National Open - Photo Time!

I had two totally insipid draws.  Both games were ones where I got behind in development, beat back the opponent's pressure and traded down.  *Yawn*  It didn't matter whether I was White or Black.  The games aren't even worth looking at.  Instead today's post features pictures from the tournament.

South Point Hotel & Casino

The hotel is huge.  It's actually one of the nicer hotels I've stayed in for chess.  The rooms are really big, and there are a lot good eating choices within the hotel that are reasonably priced.  The other good thing is everything stays open late so it's easy to grab a bite to eat if your round runs late.  My only gripe is the smell of cigarette smoke.  However it's a casino so what can I expect?  It is easy to walk from my room to the convention center portion without having to go through the casino itself.  Though it is fun to go people watch there.  I can only take the casino in small doses.  Between the noise of the slot machines and the smoke it becomes overload after awhile.

Mountains surrounding Las Vegas

Urban sprawl - Las Vegas Style

I did manage to leave the hotel and go outside and take some pictures of the surrounding scenery.  It was actually very cool.  Looking at the landscape reminds me that this is the desert.  I noticed many new developments surrounding the hotel property.  It's kind of scary thinking about how many people live out here and need lots of water.  My lasting impression of my previous trip out here was flying over Hoover Dam and seeing just how much water loss there has been in Lake Meade.  One can see how far the water line has gone down.

Back inside the tournament room we had the merge of all schedules.  Now at least there won't be disruptions as players from different schedules come in at varying times.  Here's a view from the stage of one side of the room.  My board is way back in the last row near the door.  It has it's good points and bad points.  The good thing is there is no one seated behind me.  The bad point is being near the door.  However my iPod takes care of the noise factor for the most part.  The staff is good about trying to keep things as quiet as possible.

Along with the tournament itself there are lectures and games analysis.  Anna Zatonskih was giving a lecture on zugzwang when I came into observe and take pictures.  She's very animated and keeps the topic lively and entertaining.  The problem she was showing was quite challenging.

WGM Anna Zatonskih

Art Bisguier is available to go over players' game when their done.  At one point I saw a guy waiting patiently by the door in anticipation of Bisguier's arrival.  I guess he had a quick game, and wanted to be the first one on line.

GM Art Bisguier

Art and I go back a long way.  The USCF used to having a visiting Grandmaster program where they would send a GM to various clubs to give a simul and lecture.  The hosting club would take care of his lodging and meals.  The simul and lecture was free, but he'd be available to give private lessons for a reasonable fee.  It was a great program, but after a few years was discontinued for budget reasons.  GM Bisguier came up to Burlington, Vermont on several occasions when I was attending college up there in the early 70s.  He was also the Grandmaster I ever played in a tournament.  I think I got so nervous that I hung a piece on about the 10th move.

After last night's round there is one perfect score remaining.  GM Varuzhan Akobian beat GM Mikheil Kekelidze.  There are 6 players with 3.5 nipping at his heels, so the tournament is far from being decided.

GM Varuzhan Akobian

(Nice shirt!)

Alfred Walker

Lucky-Chess

I didn't even having the nicest chess themed article of clothing yesterday.  That distinction would go to Alfred Walker who was demonstrating his invention "Lucky-Chess".  It's played using either dice or picking a card from a deck.  You have to move what ever piece is shown on the dice or card.  You can choose to roll dice or pick a card.  It's fun and has a large component of luck to it because of the dice and cards.  You might have a great capture, but if you don't roll the piece you need you won't get to make it.  On the other hand the en prise piece may sit for a few moves and you might get to take it.

White may or may not be able to take that on e6.  Black may or may not be able to take the bishop on d5.  It depends who is the lucky one.  Maybe I need to play with the dice.  The moves I'm making by choice can't be any worse then the random moves I may have to make with the roll of the dice.  This Las Vegas after all.  He doesn't have a working website at the moment, but if you're interested in knowing more about the game you can contact him via email.  awlouis438 at yahoo dot com.

Rise and Shine Sleepy Head!

