Turning Point Towards 1800

It was no April Fools joke about my 1800 rating.  I left with one of my typical time pressure train wreck positions.  I'm wondering to myself, will people think I do nothing on this blog except show butt ass ugly losses?  Are there any wins out there that are worth sharing?  The answer is yes.

As I mentioned in the previous post, losing that 2nd round game was pretty disheartening.  I have been continually frustrated with my inability to put such games behind me and move on.  Somehow on that particular Monday I moved on.  On any given Monday I go to the Bob Peretz Chess Club to run our Monday action tournament(3 rounds, game/25; 5 second delay), not knowing whether or not I'll need to play.  If an even number of players show up, I'll sit it out so no one gets a bye.  If an odd number of players show up, I'll play.  There are some Mondays where I'm hoping like crazy that we have an even number so I don't have to play.  I think it was one of those Mondays where I would have been just as happy playing Scrabble on my iPad or reading Facebook posts then playing chess. 

Sometimes it's best to be pushed into something that one would rather not do.  So here I am on a night where I'd rather not be playing, and I've just lost my 28th game to Guy.  Now I have to play another kid who is currently ranked #5 amongst 8 year olds in the United States.  Long time readers know my stories about playing little kids.  However this post is not one of my "kid encounters of the third kind".  No annoying quirks or other silly nonsense.  In fact my young opponent score 10 out of 10 on the politeness scale.  Here's a kid before the game who looks me in the eye, confidently says "good luck" and gives a good firm handshake.  No "dead fish" handshake that I often get from kids.  At the end of the game another firm handshake and "good game."

Here's the game.

My even score for that Monday night would bump my rating from 1700 to 1706. A very modest gain, but it was the start of something more to come.

Rating: 1859! April Fools!.....Not!

Today is April 1st, and the April rating list is now in affect.  For the first time since February 1997 I have a published rating over 1800.  I don't even want to count that month because I was at my floor of 1800. They lowered the floor by 100 points and by April of 1997 I was sitting at 1702.  To save you the trouble of going to the USCF website and checking on me, I offer the following:

If you're wondering whether or not I've been doing loads of hardcore studying and brushing up on tactics, the answer is no.  Despite the miserable ending of 2013 where I scored a miserable 1/2 point (a 1/2 pointed that I lucked into in a hopelessly lost position) out of the last 5 games I played that year, I did not make any bold New Years resolutions such as "I'm going to study chess everyday for an hour."  Even a little resolution such as "I will work on 5 tactics problems a day" was not promised.  I don't make New Year's resolutions because all I would do is not keep them and then beat up on myself for not sticking to them. I'm not even sticking so well to promise to myself to write more often. 

My first tournament of 2014 had the potential of being special.  I drew with an 1800 in round 1 and beat another 1800 in round 3.  Unfortunately sandwiched between those games was one of my usual time pressure induced implosions again Guy Colas.  He's beaten me more times then his son Josh has.  His son is rated 2350 or so.  Admittedly Guy and I have played each other more often then Josh and I have.  However I've lost to Guy 28 times and to Josh 23 times.  It seemed like I could win the game.  But with a second left on my clock I had this position:

He just played 57. Rb7.  I replied 57...Kf6.  The game continued 58. Ne3, Nd4?? 59. Nd5+! The clock resigned for me.  Usually a game like that would leave me totally discouraged for the last round.  However somehow I had some fight left in me and won the last round against a young kid who out rated me by a good 100 points.

Stay tuned for more details.

2013 2nd quarter - The road not taken

The highlight of my second quarter chess travels was the decision to not send in an advance entry for the Memorial Day weekend tournament that I had played in the last two years. My plan was to combine my Memorial Day weekend chess trip with my Team in Training trip to Lake Tahoe for America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride. I figured I play in the tournament, and then take in a side trip to wine country on my way to Lake Tahoe. I got a super cheap airfare to San Francisco way back in February. I think I bought my ticket to San Francisco before my ticket for my earlier trip to Colorado and Seattle. Getting a round trip ticket to San Francisco for $230 was too good a deal to pass up. It was case of buying the cheap ticket first and figuring out the details later.

The previous year I totally winged it. I had entered the 3 day schedule of Best of the West, and then decided to stay an extra day so that I could go on a ride with a West Coast friend's bike club. I switched to the 2 day schedule. The bike ride was beautiful, and the chess was ugly. Thinking back on that, combined with my miserable performance in Victoria I decided I would not commit to the tournament until it got closer to the trip. If I really wanted to play, I could suck it up and pay at the door. If I didn't want to play then I didn't have to worry about getting a refund.

Here is a picture essay of my Memorial Day weekend "chess" trip.

After last year's ride across the Golden Gate Bridge I had vowed I would never ride a bike across the bridge ever again.  It is truly a scary thing, even for an experienced cyclist such as myself.  Between the tourists on the beach cruiser bikes that can't ride a straight line and the tourists who insist on walking or stopping in the bike lane it's an accident waiting to happen.  Throw in the maniac racer types trying to weave through that mess going 20 mph it's downright frightening.  Despite all of that, I couldn't resist another ride across the bridge to Sausalito. 

