Tuesday, June 2, 2009

NY State Woman's Championship

I played in the New York State Women's Championship this weekend at the Marshall Chess Club. 13 women ranging from 8 years old to 65+ competed. There was a lot of hard fought games through out the tournament. Here are some pictures from the event. Games with analysis will follow in the next few days. I had some of my most interesting and challenging games as of late. It helps when I have time to think.

The Queens of Brooklyn
Coach Elizabeth Vicary with 5 of her students from IS 318

I played three of these young ladies, and even though I out rated them by 450 to 550 points, all them made me bust my butt to manage to score 2.5 against them. They played aggressively, and held on right to the end. Probably by next year they'll be within a 100 points of me, and will kick my butt. 1100 - 1200?? HA! Maybe next year I'll have to go play in the senior. It might be easier.

Elizabeth deep in thought while playing Rochelle Ballantyne in 3rd round.

Jie Jing Li getting ready for her 3rd round match with me.
A 3.5+ hour draw ensued.

Jessica Regam of Pennsylvania playing round 4 against Ms. Vicary
Lots of hard fought chess which I think tired everyone out.

Julie Flammang another 3 point scorer.

NYSCA Secretary, Phyllis Benjamin does a simul with her opponent from the Women's event and the player getting the bye in the senior. Usually it's her son Joel that's giving simuls.

Prize winners
1st: Elizabeth Vicary 3.5
2nd - 4th Jessica Regam, Julie Flammang, Jie Ji Li 3
5th Polly Wright 2.5

Games and observations to follow. I promise not to go off on a negative kid rant. :-)

6 comments:

From the patzer said...

Congrats with fifth place!

Youngsters are always underrated and so hard to battle. So scoring 2,5 against them isn't bad at all.

Anonymous said...

Rule of thumb: add rating points based on age.

16-17: +100
13-15: +200
9-12: +300
youngun': +400

(I pulled those numbers out of my head, but maybe there's some mathematical way to calculate?)

Polly said...

LEP: That's actually probably fairly accurate based on my experience with kids of different ages. Though I find when you play someone with arting close to this formula; (age X 100)+1000=rating then the rating is probably pretty close to actual ability.

Example for an 8 year old (8x100)+1000 = 1800. He's probably really 1800 at the stage, though is on his way to moving up.

Anonymous said...

I like the amazing way that

Linuxguy said...

Wait, I'm starting to think it's ridiculous how I am seeing so many kids with high-ratings (just open Chess Life, if nowhere else).

Personal chess coaches aside, I think one of the things that young players have (besides a cheering parent or coach) is that they can play so fast.

I have begun to see chess as more of a performance/experience art, than just plain analysis. How many games do you make terrible moves in time-trouble after playing a quality opening (or at least quality versus your opponents')?

When have you ever seen a kid's play go south because they were A) in time-trouble? B) energy level drop? Despite the possible feigned boredom, I've personally never seen those things happen from a very young player.

I would not want to get in time-trouble versus youth. Keep it solid, let them mix it up first, don't give them a solvable advantage.

Polly said...

Linux: Fortunately the time control in this tournament was fairly long 30/85 followed by G60. The youth reflexes in time pressure were not an issue. They can wear you down in a long game, and they don't give up. My two wins went right down to mate. My draw even went down to knight vs lone pawn. My loss I will blame partially on being tired from the first game, and maybe taking the opponent a little too lightly.