I think I need another large cup of tea! I don't like coffee so tea is my caffeinated beverage of choice.  Nothing like waking up at 3:30 am to cell phone buzzing with a text message from my bank with credit card balance.  Oh yes Citi Bank for the city that never sleeps. Note to self: "Turn phone off tonight!"

I went downstairs to get tea at the coffee place in the hotel.  The line was out the door.  I guess all the early morning gamblers need their caffeine fix.  I went outside for the first time since I arrived here.  It was actually really nice out. Morning desert breeze and sunny.  The mountains surrounding the area really are very beautiful.  Yes there is life outside a casino hotel.  One just has to walk out the door to see it. If it's not unbearably hot later, I'll take some pictures.

While eating my breakfast and drinking my tea I was flipping through the book I bought yesterday.  Yes I did buy a book, but it's not really for me per se.  It's the third workbook of an excellent series written by Jeff Coakley of Chess'n Math Association. (Canadian scholastic chess organization.) If you teach chess to children you should check out the site.  They have a wonderful kids chess magazine that you can sign up to receive free by email.  It comes in PDF format.

Getting back to the workbooks, they're a great source of fun problems and excellent teaching material.  I have the first two volumes, but never had gotten around to getting #3.  So yesterday I grabbed the last copy they had in the bookstore.

I'm looking at a couple of the puzzles, and found myself stumped by this mate in 2 for White.

It's not really all that hard, but I spent time looking for spectacular sacrifices and super forcing moves.  However sometimes one needs to apply the KISS principle when analyzing a position.  No spectacular sacrfices needed.  1. Qg6 any move for Black, 2. Qxg7# DUH!

This second problem is very different.  The problem is White to move and not mate in one.  This one involves a little different thought process.

This one had me stymied.  It's hard not to make a move that is not mate.  None of the knight moves work because the other knight will still be guarding the e3 pawn.  King moves don't work because they're all illegal.  The only move that's not mate is 1. Rc6+.  That unpins Black's rook so he can play 1...Rxh7.

Hopefully the inability to solve a couple of problems from a children's workbook, isn't an indicator of how today will go.  Maybe I should go do the mates in 1.  :-)

National Open - Rd 2

In my efforts to provide tournament news along with my own adventures, sometimes I go too far, or maybe not far enough.  I very carefully researched where all the players who won in the simul were from and what their ratings were.  In my report I made the somewhat tongue in cheek comment "I might have to study Quander's game since he's in my section."  Maybe I should have taken the time to look at the game, because I ended out playing him in round two.  Even better might have been not looking up the results of the simuls.  Maybe knowing a little less about my opponent would have been better under the circumstances.

I tried not to let the fact that he beat Zatonskih psych me out, or effect my play against him.  However I think I was already writing the story in my mind while we were playing.  It also didn't help my mental state when he opened 1. d4.  I spent a lot of time on my moves, but sometimes at the slow controls my mind gets too bogged down in the analysis.  I start seeing things that aren't really there, and then get steered away from what is there.  I spent 12 minutes on move 13 which wasn't a great move, but it also wasn't as bad as I thought it was.  I spent another 7 minutes on move 14, which was clearly the losing move.  If anyone was following the game live on Mon Roi they would have thought that I took no time on the crucial 14th move.  That's because I stopped recording on my unit for a few moves, and then put them in afterward.

Here's the game.


KQuander-pw061110.pgn

Tomorrow is another day.  Hopefully I can get a little better sleep tonight.  The two day schedule starts tomorrow.  Thankfully I am not playing in that madness.  

National Open - Rd. 1

Update:  In the simuls GM Akobian scored 26 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss.  WGM Zatonskih scored 24 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses.  Jonathan Zaczek of Canada scored the lone win against Akobian.  Brian Murphy of Massachusetts and Kent Quander of Michigan beat Zatonskih.  I might have to study Quander's game since he's in my section.