20 odd miles and a ferry ride later, I'm back at San Francisco's biggest tourist trap, Fisherman's Wharf.  Although I have to confess. No matter how many times I come to San Francisco, I can't resist the sea lions.  They're the cheapest entertainment in the city.  I can spend hours laughing at their antics, and taking a bazillion pictures.  Thank goodness for digital cameras.  I think on one trip (pre-digital camera) I went through about 5 - 10 rolls of film taking pictures of them.  Really now, how many sea lion prints did I need?

When one rides a bike in San Francisco there are going to be hills.  It doesn't matter if one stays off the streets with the crazy big ass hills, it's hard to get anywhere in San Francisco without encountering some hills.  Fleeing to the other side of the bay doesn't help.  One of my cycling buddies who lives in Oakland asked me to come on her club ride.  Boy was I in for a surprise.

This is the top of Mount Diablo.  10 miles of uphill!  However the good thing about climbing up 10 miles of road on a bike is afterward you get to go down 10 miles of road. That last little stretch to the very top in the picture above is about a 19% grade. Pure evil!

Did I say something about chess?  Nope.  The only game I saw played over the weekend was a great baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies.  The Giants were getting their butts kicked, but came back to win with a walk off inside the ball park home run in the bottom of the 10th. 

Cap Day!!

The solution to whining about playing lousy chess, is not to play lousy chess.  Easier said then done.  The easiest way to do it is to skip the chess and go for the wine instead.  So instead of getting on a train and going to Santa Clara I got in a car and drove to Santa Rosa to visit the Charles Schultz Museum. I've always loved Peanuts, so I wanted to visit the museum on my way to Healdsburg where I would be staying for a few days to sample the local produce.

This is a close up of what makes up the gigantic mural pictured below.  Thousands of Peanuts strips put together to make the picture of Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.  I can relate to Charlie Brown's frustration.  At times my inability to finish off a "won" game is like Charlie Brown's inability to kick the football.  Though instead Lucy pulling away the ball, it's my brain pulling away my focus or whatever that ends out costing me a game. Example below.

I wasn't originally putting a game in this post, but after making the Charlie Brown analogy I thought it was only fitting to post this game from the last round of the 2013 Westchester CC club championship.

The only frustration I may have felt on this trip was not having enough time visit all the places I wanted to see.  However I can't complain too much.  I enjoyed tasting a lot of good wine and food.

 Food and wine tasting at Vino Velo, St. Helena, CA

Appetizer, dinner and dessert to die for in Lake Tahoe at Edgewood Golf Club.

It's good thing I cycled 100 miles around Lake Tahoe! I had burn off off the calories I consumed on this trip.  I'll end this post with one of the incredible views I got during the event.

My next post will include a game that relates to this trip, but was not played on this trip.  This was truly a chess free road trip.

2013 2nd Quarter April Fools!

As promised or perhaps threatened is a better choice of word, a game from the first quarter of 2013.  Technically the game is from the start of the 2nd quarter.  It was played on April 1st, but since it was from the Grand Pacific Open that started on March 29th I'm including as part of the first quarter.

Spoiler alert!  Skip to the game if you don't want to know how it ended before the end.  Otherwise feel free to read on. 

I can't blame this train wreck on time pressure.  For the most part Game/90 with a 30 second increment does not lead to insane time scrambles I've experienced in Thursday Night "Cracktion".  Perhaps if I had 10 seconds left then maybe my move could be excused.  I had over 10 minutes left, and I spent almost two minutes on the final move.  My opponent on the other hand used less then a minute to respond.  I suppose losing a game in this manner was very fitting for April 1st.  My last move certainly had all the makings of a great April Fools joke.  Unfortunately getting mated is no joke.

End of spoiler. Let the game begin.

I can't even begin the explain what the heck happened there.  I totally outplayed my opponent the entire game, but couldn't quite finish him off.  I can't even blame it on being over confident because I had a crushing position.  I've done that many times in the past and did it a few times in 2013.  Some things just never change.  In this game I think I became fixated on Black's pinned rook and forgot about his queen.

No USCF rating points were harmed in the making of this disastrous tournament.  I think my Canadian rating took such a hit that I don't even show up on the CFC website.  I'm not sure why that is since I've played in the tournament 4 times which means I should have a Canadian rating based on 24 games.  When I do a cross table search on the event nothing comes up.  Maybe all these chess trips to Victoria have been a figment of my imagination.  Silly me.

Random Thoughts on the 1st Quarter of 2013.

A belated Happy New Year. Merry 11th day of Christmas. 

On the 11th day of Christmas my true love brought to me......

11 mates in one.  Nope that's not right.

I kept telling myself I would write more in 2013, but some how it did not happen.  Then again maybe it was because my chess wasn't all that interesting.  I started the year at 1747 and finished the year sitting on my floor of 1700.  Hitting more floor is nothing new, I've done it a ton of times.  In 2013 I lost, gained and lost those 47 points a number of times.  It’s kind of like yo-yo dieting. Lose weight, gain it back.  Lose it again, gain it back again.  Most yo-yo dieters spend many months losing the weight, and then bam! Go back to normal eating and gain the weight and then some in half the time.  I do rating points the opposite way.   I’m doing the rating point diet.  It takes me forever to gain rating points, and takes me no time at all to have a crappy tournament and chuck them all away.

Actually it took awhile to lose the 36 rating points I gained on 2012 New Years Eve.  That's because my 1st rated event after that was the US Amateur Team East where I tossed 15 of them by going 2-4 on Board 2.  Our team went 3-3.  Some how we never seem to mange to win that last round to get the plus score.  BTW, I've come to the conclusion that playing in the main ballroom is over rated.  It's crowded and noisy.  

