Sunday, February 15, 2009

USATE - Rd. 4 Photos

It's late, so not much writing but a few pictures from before the round. Pictured below is the team we really, really, really don't want to play. Why don't we want to play that team? Board one is King Kong, Board two is Josh (our board two's son), Board 3 is Mike and Board 4 is Ben. Those four kids have nicked all of us for a lot of rating points. Ben is the only one of those kids that I have a winning record against. Fortunately they have a 1/2 point more then us so we shouldn't be faced with having to have father play his son.

Chess We Can
Killer Kidz - Adults beware!

Parsippany's Only Chess Club Band

There were only two entries for the chess gimmick. The above group did a take off on Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was very clever. The lyrics will be posted on the New Jersey State Chess Federation site. I've seen a lot of these chess gimmicks at this tournament over the years. This one was probably one of the best ones ever. They not only won the dinner for four, but Steve decided to give them entry into next year's event.

Here is a portion of their skit on youtube



These cute girls did a patriotic theme, and won chess clocks for their effort.


The winning team name was "I can see Russians from my board". There were a number of Madoff played the Ponziani type names. Our Blagojevich Gambit didn't even get nominated. Geez! All that hard work coming up with that name.

We were back in the small ballroom paired against a kids team. They had older kids on the top two boards and two really young ones on boards three and four. Silvio's opponent was 6 years old with a 500+ rating. He gave Silvio a run for his money, but the bottom two boards ended pretty quickly. All Guy and I needed to do was get a draw between the two of us to clinch the match. It was touch and go for awhile, but Guy some how managed to win a very closed up position. My opponent and I played a long game that went over 4 1/2 hours. We drew our game so we won the match 3.5 - .5. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be back in the action. I'm still looking for my first win! Though 2 draws and 2 losses on board one is not all that terrible. Though the masters have trashed me pretty badly. We'll see what rounds 5 and 6 bring.

For some people there is never enough chess, and tournament would not be complete without bughouse. There were 26 teams in the bughouse tournament. One team achieved a perfect 6-0 score.

Bughouse Champs - Asian Domination
Neph Diaz (TX) and Shin Uesugi (MD)

It's hard to get a decent picture with no flash when everyone is moving so fast! Here is a video of their round 6 win. The mate in 5 combo is quite cool.

7 comments:

From the patzer said...

Two times a 3.5 - 0.5 against lower rated teams is well done, pity you got that high rated number 20 team in round 2 otherwise it could have been your team would play more then a few games in the ballroom.

debrose said...

Many thanks from Kevin's (aka King Kong) mom. I was unfortunately unable to be with him at the tournament this year. As a non-playing parent, it's my favorite chess tournament too. Last night I was pleased to discover you were blogging from Parsipanny, and was very much enjoying reading about it even before that fabulous picture this morning of Kevin's team. Their name btw is Chess We Can. Of course I've sent the link to all the grandparents, so you should have some new readers. Best of luck to your team today.

Polly said...

Tiger: The oddities of Swiss pairings sometimes makes for extreme match ups. Our rating was in a spot where when we got paired up it was way up, and when paired down, way down. I didn't mind. I rather player the team with 2180 average then barely make the top half and get the lowest rated team with an 1100 average. I didn't have any easy games really, and I like that challenge.

Debbie: I missed seeing you. I know Ben's dad took awesome care of Kevin, but I needed your wine pick me up in the evening. :-) See you in Saratoga in a few weeks?

Anonymous said...

Glad finally some people are giving these guys credit for completing wiping out the Bughouse competition 6-0! I personally saw these 2 guys in action & have to say they are the 2 Best Bughouse players I have ever seen... (and I've witnessed lots of bug) their team name of "Asian Domination" fit perfectly.

Here's their YouTube vids of the Final 2 rounds:

Rd 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEkos9IsI20

Rd 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qfb5cSRGxc

These guys should get some credit too (regardless if you like the game or not)!

Polly said...

Anon: Thanks for the youtube links. Actually I love bughouse. I learned it way back in 1973. I'm not very good at it, but I really love playing it when I get a chance. I'm adding the round 6 video to this post. That was a really nice mate in 5. Neph proves that chess rating has little to do with bughouse strength.

Anonymous said...

No Problem! Have you met either of the 2 champions in person? Yes, Neph is truly amazing... wonder if he was 2000+ USCF how strong he'd be then? Have never seen a faster and stronger player than him... ! He has quite a bit of comments already on his vids, esp. round 5 and 6.

Thx for linking it here... lets get these guys KNOWN! :)

Btw did you play in the tourney?

Polly said...

Anon: I've never met Neph before. I have met Shin at some of the UMBC tournaments. It would be interesting to see how high Neph's USCF rating would go up if played regualr chess with the same intensity as bughouse. His USCF rating is mid 1600s. Though watching him play, I'm not sure I'd want to play him in a regular game either.

I did not play in the bughouse tournament. I was hanging out with friends in the lobby, and then came in to watch some of the tournament on the way back to my room. Maybe next year!