2010 New York State Championship Switcheroo!

The report on how the big guys fared can be found at the US Chess Federation site Labor Day Madness I.  My pictures are included on the New York portion of the write up.  My name appears on the photo credits, but you will not see me listed amongst the winners.  Just one of those weekends.

All I can say about this tournament is, it was a weird one for me.  There are inherent dangers when one plays in the same tournament year after year.  I should have learned my lesson in February when I just assumed that the Saratoga Open would have the same format and schedule as previous years.  Instead I discovered late on Friday evening that the tournament started already.  This wasn't a scheduling mishap, it was just not knowing the section formats had changed.  Usually there has not been an Under 1800 section, but there has been an Under 1800 prize in the Under 2000 section.  Last year with a good Monday and a lot of right things happening, I managed to take a share of that prize.

Out of habit I entered the 2 day schedule of the Under 2000 section.  It was only after this exchange on facebook that I found out there was an under 1800 section.

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  Meghesh Pansari im gonna be one of the bottom seeds. my published is about 100 points lower than my current rating xD hopefully i can perform well and i just wanna place with 5/6
  

  September 2 at 4:00pm ·
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  Matt Slomski so a low seed? sounds like we might get paired since you will make an "upset" win over a low 1900 guy the first round and then I might have to play you the second or third even. lets hope we don't get paired so we can both have a shot for 1st without having to knock one another out
  

  September 2 at 4:48pm ·
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  Meghesh Pansari yeah im gonna be a very low seed :D mwahahahaha. so i should get some "upsets" like you said in the first couple rounds. hopefully this time i play more consistent that last year tho. 2.5/3 with good upsets...then 3 losses in a row smh
  

  September 2 at 4:57pm ·
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  Polly Wright ‎1818 isn't REALLY low seed. @1726 I'm a REALLY low seed.
  

  September 2 at 6:09pm · ·
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  Meghesh Pansari you know there's a U18 section right?
  

  September 2 at 6:10pm ·
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  Polly Wright No. In past years there been Under 2000 with an under 1800 prize. Last year I actually tied for 1st under 1800 in the under 2000 section.
  

  September 2 at 10:35pm · ·
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  Meghesh Pansari there is actually in under 1800 section this year
  

  September 2 at 10:35pm ·
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  Polly Wright
  

  LOL I entered under 2000 out of habit. The way I've been playing lately it may not matter which section I play in. I can get clobbered by 1800s or by 1600s.
  
  I may switch depending on what the various sections look like. If there are bunch of little kids rated 1400 who are playing up I may just stay in under 2000.

  Being rather disgusted how I played the previous week, I didn't really feel like it mattered what section I played.  Sunday morning I arrived at the playing site for our annual state association meeting.  I told Steve he could leave me in the Under 2000 section or switch me if there was an odd number.  He left me in the Under 2000 section.  In the first round I got paired against Robert Campbell.  This is the second year in a row we've been paired in the first round.  It was also the 4th time in the last 5 years we've played each other in this particular tournament.  I drew with him last year.  

  
  A draw was possible this year. Unfortunately I spent most of the game slightly worse, and had clock issues.  Just when I thought I could hold, I made a couple of marginal moves and let his king get in.  A rook pawn wins when there are other pawns on the board.  Unfortunately as one can see from the position below, there were other pawns.

  
  

  

  
  

  Position after 60...Ka3. Mate in 3

  Too bad White has that f pawn that can move.

  
  
  

  Here is the entire game that leads to the final position.

  pw-rcampbell090510.pgn
  

  
  

  
  At the time I thought I played alright, but in looking at the game later I realized my play was indecisive and overly cautious at times.  My opponent probably could have taken advantage of the position earlier.  However I felt as though choosing the Under 2000 section was an alright choice.  However the tournament director had other ideas at this point.

  
  

  When there are 3 different schedules to choose from and 6 sections sometimes there are weird section configurations.  The Under 2200 section started with only 2 players.  If 2 more players couldn't be found then those two players would have to play a 3 game match for their 3 rounds on the 2-day schedule.  Steve offered Evan Rabin a free re-entry on on the 2 day schedule with a 1/2 point bye for round one.  This actually worked out well for him as he went on to tie for first in the section. 

  
  Steve also drafted Anatoly Ostrovskiy to fill in as the house player.  Anatoly is always available for house player duty while his son Aleksandr is playing.  I've played Anatoly on more then one occasion when he's being house man so that I didn't get a bye.  Now with 4 players Steve could make somewhat sensible pairings until the merge.

  
  

  The Under 2200 section wasn't the only section with pairing issues.  The Under 2000 section had 5 players including me after a late arrival made it an odd number.  The under 1800 section only had 3 players.  One player had to take the full point bye as the low rated player in the section.  At this point Steve offered me a free re-entry to move to the Under 1800 section.  Me re-entering?  It's certainly not something I would pay to do, but since I had not really cared about which section I was in, it's was worth a clean slate with a 1/2 point bye in lieu of the loss incurred in the other section.  The loss still counted for rating, but no big deal.  I played up 200 points and I'm on my floor.
  