You're probably thinking, "Wow! She didn't play the entire month of January."  I did play one game but it was part of the club championship that's played over the course of several months.  I got my butt kicked by Joshua Colas.  Then again he was rated 2335 at the time.  Directing a club championship over the course of several months is harder then running a 300 player scholastic tournament.  The scholastic tournament and all the headaches are done in a day or two.  The club championship is the headache that keeps coming back.  I directed the club championship at both my clubs and both were a headache.  Guess what? I'll be doing it again very soon.

No Liberty Bell Open in 2013.  Although my 2012 strategy of taking 2 1/2 point byes in the 3-day schedule and not coining until Sunday worked out fairly well, I didn't feel like making the drive to Philly.  Instead I rode my bike 51 miles that Sunday.  Some people may think riding a bike outside in New York during January is pretty stupid.  They may be right, but I find freezing my ass off while riding is more fun then freezing my ass off in a cold tournament hall, especially if I'm playing like an idiot.

I did make my 4th annual trip to the Grand Pacific Open in Victoria, BC.  I had my worst tournament ever for that event.  One draw and 5 losses.  Maybe I should suck it up and play in Under 1800 section if I go back this year.  That's a dilemma I still have to decide on.  (I digress)  

Maybe I can blame my bad performance on the little detour I took on the way out there.

 Yes I skied down that.

Yes that's me on the left.

For a change I took advantage of the fact that I had the entire week off before Easter.  So instead of simply flying out to Seattle on Thursday and jumping on the ferry the next day, I spent 4 days in Colorado and then went to Seattle.  Skied for the first time in 7 years.  My ski muscle memory is much better then my chess muscle memory.  It all came back very quickly.  In hind sight I should have just spent the whole week in Colorado.

If I remember how to upload games I'll include one in my next post.

Draw Drama: Oscar for "best touch move sob story"

This past weekend I directed at the state scholastic championships.  I worked on the floor as opposed to my normal computer duties that I perform at our local events.  When I'm the computer tournament director my main responsibilities are input the scores, do the pairings and post the results.  For the most part I'm fairly immune to the dramatics that sometimes occur on the playing floor.  There are times I can end out contributing to the dramatics because a result was reported incorrectly (players' or floor TD's error) or I had a case of dyslexia and put in the wrong result. (my error).  Fortunately it doesn't happen often and it's usually pretty easy to fix. 

Working on the floor at tournaments can be far more challenging when faced with difficult situations.  Touch move disputes tend to be the bane of every tournament director's existence.  It takes a patient tournament director to be able to ask the right questions and come up with a fair decision based on the answers given by the players involved.  One has to be very diplomatic in handling a situation of one player's word versus the other.  As I explained in this post a few years ago there are a number of things the TD can do to try to resolve the back and forth of "He touched the bishop." "No I didn't!".  Most of the touch move disputes I dealt with over the weekend were pretty straight forward and the final decision didn't impact what was going on in the position.  However my luck ran out on Sunday in the K-1 section. 

I was called over to this position by the player with White. He claimed Black touched the pawn.

Before looking closely at the position I'm thinking to myself, "What's the big deal about touching the pawn?"  I asked Black if he touched the pawn.  He said "Yes, but I don't want to move it."  I tell the player he has to move it.  At this point he bursts into tears and says something to the effect of "It was an accident.  I didn't mean to move it."

At this point I realize that moving the pawn to e3 is going to turn this totally won game for Black into stalemate allowing White to get out with a draw.  I tell Black that it's touch move and that he has to move the pawn.  He then proceeds to tell me that he doesn't know the touch move rule and that because of that he should be able to make a different move.  I tell him that it doesn't work that way.   The rule is the rule.  He continues telling me that it's not fair because he didn't know the rule.  I look at the pairing sheet and notice that he has a rating in the high 900s.  A first grader with that rating clearly has some idea of what he's doing and certainly knows about touch move. He keeps insisting that since he didn't know the rule or that he forgot the rule that he should not have to move the pawn. 

I have to come up with a simple explanation of ignorance of the law doesn't excuse one from breaking the law.  Quick! How do you explain that to a 6 year old?  I used an analogy of my going through a red light. I told him that even if I tell the cop that I didn't know I couldn't go through the red light, I still was going to get a ticket.  Same thing applies here.  "Move the pawn."  The tears didn't stop, but he did finally make the pawn move.  I try to be patient and kind in these situations, but at the same time I want to just tear my hair out and tell the kid "Cut the crap. I know you know the rule. Stop giving me this sob story, and just move the #$& pawn!" However what I may be thinking can't be said out loud. Instead I have to make a fair ruling and try to help the kid learn from the experience.

That was only one of the draw dramas I dealt with over the weekend.  Stay tuned for part 2.

USATE - Kid story

It's been a pretty mellow event for me.  Having gotten over the flu I've been laying pretty low.  My results have been rather average.  I've lost to 2 experts, drew an 1800 and a 1500.  I beat a 1345.  The 1345 is the one little kid I've played this weekend.  Be still my heart, I've played 4 adults.  I don't remember the last time that happened.  No game against a lower rated kid would be complete without some story behind the game itself.  We were paired against a team of 4 little kids.  Our 3rd and 4th boards won pretty quickly.  Our 1st board and I were having to work a little harder on our games.  I had won a pawn in the opening, but I didn't exactly take full advantage of my material edge.  We reach the following position after I played 30. Qb3 pinning his knight on d5.