Enough tournament news for the moment.  On to my round one!  I got down to the playing hall a bit early so I could register my Mon Roi for the tournament.  However Jon Haskel who is running the Mon Roi feed had not gotten the pairings early enough, so there wouldn't much in the way of round one games on the live broadcast.  I found my pairing and went to my board.  I had gotten there first so I set up my clock for the 40/2 SD/1 time limit.  It still had the 30/90 SD/1 settings from Santa Clara so I needed to change everything.  

I left the board to get water.  In the meantime my opponent arrived and put his clock down to my right, and moved my clock.  I didn't notice this at first so I moved my clock back to my left.  Then I noticed the other clock.  I asked him if that was his clock.  He answered yes, and I asked him if he preferred to use his since he had Black.  He wanted to use his clock, so my next question was, "Is the 5 second delay on?"  He had the older model of the Chronos Blitz which has its limitations in how much information can be displayed. After two weekends ago I wasn't taking any chances.  I then asked him to run the clock so I could see how the delay, time and move counter would be displayed.  He seemed a little confused by what I was asking, but his father knew exactly what I was asking, and why.  He told me that he reads my blog.  He had read my account of the clock issues at the Capablanca Memorial.

I own that same model of the Chronos, but I stopped using it a number of years ago because I didn't like the display limitations and the size of the move or delay counter.  When one has middle aged eyes that don't see small things easily, a clock with large numbers is preferable.  The large Chronos takes care of that for me.  However my close up vision is not so pathetic that I would need to demand to use my clock.  There are certain clocks where I will ask my opponent who has Black if he would mind using my Chronos instead.  Most people like the Chronos and are perfectly happy to use my clock. If not, it's no big deal.

The round started a little late while they made various announcements acknowledging the organizers, past (Fred Gruenberg) and present (Al Losoff) and tournament information such as time controls and reporting the results.  There was also a moment of silence for Jerry Hanken.  Finally the announcements were over, and the games started.  One of the things they asked was for a signed score sheet with the result circled.  Even if both players were using a Mon Roi they still wanted the top part filled in and signatures and result at the bottom.  I decided I would actual keep score on the paper notation sheet.  I found this had worked well for me in Bermuda in the two rounds where I had done both.

I thought I had the whole clock thing straightened out but on move 10 what I thought was the move counter said 5.  I thought maybe he had changed the settings to have display the delay countdown instead of the move counter.  On move 11 I noticed it now said 6.  I also noticed my time was running and I had made my move.  I don't know how that happened.  I was pretty sure I had pressed the clock since I put a time note on my score sheet, but another 5 minutes were gone.  He said I had not pressed the clock a couple of times which is why the move counter was off.  We pressed the clock back and forth a few times to get synchronized with the actual number of moves made. I guess I missed the button a couple of times which is easy to do with the sensor buttons on the Chronos.

I made sure after that to pay closer attention to the clock after making my move.  At such a long time control losing the few minutes usually isn't a big deal.  Though on those rare occasions when I get into time trouble at this control, I might regret those missed clock hits.  However time was not a factor in this game.  My opponent was using more time then me after awhile.  I didn't get a great position out of the opening, and for awhile I thought I might have problems since he totally dominated the open d file. He had a battery of his queen and a rook on the file.  He would eventually get the second rook on the file, but not before he made the very quiet move move of 16...h6 which gave me an opportunity to complete my development and challenge him on the queen side.  I won a pawn on move 18 which I initially thought he could win back or get counter play for.  

I thought I was going to have grind out a long drawn out ending to convert my pawn advantage.  He undoubled his rooks on the d file which allowed me the move Red1, winning his rook for free or his queen for a rook.  After looking at all his different possibilities, he chose to resign.  I'm always appreciative of the young player who has the maturity and grace not to play out a lost position in a long time control.  Some kids just won't resign, and I'm fine with that.  It used to bug the hell out of me because I felt as though the opponent was insulting my intelligence thinking I'd stalemate or blunder.  Now I treat it as an opportunity to work on tactics and mating patterns.  In this case being the first round of a 3 day tournament it's probably a wise thing to conserve energy instead of hoping for a miracle. Here's the game.

pw-JBooher061110.pgn

This gave me plenty of time to eat lunch and use my free buffet coupon, and come back to the room and relax.  We'll see what round 2 brings.  I will be Black against another one pointer.  I have my work cut out for me.

Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?

After a long day of traveling across three time zones, I was pretty beat by the time I got to the hotel.  I was reminded of this old Chicago song.



When I don't fly non-stop I always try to keep my watch on the local time of my destination. Before I landed in Dallas, I moved my watch back one hour. When I was on the way to Vegas I went to move my watch back, but I got confused as I was changing it. I looked at my computer and it had one time. I looked at my iPod and it had a different time. So I really didn't know what time it was. It wasn't until I could turn on my cell phone that I could figure out the time.

When I arrived WGM Anna Zatonskih and GM Varuzhan Akobian were giving simuls.  At this time I have no idea if anyone of the participants were able to nick either of them for a half or full point.

GM Varuzhan Akobian

WGM Anna Zatonskih

Simul participants pondering their fate (move).

I can only take so much of watching a simul.  I have a hard enough time playing in one.  My attention span doesn't last long enough while waiting for the player to come back to my board.  After watching the simul for awhile I caught up with various friends of mine who are on the directing staff.  Since I missed all the spring scholastic championships, I had not seen a number of these people since last year's National Open or US Open.  Big chess tournaments like this tend to be like family reunions.  You haven't seen people in ages, but you manage to catch up on what's been going on in the last year.  It's also a chance to meet new people.

I checked out the book store.  Once again Rochester Chess Center is running the concession.  They have lots of beautiful sets, and tons of books and videos.  I will probably end out buying something before the weekend is over.  I always tell myself "Don't buy a new book. Read the ones you bought last year that you have not opened."  However something always catches my eye, and I succumb to temptation.

Around 6:45 Vegas time my body started talking to me.  "Hey it's 9:45 in New York and we have not eaten since the DFW-LAS leg of the trip. I'm tired and I'm hungry."  Now I was faced with what did I want to eat, and where.  The South Point, like most casino hotels overwhelms its customers with lots of different dining choices.  There are 8 different restaurants to choose from.  I finally opted for Don Vito's, an Italian restaurant.  That was one of the places I never made it to last year.  Besides there was a coupon for free dessert.  I'm never one to turn down free dessert.

What I liked about the restaurant was the fact that unlike most of the other options on the casino floor it's in a self-contained space.  That blocks out the constant ringing from the slot machines and the smell of smoke.  I never could become a serious gambler because I hate the smell of smoke.  I suppose smoking might kill off a few gamblers before they piss away all their money at the blackjack table or slot machines.

I had a nice plate of hand rolled ravioli with salad and bread.  It was a nice portion.  One of my friends who is a big guy with a hearty appetite told me he had trouble finishing his prime rib at one of the other hotel restaurants.  He said he left about a third of it behind.  I hate wasting food, so the thought of leaving a third of my meal behind doesn't appeal to me.  I couldn't mind a big portion if I had a refrigerator in the room for leftovers.  However I don't, so I'll probably skip prime rib this weekend.

Another thing I do like about Nevada state law is that you can take your opened bottle of wine with you.  I'm not going to drink an entire bottle by myself, but I usually want a little more then a glass with dinner.  I have what I want with the meal, and take the rest back to my room to have on other evenings after a late night game.  To get myself into the mind set of what I would like to do over the board this weekend, I chose the bottle of wine below.

At the same time as I was enjoying my nice quiet dinner the US Game/10 Championship was going on.  Some of my friends asked me if I was going to play.  Without even knowing what the entry fee was I told them I was going to pass on that.  I wanted to save my energy for the real chess that starts today.  I'm glad I wasn't interested in playing in it.  The entry fee was $100.  Thanks, but no thanks.  I spent enough on the main event.

