put away after the ball game was done.
It's a nice change of scenery to sit in a local pub eating, drinking and watching sports. Not much chess got discussed which was fine with me. There would be more chess on Sunday. The rest of Saturday could be devoted to sports. It was far more interesting talking about some of the amazing performances or stirring up some lively debate on how they do the medal count standings. Despite the fact that China is kicking the USA's butt in terms of number of gold medals, the USA is ahead in the medal standings because they have more total medals. One cynic in our group made the observation that everything might as well be treated as a three way tie since all medals are being weighted equally in the overall count. We ended out staying late enough to watch Phelps squeeze out gold #7. I really thought the other guy just barely beat him. Technology and slow motion replay are wonderful things. Wow, .01 of a second. I guess the chess equivalent would be mating your opponent with .01 seconds left on your clock. Oops there I go talking about chess again.
Larry Cohen of Illinois calling the question while pretending to be Tim Just.
I had mentioned earlier that the US Open tends to be like a reunion where you meet up with someone you haven't seen in ages. Earlier in the week I met up with somebody I hadn't seen since the 1981 US Open in Palo Alto. Before the last round on Friday Jerry Hanken was announcing the names of people who were receiving certificates for playing in their 5th or more US Open. My name was announced even though I had already received the recognition in 2006. The mis-announcement was good because it allowed an old friend to realize that I was at the tournament. During Jerry's long presentation a woman comes up to me and says "Hi Polly, do you know who I am?" I look at the woman and I have absolutely no idea who she is. I'm terrible with names and faces, but when it's a guy I don't feel so bad when he knows who I am but I don't know who he is. Men have a much easier time remembering the women they run into at chess tournaments. There are a lot less of us to remember.
I'm looking at this woman and saying to myself, "Okay she knows who I am. Who is she? Did you meet her at one of the scholastic nationals this past year? The face and the voice are familiar, but....." Finally I admitted, "No I don't remember who you are." It turns out to be Julie Anne Desch. Talk about a blast from my past. She had been the assistant editor at Chess Life in the late 80s and had worked closely with me on an article I wrote on women in chess that was published in the April 1989 issue of Chess Life. I lost track of her after she left Chess Life, so I was pleasantly surprised to meet up with her after all these years.
Another good thing about the 3:00 PM round time is that even if one's game lasts a long time it still will be over at a civilized hour. When I finally gave up on trying to win a hopelessly drawn opposite color bishop ending I could catch up with Julie and find out what she's been doing for the last 15 years.
Since I don't like worrying about whether I'll make my flight or not, I always leave Monday morning. It does mean another night in the hotel, but it does give me a chance to socialize with people after the round. I ended out finally escaping from the hotel and eating somewhere besides Subway or Jack in the Box. Those were my cheap, within walking distance alternatives to the overpriced hotel food. I got to have a nice dinner with some of my fellow delegates, and tournament directing cronies. As we were heading to the restaurant one of the people in the car says "I hope you eat meat. We're going to a steak house." YES!!! I don't come to Texas to eat chicken or fish.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel. There I was faced with the annoying task of trying to pack all my stuff. Somehow I always manage to end out with more junk then I started with. It doesn't help when one has been away for almost two weeks, and can't leave a place without buying something. I did manage to escape the US Open having only bought two chess books, a couple of chess key rings and a sweatshirt. That's pretty good for me.
I'm sure the question everyone is asking is, "Well, how was the tournament? Were you satisfied with your results?" I have a love/hate relationship with the US Open. I love the tournament room atmosphere. There is something very impressive about walking into a ballroom that is filled with tables covered with table cloths and chess sets at every table. It's not something you see at your normal weekend swiss. I love the fact that it's a truly open tournament with a rich history behind it. Despite what some people would call the bastardization of the Open by having multiple schedule choices, I like those choices and I love the fact that they don't allow re-entries! Multiple schedules usually give people the option of re-entering on a different schedule. I like the fact that you never hear about people using high tech gizmos to cheat their way into a prize. I suppose some would say the prizes aren't worth cheating for, but that's besides the point.
There is not the paranoia often seen at the big money events. There seems to be a certain congeniality not seen at other tournaments. You have many players who have played in the tournament year after year, and when you see them every year it's like catching up with old friends. Even those of us who don't get to play in it as often as we like still feel like we're part of a special chess fraternity that makes the US Open an important part of our tournament history.
So what's not to like? It's a hard tournament, especially for players rated near the middle and lower. The middle of the pack players spend the early rounds bouncing up and down, or down and up between rating extremes depending on where you lie on the break. For a lower rated player he may spend many rounds getting paired up until he's lost enough times to finally get paired down. That can be pretty discouraging, though I applaud the perseverance of one player at last year's US Open who played and lost all 9 games. Most people wouldn't have the stomach for that, and probably would drop out after 5-6 straight losses. She gamely stuck it out through all 9 rounds.