I have the threat of 31. e4, but I figured he breaks the pin either by moving his king or put his rook on e6.  I'm simply looking to buy some time while I figure out what I want to do about his threat of Nxc3, with a discovered attack on Nf3.  The truth be told I didn't really have any great plan up my sleeve.  I'm going to have to either move my knight or play my king to g2.

The kid reaches for the knight and then pulls his hand away.  He reaches for it again, and pulls his hand back again.  I keep thinking to myself "He's got to see the pin which is why he's hesitating."  The reality is he's totally missed the pin and is probably trying to figure out where the trap is after 30...Nxc3, 31. bxc3 Qxf3.  Finally he plays the move 30...Nxc3??  I stop the clock and tell him he's made an illegal move.  I know the rules about illegal moves and touching opponent's pieces.  However I decided I would let the tournament director explain the rule to him.  I get the tournament director and point out what happened.  He asked me if my opponent touched my bishop.  I said "Yes.  He took the bishop with his knight and pressed the clock."  The director informed him that he would have to capture my bishop.  The problem is the only legal capture is with the queen.  The kid was rather upset and immediately resigned.  I'll give him credit for that.  At least he didn't make me play the position out to mate.

Afterward I saw the director in the hallway, and he said in all the years he's directed that's the first time he's had a situation like that.  Most of the time there's been no legal capture or if there has been it hasn't been so devastating.  It wasn't the prettiest way to win, but a win is a win.

Here are a few pictures from the gimmick contest.

Alice in Wonderland theme with the red king and queen.  

Along with the white queen and the Mad hatter. (2nd place)

Knights of the Roman Forum (1st place)

One match left to go.  We're 3-2.  We'll probably get paired up again.  I have no idea what's happening at the other end of the ballroom where the serious games are happening.  I'm don't know how many perfect scores there are.  I'm a little too tired to care.  That's the problem when recovering from the flu.  I'm preserving what strength I have for my games, such as they are.

Goodbye Thursday Night Cracktion

Last night was a sad occasion in the annuls of chess in New York City.  Steve Immitt held his last "4 Rated Games Tonight" at the New Yorker Hotel.  Known as "America's Longest Running Action Tournament!" it had been going on since 1987.  I guess like a good Broadway show, it closes sooner or later.  Hopefully like many a great Broadway show, there will be a revival of Steve's action show.

I wish I could say that I had one more good chapter to add to Polly's Thursday follies, but alas a nasty case of the flu caused me to miss closing night.  Unfortunately when one teaches chess to kids there's not only the risk of being exposed to bad chess playing, but the risk of being exposed to cooties of the worst kind.  All the hand-washing and flu shots could not save me from this nasty bug.  Who knows if it was the kindergarten kid who kept coughing in my face despite my pleading with him to cover his mouth, or the 2nd grader that kept putting the pieces near his face who gave me this lovely flu.  All I know is that it's been a lousy week, made worse by missing Steve's last Thursday tournament.

As of this statistics post written on May 2, 2009 I had played 790 games in Thursday night "cracktion" events.  I've never gotten around to updating those numbers with the games played since I made that post, but my guess would be that I probably played another 300 to 400 games in the event.  A new reader might ask why I refer to the event as "cracktion".  Considering how many games I played in that particular tournament one can see that despite how bad it might be for one's game it's like crack.  Very addicting.

Many of the games were entertaining, although at times for the totally wrong reason.  At other times the stories behind the games were very entertaining.  There were many colorful characters that I encountered over the years.  Some them I encountered all in one night.  If nothing else the tournaments provided me with a lot of the material used for this blog.  Perhaps that's why I haven't been writing much because I haven't played in the tournament much in the last year.  Actually that's not really the case.  Much of 2012 was spent focusing on getting my 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.  The feat was accomplished in November.  Preparing for that test was more stressful then having one second on my clock in a winning position.

With that out of the way, there may be more time for blogging and playing chess.  Time will tell.  Tomorrow I'm off to Parsippany for my 33rd US Amateur Team - East tournament.  I get a break from getting hammered on board one this year.  I'll be playing board two with most of the usual suspects from my chess club.  I'm not sure how much of a break it will be.  My post-flu track record at chess tournaments isn't so good.  As Alfred E Neuman would say "Who me worry?"  I may skip a US Open or New York State Championship here and there, but the USATE is another story.  I still regret skipping it in 1991 otherwise I'd have a very impressive streak of consecutive years played.  Though 22 years in a row isn't too shabby.

Stay tuned.

It's Been a Ferry Long Time

Polly's chess traveling road show is on it's way.  I've made my 3rd annual appearance at the Grand Pacific Open in Victoria, British Columbia.  I debated whether or not I wanted to go.  I've not been playing much chess this year.  My addiction to Thursday Night Cracktion has ceased for the time being.  I did made my 36th appearance at the USATE where I played some really crappy chess on Saturday and Sunday.  I only redeemed myself with two wins on Monday.  I don't know if I was too embarrassed or just plain fed up to even blog about the tournament.

Off on a tangent there. Back to resuming my travels.  Despite my life being filled with non-chess things such as cycling and Tae Kwon Do, I decided I missed the enjoyment of getting away for awhile and playing a little chess.  If all else fails, I know I will enjoy seeing old friends and meeting some new ones.