This has been one of those rare trips out west where I have not been able to stay awake until 11:00 pm local time.  After updating yesterday's post, I crawled into bed around 9:30, which was 12:30 EDT.  That didn't stop me from waking up every few hours wondering what time it was.  I never sleep particularly well the first night in a strange place.  Finally after numerous attempts to stay asleep I got up around 6:30 am.  I did my taekwondo warm up routine and then I went down stairs to get a cup of tea, and milk for my cereal.  

New York is often referred to as "the city that never sleeps."  However I think Vegas also qualifies on that count.  I'm not used to walking through a casino at 7:00 am and seeing a waitress bring someone another bottle of beer. My guess is the guy hasn't gone to bed yet.  With that in mind, what's with housekeeping knocking on my door at 7:55 this morning?  I guess maybe she assumed I was already in the casino getting ready for a day of action.  My action will be on the chess board.  You can follow the action live on Monroi.

As I started working on this post, I started playing around with the new design features in blogger.  The new edit features are still taking getting used to, but I like the new design editor.  I decided after almost 3 years of blogging it was time for a new look.  I hope you like it.

Travel Tales at 30,000 Feet.

Greetings from American Airlines Flt 1475 to Las Vegas.  It's been a long day so far.  I got up at 6:15 am, caught 6:50 train into Grand Central.  From there I took the shuttle to Times Square. At Times Square I caught the #2 to Penn Station. At Penn Station I took the 7:53 Jersey Transit train to Newark Airport.  Even then I still had to get on another train to actually get to the airport.  Isn't traveling to the airport just great?  Okay I could have spent $100+ on a taxi, and risked get stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike.  My other possible alternative was taking AMTRAK.  However the first train that stops near me and goes to Newark doesn't leave until 9:00 am and arrives at Newark at 9:50.  Somehow I don't think I would have made my 10:05 flight.  AMTRAK is no bargain either. A 50 minute train ride to Newark costs $48 one way.  I went from Chicago to Indianapolis and back for $36 last summer.

To me it's absurd that a major city like New York does not have a direct train from midtown Manhattan to either La Guardia or JFK airports.  On the other hand in the past few months I've flown into Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco and been able to get a train straight into the city.  Maybe the travel gods don't want people to leave New York.  I could stay home, but I have the family travel genes and can't help myself.

I don't really like Newark airport when I'm flying American.  It's Continental Airlines hub airport so other airlines seem to be treated as the poor stepchild.  The layout for security is really poor.  There aren't enough tables for people to put their stuff in bins.  If you get behind a travel newbie who doesn't know how get his stuff in and out the bins you can be slowed down.  Probably my favorite scene in "Up in the Air" is when George Clooney's character is explaining to his protege who to avoid being behind in the security line.

When I got to spot where one of the rent-a-cops looks at your boarding pass and ID there was a woman having a heated discussion with the rent-a-cop.  Being a savvy traveler she had taken her laptop in it's sleeve out one of her carry on bags.  The guy told her she couldn't take 3 bags through.  She explained that she had taken the laptop out to make easier once she got to the security line.  He doesn't want to hear that.  He's saying "You'll have to check one of them."  In the meantime all I want to do is get him to look at my boarding pass and ID and let me get on line.  I'm not sure how that was finally resolved.  I wasn't going wait around and find out.

When I fly I like to make things easy for myself and for those around me, especially the flight attendants.  It's not the glamorous job everyone thinks it is.  A smile, "please" and "thank you" go a long way.  Sometimes I check my bag, but since I was taking a small suitcase I took on the plane with me.  I keep it at a manageable weight.  I don't want to have to wrestle with my suitcase to get it into the overhead bin.  On the EWR-DFW portion of my trip I was in row 9.  Since I have frequent flier status I get to board after first class.  When I have a suitcase I make sure I'm at the gate in time to board when allowed.  I want to have my suitcase near my seat.