I don't mind all the up pairings, but the extreme down pairings tend to make me a little crazy. I can't really complain about all the down pairings in this year's event. Considering my score, I got what I deserved in terms of getting paired down. There was a bright side in that I didn't have to play any players rated under 1200, and most surprising is I only played two players under the age of 18. Maybe I needed to play more kids because I scored 1.5 - 0.5 against the kids, and only 1.5 - 5.5 against the adults.
The interesting thing about my adult opponents is that most of them were older then me. All of them just played very solid chess. There weren't a lot of wild tactics. My lone win against adult competition was playing a much older player sitting on a 1400 floor. It was apparent that he had "been around the block" so to speak. He played a very solid game and it just came down to my winning a pawn and grinding out the ending. Unlike my young opponent from a later round who made me play out king and six pawns versus king until one move before mate, this gentleman resigned one move before I queened.
Was I disappointed with my results? Yes, but I didn't feel like I played horrible chess. Most of the games were interesting and hard fought. In some cases it just came down to one small error that cost me the game. Probably one of my worst games was the one where I ended drawing after my opponent missed the killer knight fork that wins my rook out right. Dodging that bullet allowed me to have a few laughs about luck in chess. I can do without having depend on luck, especially since my refrain on luck tends to be "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."
This is my 3rd US Open in a row. My score has gone down by a 1/2 point each year since 2006. I keep this trend up I'll be like the 0-9 lady by the year 2014. Will I be in Indianapolis next year? I hope so. I'd like to add another state to my list of states played in. So why not the US Open for my Indiana tournament? However my traveling to next year's Open will depend on whether I can afford it or not. Who knows how much a plane ticket will cost by next year. It is an expensive proposition staying in a hotel for that many nights, especially when you're by yourself. I'd love to find a roommate, but on the other hand if I have to share the room I can't do this.
"Oops roomie! You wanted to actually sleep in that bed?"
It's safe to come out Mac. All liquids have been safely secured.
Round eight's game was actually pretty interesting. It even rated a diagram in the daily bulletin again. It would be nice if I'd get a win with a diagram in there, but nothing but losses and draws. Actually I would have been happy with a win of any sort. However wins did not come too often in this tournament. In fact I had no wins during the slow time control part of the five-day schedule. My two wins came in rounds two and five which were played at game/60.
Life in the fishbowl sucks. You're in the back of the room and near the doors leading in and out of the playing room. There's a constant flow of people in and out of the room. The doors are constantly being opened and closed. Also talking loudly outside the doors seems to be a favorite pastime amongst players and spectators. "Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer." There is always a constant buzz, so my way of dealing with it is to itune-it out with my iPod. I'd rather be listening to Mozart then hearing the noise from outside. I have to be careful with my music choices because sometimes it's either too energetic or too somber for the moment.
In this particular game the music got a little too energetic. I was deep in thought trying to figure out when he'd would sac his bishop on h6, and whether or not I could accept it or not. Like most highly twitchy chess players I have my little nervous tics that at time I'm totally oblivious to. Sometimes I bounce my legs up and down, but more often then not I'm doing something with my Mon Roi stylus. Usually I'm chewing on it, but this time I had it in my hand. I'm thinking about my move and Jon Haskel who was running the Mon Roi feed stops by my table. He's pointing at my right hand, and saying something to me. Since I had Mozart overtures going I couldn't hear what he was trying to say. I thought he was telling me I was having problems again with my game being broadcast. My round 7 game crapped out in the middle because the pairing output didn't match my Mon Roi profile. It turns out I was tapping the stylus on the table and making noise with it. He wanted me to be aware of the noise I was making. Oops!
I put the stylus down, but I'm having difficulty getting refocused on the position. I walk away from the board on my time to get some water, and bring my head back into the game. I also decided Bach would be a better music choice at this point. The position is complicated and both of us are taking a lot of time. The game next to us had taken 65 moves in the same amount of time it had taken us to make 26 moves. For a change I actually was using most of my time from the 2 hour first time control. Usually I can't sit still that long.
One thing that I have to get over is mentally resigning myself to loss of material or worse. Shortly before time control I had gotten my bishop trapped. There were no squares for it, but with the exchange of rooks on d1, I had a saving move. However because his rook move was unexpected and I didn't look deep enough into how the position had changed after the exchange, I missed the queen move that gains a tempo and freedom for my bishop. I just continued with my plan of getting a pawn for the bishop.
Some people may have looked at my round eight game on Mon Roi, but I'm posting it here with some analysis.
Charles-Polly080908.pgn
This is my last post from Dallas. I have to get up at the crack of dawn to catch a flight back to New York. When I get home I will write a summary, make some random observations and post a few more pictures.
Signing out from Dallas! Good night. See you back in New York.
The Executive Board getting ready for the start of the Delegates meeting.
Some of my fellow Delegates from New York and New Jersey.
The tournament room at 7:00 PM
The tournament room at 11:30 PM
Despite the live MonRoi feed displayed in the back, spectators like to be up close and personal. That is Emory Tate, my first round opponent. No we did not have a crowd watching our game. Our game did end out in the bulletin with a diagram. Another loss that will end out in the next Chess Base database.