Plane to see, Polly's leaving on a jet plane.

I flew to Seattle yesterday, via Chicago.  For a change I got out to Seattle in the early evening instead of the middle of the night.  By the time I got to my hotel my body was telling me it was 10:30 pm, but it was only 7:30.  I couldn't exactly go to bed.  Also I've been participating in the 100 Day Challenge.  This challenge simply is doing some sort of exercise for at least 30 minutes a day.  I don't count wandering around airport terminals as real exercise.  Yesterday I had not done any real exercise, so I took a nice walk in Seattle.  I carried my little point and shoot camera with me.  Damn, some of these pictures are as good as some of the ones I take with my fancy DSLR.

Space Needle

Seattle City skyline at night.

Today I had a very uneventful ferry ride from Seattle to Victoria.  Thankfully no detours like two years ago.   I sat with friends I had met last year at the tournament.  It's a bit colder this year since Easter is earlier this year.  I did not spent quite so much time on the outside deck taking pictures.

Snow Capped Mountains

 Baby, it's cold outside!

Not the best shot I've had taken of me.  I didn't even bother to look to see if the picture was any good or not.  It's one of my classic closed eyes shots that usually would be rejected and retaken until my eyes are open.  However I didn't want to make the kind stranger do another shot.

I'm enjoying the quiet of my hotel room at the moment.  The lobby is overflowing with little chess playing munchkins.  They have a kids event before the main event starts this evening.  Canadian scholastic events aren't much different then United States events.  Lots of kids running around and frazzled parents near by.

My first game is at 6:00 pm.  I've got a few hours to kill before hand.  I suppose I could do some tactics on Shredder.  Nah! The sun is out.  Time to take a walk!!

My Last Blunder of 2011

....did not occur on December 31st.  I passed on my usual New Year's Eve "cracktion" fix at "Your Last Blunder of ____".  That's because I had to make a choice between chess and cycling.  After several years hiatus, I've renewed my passion for cycling.  Before I started writing this chess blog, I wrote a triathlon/ cycling log.  Still Tri-ing After All These Years.  A number of things led to my lack of enthusiasm for cycling and doing triathlons.  It's a long story that I don't want to bore you with.  Chess and Tae Kwon Do filled up a lot of the time I used to devote to cycling and triathlons. 

I started cycling again this spring with the idea of simply improving my physical conditioning for Tae Kwon Do and chess.  I never thought I would get back to the cycling condition I was in back in 2005, but I have.  It's been gratifying to know that six years older I could still ride fast. So with the temperature being the 50s on December 31st, I chose to go riding with my weekend training group.

In my last post I referred to the light at the end of the tunnel.  It wasn't a train coming the other direction culminating in one of my infamous train wreck stories.  I finally got my rating back over 1800 for the first time since 1996.  I had two good tournaments in a row.  I went 3-0 in one tournament to go from 1703 to 1774. Three days later I played at the Marshall Chess Club and finally broke my 14 game losing steak at the club.  I got an even score and jumped from 1774 to 1810.

It would have been nice to end 2011 with my rating at 1810, unfortunately the following week there was an odd number at my club and I had to put myself into the tournament.  It was one of those nights where I did not feel like playing.  I was tired, and admittedly I think I wanted to sit on my 1800 rating for awhile.  I started out with two horrible games where I got smashed.  I thought to myself "Here we go again.  Back to playing like an idiot."  However in the last round I managed to redeem myself with this entertaining game. 

CrRddell-pw.pgn


It wasn't a brilliant game, but it at least stopped the bleeding of rating points. I dropped 19 points to end 2011 at 1791.  Not a bad finish considering miserable my record was for most of 2011.  I did recoup a few points in my first tournament of 2012.  I didn't play any more games before the cut off for the February rating list so my published rating will be 1796.  I don't plan to play in any under 1800 sections any time soon.  In fact I'm not even playing in an Under 1900 section any time soon. 

I'm off to Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon to play in the Liberty Bell Open.  Like last year I'm planning to play in the Under 2100 section.  I can't make it down in time to play all the rounds of the three day schedule.  Instead of subjecting myself to the insanity of playing 4 games at game/35 in the two day schedule on Sunday, I'm taking byes for the first two rounds and then playing five rounds at the more civilized time control of 40/2 SD/1.  Even though I've had some good results at the faster time controls, I'm looking forward to having time to really think. 

Stay tuned.

Light At The End of The Tunnel

I told you it wouldn't be three months before you would hear from me again.  In fact it's actually less then three weeks.  When I last posted I was bemoaning the fact that I seemed to have totally forgotten how play the game.  From September 12th to December 1st I made it down to the Marshall Chess Club four times to play in the Thursday Night "cracktion" tournament, otherwise known as "Four Rated Games Tonight!" or once a month "10 Grand Prix Points Tonight!" I played a total of 13 games, and I won a total of zero games. Yep, you read that correctly. Zero wins! 13 losses! Not a draw in sight.  Most of the games were miserable games where I got a lousy position early on and get crushed either very quickly or slowly grounded down. 