  Having to playing little kids with 1400 ratings was not going to be a problem.  Of the 3 players who had entered the 2 day schedule, two of them were higher rated then me.  I would end out playing both the higher rated players.  My second round opponent was a 6th grader from Burlington Vermont.  That's my old stomping grounds, and he and his father know many of the people that were there when I was playing chess up there in the 70s.  It was a fairly quiet game and we got into an ending with 6 pawns, a queen and bishops of opposite colors. 

 

He just played 35...Bd4.  We both had under 3 minutes.  Since we were playing the two day schedule the time limit for the first 3 rounds was game/40 with a 5 second delay.  I thought the position was rather drawish so I played 36. a4 and offered a draw.  He turned it down immediately.  That didn't surprise me since I find most kids like to play these positions out with not much time left.  What did surprise me was the real reason he turned down the draw.  I had missed 36...Bxf2 winning a pawn.  36. Bd3 or 36. Bf3 eliminates that threat, and then drawing chances are more realistic.

What a sick feeling when I offer a draw after playing a random move that loses a pawn.  I suppose worse would be offering a draw, and getting mated on the next move.  At that point I was rather annoyed with myself, and starting thinking "How could you have missed that? What a stupid move." etc.  The problem when those thoughts cross my mind it's hard to focus on the position itself.  I wasted time trying to find a way to perhaps get the pawn back.  It didn't take long to determine that:

 

a) I'm not getting the pawn back any time soon.

b) Don't play 37. Qxf2 since that will be followed by 37...Qxe4+ and picking up at least one more pawn after I move my king. 

 

Keeping the bishops on the board would be my only hope for holding the position.  The game continued 37. Kh3 Bc5 38. Bg2 Qe5 39. Bf3 b6 40. Kg2 f5 White loses on time.  It probably would have been difficult to hold even with enough time, but it would have been nice to have the time to try.

So now I've managed to lose a game in each section.  So much for the fresh start with the re-entry.  It's games like that one which reminds me why I don't re-enter.  Why throw good money after bad by re-entering and losing again? However since I didn't have to pay for the privilege of losing in two different sections, it wasn't a terrible thing.  I still would get a decent pairing for round 3.

Stay tuned for the continuing saga of Polly's NY State Championship.

From Monday Madness to Thankless Thursday!

Anyone who works a Monday through Friday 9 to 5 job knows what it's like to have the Monday morning blahs.  Great weekend followed by having to go back to work Monday morning.  Since I left the corporate world in 1992 or I should say the corporate world left me, I don't experience the Monday blahs like most people. If I have to get up early on a Sunday to go direct a tournament, then I might have the Sunday morning blahs.  All that being said, it doesn't necessarily mean I love Mondays.

This particular Monday it was rather dreary and a bit of rain.  I woke up around 7:00, and then rolled over and went back to sleep.  Before I knew it, it was 10:00 am.  Had my weekend of Tae Kwon Do training wiped me out that badly, or was it just the weather?  Perhaps if I knew how the rest of the day would go maybe I would have just stayed in bed.

I had a bit of a mishap at Tae Kwon Do.  We were doing a kicking drill, and somehow while trying to execute a roundhouse kick I landed flat on my back.  I've fallen plenty of times when my balance has been off, but not as hard as this landing.  Also I fell squarely on my back, and it went into spasms. Fortunately since I happened to have had with my doctor that day, I was able to have him check it out and give me a physical therapy referral.  He felt it was best to not mess around with it, and start PT as soon as possible.

It was kind of ironic given that one of the main reasons for having the doctor's appointment was to get him sign my medical clearance for Black Belt preparation and training.  He did sign the form!  I must say my road to Black Belt seems to be filled with potholes.  First the broken ankle and now a cranky back.  Hopefully this will not entail another delay.  I just want to get past this hurtle and move on to the next challenge.

Every week I send out an email announcing the next tournament being played on Monday night at the Bob Peretz Chess Club.  I try to get people to let me if they're coming.  That way I can get names into the computer ahead of time.  I got about 8 people who told me they were coming.  I figured I would have another 6 to 8 people who would just show up.  With my back barking at me I was hoping it would be a simple tournament, and that I would not have to play.  I guess my buddy Murphy had other plans in mind for me.   I had 22 players that I put in four quads and one 6-player Swiss.  At least that's what I thought I had.