Sitting in my seat I get to see some of the annoying things people do.  It's really annoying when somebody in row 20 decides to put their suitcase in the overhead bin by row 8.  That means the poor schmo in row 8 will have to put his bag back near row 20.  Ever tried to go towards the back of a plane when everyone is trying to get off?  Also got to love the people who try to cram bags up there that clearly isn't meant to be carried on.  Fortunately they're paying closer attention to what people try to bring on the plane.  Though I'm sure some people do it deliberately in order to game the system.  Why pay for checking a bag at the counter when you can gate check it for free because there's not enough room overhead?

I love non-chess players' perspective on what I'm doing.  I got talking with a couple of the flight attendants while waiting to use the bathroom.  I mentioned that I was on my way to Las Vegas to play in a big chess tournament.  They asked me if there was money, and whether it would be televised.  I told them there was money to win, but no it wouldn't be televised.  One said "That's too bad.  If you won big and saw you on TV, we could say you were on our flight." Wishful thinking.

I love airline people who have a sense of humor.  When I got to DFW I went to the Admiral's Club to wait for my next flight.  You have to show your membership card to get in.  There were two ladies working at the front desk.  One lady was checking in a family of four.  One of the kids asked his dad "What is this place?" The lady behind the desk says "This where your parents leave you while they go on vacation. I'll be in charge of you while they're away."  The kid's eyes got real big, like he thought she might be serious.  Then she told him it wasn't true.  I told the lady helping me that I'm sure some parents would pay a lot more for their membership if they could leave their kids there.  I got on the elevator with the family.  His dad asked him if he really believed what the lady said.  The kid said just for a minute.  I think it was longer then a minute, but what kid wants to admit that he's gullible enough to believe that he would be left at the airport while his parents went on vacation?

Looking out the window of the plane and see nothing but desert.  I think we're getting close.  Signing off before I lose my changes.  Stay tuned for tournament reports.

After I signed off I had one of those truly humorous moments that gave a lot of people in coach a good laugh.  We were starting our descent into LAS and the usual announcement comes on. "At this time please remain seated until the captain turns off the seat belt sign. If you want to use your cell phone once we land please make sure it's accessible."  I very carefully took it out of my bag and as we were making our descent it fell out of my hand.  It went sliding down the aisle past many rows of passengers who were now laughing as my phone went flying past them.  I was back on row 20, and my phone finally stopped sliding around row 8.  Thankfully it didn't make all the way to row 3 in first class.  When it finally stopped someone picked it up and passed to the person behind them.  Row by row it got back towards me.  The last person with my phone looks at me and says "5 dollas".  We all had a good laugh.  I never planned to be the inflight entertainment, but sometimes you have to roll with the punches, or perhaps in this case roll with the plane.

Capablanca Memorial - Recap

Sominex Sunday (Yawn!)

When I last wrote I mentioned that I was going into round 3 with hopes of breaking the "wall chart castling" (0 0) trend.  I did have White against a 1785 who also had no points.  Our game was an example of two players trying not to lose.  It was a pathetically boring draw.  However it did stop the losing streak at two.  In round 4 the two schedules merged.  As the low half pointer I dropped down to play a zero pointer.  Once again I had White.

My fourth round opponent was a little late getting to the board.  I get a little paranoid when paired against somebody who has lost all their games on the short schedule and hasn't come to the board.  The thought crosses my mind that he got fed up and went home.  However when the opponent is the son of the organizer there is no way he is withdrawing without notifying the director.  It had just taken me a few minutes to make the connection when I looked at the last name I had written down.  DUH!   The game started out quietly with a bunch of trades.  We both made a few attempts to mix things up a bit in an ending with two rooks and seven pawns each.  There wasn't much to do with a position like that unless either one of us made a gross blunder.  Eventually I realized this position had no possibilities and I offered a draw.  He accepted.  On Monday his father told me that his son thought it was one of the most boring games he played.  I wasn't going to argue the point.  After my crappy Saturday, my play was pretty uninspired on Sunday.  The only fireworks I saw were outside, not over the board.