If anyone is half-way decent at math he might notice that 4 rated games tonight x 4 = 16.  So what happened to the other 3 games?  One night I opted for the pre-emptive last round bye since I was the lowest rated player and didn't want to deal with possibly getting a bye in round 2 or 3.  The other two times, I dropped out so I could make an earlier train.  What happened to the woman who refused to drop out when having a bad tournament? She left the building in disgust.  One night I resigned after dropping a pawn early because I didn't feel like playing out a long drawn out game down a pawn. Instead I made the 10:32 train.  That's two hours earlier then if I stayed and played the last round.

On that early train ride home I seriously started asking myself "Why are you doing this? You spend $11 on train fare, another $4.50 on the subway, and a $25 entry fee. Why travel into Manhattan to get abused over the chess board? You can stay home and play Monday evenings in White Plains.  So why?"

I concluded there were several reasons why I needed those trips to the Marshall Chess Club.  I don't need them every week like I was doing the last few years. I needed them at least once a month to remind myself  what it's like to see and attempt to play real chess.  I need to spend time hanging out with chess players over the age 30.  When one spends her days teaching chess to kindergartners, first and second graders after awhile it's easy to forget what real chess is. The other big reason to go to the Marshall is, I'm not in charge.  I don't have to deal with the players whining about which ratings are being used, or why they got two blacks in a row, or one player calling another player an @$$ #%!*.  I can simply show up, pay my entry fee and let Steve deal with the knuckleheads.

It's been a strange year for me chess wise.  I skipped the US Open and the New York State Championships for the first time in years. I spent Labor day weekend in San Diego celebrating my niece's 30th birthday.  I could have played in the Southern California Labor Day weekend tournament. It was in San Diego.  I actually contemplated playing the two day schedule, but decided just hanging out with my nieces and nephew would be be more fun.  After my last trip in October with my sisters, I decided I had taken enough plane flights.  There was nowhere I wanted to go.  The thought briefly entered my mind to find a state that I haven't played in, but that will have to wait.  I'm stuck at 26 and counting.

Although I'm doing a lot of non-chess activity.  I've gone back to riding my bike and contemplating a triathlon comeback for next year.  I'm working towards my Second Dan Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do.  That also will probably come next year. 

I will end this post by sharing a game played a few Mondays ago.  It was another case of muddling through the opening and trying to hang on for dear life as my opponent tried to attack the crap out me from the Black side. On that particular night I ended every game with one or less seconds on my clock.  Unfortunately it's not a complete score sheet, but I do have a diagram of the final position.  Don't ask me how we got to that position from where the notation stopped.

pw-aabrams112811.pgn


Having survived an unsound sac with one second on my clock, I managed to bang out another who knows how more moves to arrive at this final position. A flurry of rook and queen checks allowed me to arrive at this lovely finish.

Despite going down to the Marshall that same week and losing another three games, I felt perhaps there was a little fight left me.  Also knowing why I wanted to be there helped make peace with the inner demons who ask "Why bother?"

The answer to "Why Bother?" came in a most surprising manner. Stay tuned....

Chess?!

Let's see, I think I remember that game.  That's the one with the little horsey that moves in an L shape and can jump over other pieces, right?  Bishops are the pointy headed guys that move diagonal, and rooks are those castle like things that move straight?  The queen can move like the castle and pointy headed guy?  The king...that's the piece that can't get captured?  Then there's those round headed guys that cheat because they move one way and capture another way.   Pawns?  Okay I've got my games squared away.

Sometimes I feel like I've totally forgotten how to play chess.  I know how the pieces move, but lately I just don't know what to do with them.  Have I been overexposed to six year old kids that no matter how many times I tell them only knights can jump, still move bishops without moving any pawns?  Maybe it's the kid who no matter how many times I tell him to move the e or d pawn first, insists on playing 1. h4 followed by 2. Rh2.  I suppose it's fitting that I lost last night to someone who opened 1. a4.  I think he really wanted to be black so he wasted a move to let me be "white".  Not that I can blame him.  The two games I played as white were just butt ass ugly.  Maybe he figured he have an easier time against me if he just tossed the tempo and pretended to be "black".  I didn't disappoint.  I tossed the exchange on move 23, and by move 25 managed to turn my disadvantage into a full rook.

Right now I'm wrestling with what I want from chess.  I've got some ideas.  I think I finally figured out why I subject myself to trips to New City to get smashed by experts and A players on Thursday nights.  More on my midnight musings on Metro North in my next post. Yes there will be a next post, and it won't take another 3 months for it to appear.  I just wanted get a few words out to let people know, I am amongst the living.

In Case You Were Wondering......

....where my blog posts on the US Open are, there aren't any.  It's not because I didn't feel like writing about my usual US Open agony.  There was no US Open agony because instead of agonizing over whether or not I should take a bye in round 7 after cramming in six games on Thursday and Friday, I was doing this....

Celebrating Uncle Charlie's 90th birthday

Instead of spending Saturday and Sunday trapped inside sitting in delegates meetings I was doing this...

 Swimming in Lake Massiwhippy

And this...

Listening to jazz on Sunday afternoon.

The only agonizing had been in May when I found out my Uncle Charlie's 90th birthday celebration was going to be the same weekend as the US Open.  There really wasn't that much agonizing.  Let's see....  Orlando, Florida or North Hatley, Canada in August?  Let's see... Sitting in a hotel at the Orlando airport for 5 days playing chess and attending meetings, or spending 4 days at a charming inn in Canada on a beautiful lake hanging out with family and friends.

Yes dear readers, I do have a life outside of chess.  The US Open comes around once a year.  A 90th birthday only comes around once in the person's lifetime.  That's assuming he or she lasts that long.  Sadly I did not get to celebrate a 90th birthday for either of my parents, so when I still have relatives who reach that milestone it's worth traveling far away from the chess scene to celebrate with them.

In case you think this is just a filler piece while I work on my  New York State Championship posts, let me set the record straight.  You'll have to wait until 2012 at the earliest for my next report on the New York State Championship.  That's because when I was in Canada with my sister, I decided I would spend Labor Day weekend in San Diego with her, instead of in her empty house in Albany while playing in the state championship. 

This was the summer of all things not chess.  I played at my club here and there.  I made a token appearance at the Marshall for Thursday cracktion.  Almost a year later I played Black against Scot Mc Elheny again.  Although the result was the same, it was a much longer game.  Maybe this should be filed under Freaky Friday.

SMcElheny-pw081111.pgn


Alas summer chess vacation is over.  I direct my first scholastic tournament this weekend, and I start teaching my first chess classes next week. Last night I showed my face at the Marshall once again.  I think they wondered if I was still alive.  Rumors of my chess death are greatly exaggerated.   Expect to see more blog posts as I try to figure out if I really can play this infernal game called chess.

On the Road, but Not for Chess!

I leave shortly for Brussels in about an hour.  No great chess plans on the agenda though one of my readers did give me a few suggestions of chess cafes.  One I've been to on my last trip to Amsterdam, and I was not successful in getting any games.  Maybe this time I'll have better luck if I visit there again.

A lot has happened in the chess world that I was not part of.  I skipped this year's Thursday Night Action Championship.  I was in no mood to deal with the angst of which section to play in.  The previous Thursday got me fed up with chess.  I realize I'm not going to improve until I do some work on my game.  Right now I don't feel like working on my game.  I have too much else going on.  Read this post at my other blog and you'll understand.

The week before  I went down to the Marshall for Thursday's 4 Rated Games Tonight!  It had been a month since I last played down there.  I figured I should show my face before people thought I had died.  Since Josh and dad weren't going I had to take the train down to Grand Central and then catch the subway down to Greenwich Village.  $5.95 for the train and $2.25 for the subway each way.  On top of that there's the $25 entry fee.  $16.40 + $25 = $41.40 for an evening of "entertainment".

My evening's entertainment featured getting smacked around in round 1 by a 2100.  In between rounds I got into a bit of a heated discussion with a player who had dropped out a tournament at my club.  I wasn't the director that night.  When I run tournaments at my club I either play or don't play depending on whether it's odd or even.  I can either put myself in if the number is odd or take myself out to keep it even.  I was rather annoyed that he withdrew that night because it caused the number to be odd so someone got a bye.  I was even more annoyed that it was him because I had put a rule in requiring players over 1900 to play all the rounds.  I did that because this particular player ended out getting a bye in the last round when a kid took a bye in the last round.  He was pissed off because he wanted to play all 3 rounds.  I let him know that I did not like the fact that he dropped out of the tournament causing someone to get a bye. 

He took offense at my criticizing him for dropping out.  This was not the first time we've exchanged words under not such nice circumstances.  So what happens? I have to play him in the next round.  I hate when I have to play someone who I've had a dispute with.  It just makes things a little uncomfortable.  Outside of the perfunctory hand shake and "good luck" at the beginning nothing else was said.  The game did not get off to a great start.  I managed to lose the exchange early.  However some how I managed to battle back and draw the game, but not before losing a piece.  That part of the game did not get recorded because we both had seconds left on our clock.

Here's the game.

pw-by61611.pgn


I was happy to pull out the draw under those circumstances.  Yes it would have been nice to beat the guy, but a draw against a higher rated player was also acceptable.  Round 3 I got paired up again and lost.  I was also paired up in round 4.  That game was particularly annoying because the opponent gave up a pawn early. It didn't seem like he was getting any huge jump in development from the pawn gambit.  In fact I felt I had an excellent position with passed a and b pawns.  Somehow I let the position slip away and he got all kinds of counter play and went on to win.

Here is that game:

pw-JCuscianna61611.pgn


For $41.40 I got to lose three games, draw one, lose another 13 rating points and get into an argument.  Who needs that crap?  On the train ride back I realized that I'm making myself crazy with this kind of play.  I'm making the same mistakes out of the opening and I'm missing simple tactics.  Why do I need to do this to myself?  Until I invest some time into my game things aren't going to change.  The time limit isn't necessarily the issue.  Many of the mistakes are coming before the clock is a factor. 

I decided unless I'm getting a ride  down to the Marshall I'm not going to play.

To be continued....

Reflections on Deflection

I mentioned in my last post about my two wins in Fremont using the same tactic.  In a rather different style of posting for me, I'm going to do an instructional post.  Lately my games have been rather blah.  I fumble through the opening, muddle through the middle game, and depending on how I survived the middle game, I may or may not been able to hold the position for a win or draw.  It's been rather depressing to watch my games unfold in a similar pattern game after game.  It's also been rather boring.  I really need to shake up my chess if I want to get out of this rut I've been in.  However at the moment I'm not overwhelmingly motivated to do so.  Perhaps a separate post on life as a "Jack of all trades, master of none" is in order, but I digress.