The hotel is located across the street from CA Great America Amusement Park.  One could hear the screams from people riding roller coasters and other thrill rides.  I actually had gone to that amusement park back in 1981 when playing at the US Open in Palo Alto.  I got dragged onto some ride that I really didn't want to do.  One of these years I'll get around to writing about that tournament for my other chess blog since it was my first California event, but I digress.  They had a 15 minute fireworks display that could be seen from the hotel parking lot.  I actually went up the 2nd floor of the parking garage and found a spot to prop my camera so I could hold it relatively still.  The two pictures below are just a few of the numerous shots I took.  The fireworks were not as impressive as the 4th of July ones I photographed in New York City last year, but I liked being able to keep the camera steadier.

Timing Is Everything

One of the challenges of traveling and staying at a hotel is trying to not go broke on food.  Hotel food albeit convenient is never cheap.  There were reasonably priced alternatives across the street, so I would go have breakfast at one place, and later on get lunch and dinner at another place.  Unfortunately the bagel shop where I had been getting breakfast was closed on Memorial Day.  I looked at the breakfast buffet prices at the hotel and decided I wasn't in the mood to pay $19.95 for breakfast.  I tried going to the IHOP across the street, but the wait was going to be too long, so I ended out coming back to the hotel for the breakfast.

I can justify the over priced breakfast buffet by making the most out of it.  That means grabbing a bagel or extra slices of bread, some cold cuts and making a sandwich for lunch.  An apple or orange rounds out the lunch.  Some people might argue that one should only take what they're going to eat at the meal.  However between what I did eat at the table, and what I took for later I had as much as some people would eat in one sitting.  However an omelet, slice of toast and a bowl of fresh fruit was plenty for breakfast.

I happened to have been seated next to three teachers from Orange County who had taken a road trip up to San Francisco and were now making their way back down south via Santa Clara to Monterrey and Carmel.  We got talking about some of the issues we deal with as teachers with misbehaving kids.  They teach middle school and high school, but some of the problems are the same that I see with elementary school kids.  They were interested in the fact that I taught chess in school.  It was an interesting discussion, and a nice way to pass time during breakfast.  Most of the time when I travel by myself I eat in solitude with a book or newspaper to keep my company.

They finished up before me, and were taking care of their check.  One of the women had won a $100 gift certificate for the hotel restaurant.  I wasn't paying much attention to the discussion between her and the waiter, but the next thing I know she was pointing to me.  I look up and say "What just happened?" She explained that she just took care of my breakfast for me because she couldn't get get cash back on the gift certificate.  She figured why waste the balance.   I thanked her very much, and thought to myself "Wasn't that a lucky break on my part?" Timing and location was perfect.  I was hoping maybe such serendipity would carry over to my morning round.

Delayed Reaction

Due to my longer then planned breakfast I arrived at the board about five minutes late.  My opponent had provided the clock, and it was running when I sat down.  The kid had the exact same model of the Chronos clock that I had, and it appeared that he had set it the same way I set mine.  There are a few different ways to set the display for any given time control.  I didn't give the clock anymore thought and proceeded to get into a very interesting game. Unlike me who played very quietly with White, my opponent played aggressively trying to set up a Yugoslav type setup against my Accelerated Dragon. However I managed to discourage him from castling queen side with a knight trade that messed up his pawn structure.

I won a pawn on the 23rd move when I played Qxa2.  I spent a lot of time thinking about the capture to make sure it wasn't a poisoned pawn.  Sometimes I have a tendency to grab a pawn like that and ask questions later.  However when the questions are "Will I get my queen trapped? or "How will I leave the area if he attacks?" it's better to answer the questions first before making a decision.  Longer time controls give you that opportunity to find the right answers.  I didn't hold onto the pawn as long as I would have liked, and fortunately for me he misplayed a few moves after we made time control.

It was when we made time control that I finally noticed that he had not set the clock with the 5 second delay*.  I'm not sure why I didn't notice before that point.  I got rather annoyed with my opponent and said "You didn't set the delay."  He calmly said "I know."  Though I knew I probably would not get it changed, I still went to talk to the tournament director.  I'm a tournament director so I know the drill.  If I had spotted it within the first couple of moves I could have gotten it corrected, but at this point I knew I was SOL and would have to deal with it.  Fortunately with a time limit of 30/90 SD/1 I should be okay.  We both made our 30th moves with 20 minutes to spare.