For the entire month of April I did not play one single game of "cracktion".  Every single game I played in April was at a time limit of G/85 or slower.  I played in the Bob Peretz Chess Club Championship and the Westchester Chess Club Championship.  The latter just finished a couple of weeks ago.  Sad to say it was nothing like the 2009 championship.  Losing rounds 5 and 6 to the two guys who who end out as co-champions did not help matters.

In mid-May I ventured down to the Marshall Chess Club for the weekly "cracktion" tournament.  In the first round I was paired against IM Ilye Figler.  This was my 13th game against him and like 11 of my previous encounters with him, I lost.  My only draw with him was back in 1997.  He got the IM title last year at the NY International at the tender age of 63.  Yes there is hope for those who are not under rated little munchkins.  I felt like I was holding my own out of the opening.  However things fell apart after I played the rather insipid move of 15...c6.  Looking back at the game I don't even remember why I played the move.  Was I afraid of 16. d5?  More to the point, was it one of those "I don't know what to do so I'll just make a random pawn move and see what happens" moments?

Position after 15...c6?

I totally missed 16. Bxh6!  I chose not to play 16...gxh6 allowing 17. Rxf6.  I felt if I was going to play down a pawn against an IM I should keep the pawns around my king somewhat intact so I opted to play 16...Nh5, a move that would have been better then c6.  The game continued 17.Bf4 Nxg3 18.Bxg3 Rad8 19.Rae1 Bh5 20.e5 Bg6 21.Bxg6 Nxg6 22. e6 to reach the position below.

I guess I didn't get quite get the tactical idea of deflection down the first time so I foolishly accepted the pawn he offered. 22...fxe6? 23.Qxg6 Qd5 24.Be5 Rd7 25.Rxf8+ Kxf8 26.Rf1+ Kg8 27.Qe8+ Kh7 28.Rf8 Black resigns.

Many a wise chess teacher has said "Learn from your mistakes."  This not so wise chess teacher has told her students the same thing.  Do I always follow my own advice?  We won't go there.  However I did manage to use this very same tactic, not once but twice a few weeks later.

In the first round of CalChess State Championship I got paired against the first of four opponents under the age of 13 that I would face over the weekend.  She was only 8 years old.  She played very solidly and I had to wonder if I was going to cough up a 1/2 point in the very first round.  I had played 27...Nf4 with the idea playing 28...Nxh3 if she didn't play 28. Kh2 or moving the knight.  She played 28. a4 to reach the position below. 

I took my time to make sure there was no counter play if I took the pawn on h3.  Noting that I'm taking with check and can retreat to f4 afterward I play 28...Nxh3+.  I'm up a pawn, but I still had a lot of work ahead of me.  Just like I did in the Bob Peretz Club Championship, I had to grind out a rook and pawn ending. She offered me several draws which I turned down.  She was going to have to prove to me that she could hold the ending.  She couldn't hold and finally on move 65 I mated her in a queen and king ending.

I could have mated her on move 64, but I think I was fixated on avoiding stalemates and missed both moves that mate in the position below.

Black to move. Mate in one.

I missed 64...Qe2# and 64...Qc1#. Instead I played 64...Qc2. 65. Kf1 Qf2#.  Good thing there wasn't a 50 move rule claim in the making.  That would have been very embarrassing. 

The next two games would two exercises in ugliness.  The total number of moves in the two games combined was less then the number of moves played in the first round. Since neither game falls into the theme of this post I'm not bothering to show them. 

In round 4 I finally get to play someone who may actually be older then me.  If I had added up the ages of my first 3 opponents and multiplied by 2 the total might have come close to my age.

Once again I came across a position where I could take a "protected" pawn for free.  We reached the following position after Black played 25...Re8.  
 

Once again an advanced h pawn was just begging to be taken.  The position was very similar to the one from the first round.  However there were a few differences.  First, there were a lot more pieces on the board.  Second, at first glance it appears Black can counter with 26...Nfxd5.  In reality there is no counter play for Black because moving the knight off of f6 opens up the long diagonal for White's queen.  I played 26. Bxh6 expecting the game to continue 26...gxh6 27. Qxf6 and then face a long grind trying to convert the pawn advantage.  Much to my surprise Black countered with 26...Nfxd5??  I had to double check and make sure I wasn't imagining things with the move 27. Qxg7# Yes it really was mate. For a change I would be the beneficiary of a very short game.

I would like to say that winning in such a manner inspired me to go 2-0 on Monday and limit the damage of my rocky 2-2 start.  Monday morning I started off by hanging a pawn on move 7 because I reversed the move order. 41 moves later I squeezed out a draw against my young under rated opponent.  Round 6 I still could salvage a plus 1 or even score with a win or a draw.  Unfortunately I was done in by White's very active rooks and the game came to an abrupt end with my playing 40...Kh8? in the following position.

After 40...Kh8? White has mate in 1.

I presume my readers can do a better job of finding the mate then I did.  I suppose the bright side of getting mated on move 41 was not having to try to hold the position after 40...Kf8 41. Rxg6.

The one thing I learned from this tournament is play up a section.  Northern California has even more under rated kids then Southern California.  However Northern California chess parents aren't psychotic like some of the Southern California chess parents I've encountered.

That's it for my chess travels for the time being.  My next trip will be with the chess widower of my life.  We cashed in a bunch of frequent flier miles and will be spending time in Belgium and Netherlands.  Perhaps my Belgium readers can steer me to a chess cafe in Brussels or Bruge.