* Note for my foreign readers.  Time delay is an American thing.  The clock counts down 5 seconds and then starts the main time.  Unlike increment where the time can accumulate if you use less then the increment time, delay time doesn't accumulate.  So if you only use one second of the delay, you don't get the remaining 4 seconds added.

I eventually won another pawn, and very cautiously squeezed out the ending.  I missed chances to make it easier, but I eventually got the remaining minor pieces off the board, and able to penetrate with my king, and was on the verge of promoting when he resigned.  We had played 80 moves over the course of 4 1/4 hours.  I was happy he didn't make me play it all the way down to mate.  Here's the game.  I thought I played really well, but both of us had made errors.

LYu-pw053110.pgn


Afterward I discussed the clock issue and asked him why he had not set the delay.  He said he didn't know how to set the delay.  I thought maybe he had just gotten the clock, but he's actually owned for awhile.  I told him he should learn how to set it correctly since delay is the preferred method.  I also said that if he doesn't set the delay, he should at least let the opponent know there is no delay so that the opponent has the option to provide a clock with delay or isn't surprised later on.  I'm not saying that he was deliberately trying to deceive me, but I didn't think it was very sporting not to say anything.  I've heard kids boast that they don't set the delay intentionally to deceive the opponent.  At a long time control such as 40/2 SD/1 or 30/90 SD/1 it may not make a big difference, but at a short control such as G/30 or G/60 the delay time becomes far more important.

Finally I had a win to my credit.  If I could win the last round then I could salvage an even score.  That would make for a very satisfying result since I was one of the lowest rated players in the section.  After starting the tournament with 3 straight adult opponents, I ended the tournament with three straight kid opponents.  My opponent got to the board first, and had put his clock out.  He also had a Chronos clock.  Having learned my lesson from the previous round, I asked him if the delay was on.  He said no.  I told him delay was the preferred setting, and that I wanted to play with delay.  I started to take my clock out, but he quickly reset his clock with delay.  This opponent wasn't claiming to not know how to set it.  He just decided he would not use delay.  Maybe it's a Northern California thing, but everywhere else I play anyone who has a delay clock, uses the delay.

This game could be subtitled "Dancing With Knights".  We both were making many knight moves, particularly late in the game.  We were both trying to maneuver our knights into enemy territory.  However it was apparent that neither of us were going to let the other cause problems with knights lodged deep the opponent's territory.  7 out my final 10 moves were knight moves. My opponent made 5 knight moves in the final 10 moves.  We finally agreed to draw on move 35.  Once again my play with White led to another drawn position.  My games with Black were far more interesting and despite losing 2 of them, I felt I played much better with Black.

Co-Champions of A+ Section

Winston Zeng  

Manuel Mangrobang III

An interesting sidebar to this tournament was how my section ended up.  If you remember, I handed my first round opponent, Manuel Mangrobang III a large gift when I did not play 24...f6 to stop his threat of 25. Rxg5.  I guess he was so inspired by not having to play out an ending down a pawn with 4 pawn islands, that he went on to win his next 4 rounds to go into round 6 with a 5-0 record.  He simply needed a draw against his last round opponent to win clear first.  Unfortunately he last round opponent was Winston Zeng, a sharp 9 year old kid who I lost to last year at the National Open.  He had about as much luck as I did against Winston, so the two of them tied for first.

As far as the annoying opponent I played in round two, he was just as obnoxious in the other rounds too.  He annoyed his other opponents with the piece and clock slamming.  It was amusing watch him slam a piece in triumph only to find the opponent refuting the move, and going on to win.  He ended out with the same score as me. If I end out having to play him at the National Open this weekend I'm not going put up with his crap.  He is playing in my section. 

I wrote a tournament report about the event which is on Chess Life Online.  There one can read about the overall tournament.