I starting moving the players into their respective sections and announcing pairings.  Quads are a nice format because the players know who their opponents are and what color to play.  Once the sections are set up, they pretty much direct themselves.  The problem was I got to the 4th section and realized I had forgotten to put one of the late arrivals in.  His rating would put him into either the 2nd or 3rd quad, so I had to undo some of the sections and figure out where he belonged.  This also meant I had 23 players, thus making it an odd number.  This meant I needed to play.

I quickly switched people around and set up 6 quads.  I know the club has grown and gotten stronger when I find myself playing in the 5th quad.  I managed to get all the 1st round pairings out, and hoped that I would have time to write out the pairings for the 2nd and 3rd rounds.  Even though I do everything on my computer, I don't bring a printer.  Parking is too much of a crap shoot  to bring a printer.  Sometimes I'm parked several blocks away.  Most nights it's not such a big deal to have  handwritten pairings.  This particular night, especially with the delay hand writing the pairings slowed things down.

Fortunately my first round game didn't go the entire hour.  Silvio and I played for the 108th time.  I beat him for the 59th time.  He's beaten me 32 times and we have 17 draws.  Every time we play he does something different in the opening.  If I'm Black against him I never know what he'll start with.  This time I was White and opened with 1. c4.  We had one of our typical games where he plays a bunch of random moves in the opening, and I waste time responding to the randomness. Here is the game.

pw-Srosato082310.pgn


This gave me time to write out 2nd and 3rd round pairings so that everyone could mark their results and find their next opponent without me making lots of announcements.  Not having to do pairings in between each round gives me the chance to concentrate on my own games.  Not that it helped me in round two.  I had one of those games where it went down to an ending that probably could have been held, but the clock eventually caught up with me.

In round 3 I played Guy Colas, Joshua's father.  Guy and I usually have very close games, but more often then not he gets a big advantage on the clock.  The result being, I often lose on time or have a time pressure induced implosion.  It looked like I was just going to run out of time in a position where material was even.  He had a passed pawn on h3, and a potentially troublesome queen side majority.  We reached the following position after I played 55. Qf2.

I had a little over a minute left, and he had 10 minutes left.  Black's best move here is 55...Bxf3 followed by 56...Qf5. Taking the h pawn and allowing Black to trade queens would allow him to convert the queen side majority into an unstoppable passed pawn.  Instead Guy played 55...Kf5.  After he let go of the king he flinched.  Guy doesn't have a very good poker face.  At first I thought "What's the big deal? We're going to trade bishops, I'll get a couple checks and win the h pawn but I'll still have clock issues."   The game continued 56. Bxf4 Kxf4 57. Qg3+  At this point I realize that no matter what Black does he's in big trouble.  57...Kh5 leads to 58. Qg5# He played 57...Kf5.  I played 58. Qxh3+ winning his queen on d7.  That was a big break for me.  A potentially ugly evening turned out to be a modest gain of 9 rating points.

However the rating points would not last long after a horrendous Thursday at the Marshall Chess Club.  It started off with my having to play Joshua Colas in the first round.  We went through a period where we played each other two straight weeks in the first round.  After that happened I had asked the director to try avoid pairing us in the first round since we come to the city together.  Since I had not had to play him in a long time I kind of forgot that there was always a possibility we would get paired.  We had not played since March when we had the back to back weeks of playing. It was kind of ironic that we ended out playing since I had chosen not to play him the night before in his simul.

On Thursday nights my second round opponent is often Jay Bonin's first round opponent.  Often he gets my first round opponent in the second round.  I figured that would not happen this time because his opponent Black in the first round just as I had.  If there aren't many upsets and the rating differential isn't too big the pairing program can usually make it so colors alternate.  However for the second week in a row, I would end out getting Black twice in a row.  I was paired against Scot Mc Elheny.  I hate playing Black against him because he plays an annoying line against my Accelerated Dragon.  I decided I would play a little differently.  However as this Wacky Wednesday worthy miniature demonstrates, sometimes "it's better to deal with the devil you know, not the devil you don't know."

SMcElheny-pw082610.pgn


Ouch!  However despite losing in less then 10 minutes, I was not the first one done.  Grandmaster Michael Rohde won his game in even less time.  That's not supposed to happen on board two!  I finally got White in round three, but that did not make things any better.  The game lasted a lot longer, but clock issues cost me in a drawish ending. 

This was one of those nights that I would have been perfectly happy to get the bye in the last round.  I would have taken the train back instead of riding back with Josh and Guy.  As it turned out the number was even so I had a last round game.  What I didn't know before the start of round four that Josh was tired and withdrew.  Guy told me they would be waiting for me to play my game.  If I knew he was withdrawing, I probably would have withdrawn too and we all could get home earlier.  However once the pairings went up, I wasn't going to tell my opponent "Sorry I'm not going to play."  If I had withdrawn before the pairings went up, my fourth round opponent would have been the one to get the bye.  However I didn't feel it was right not to play.

One side of me wanted to play 5 or 10 moves and offer a draw.  However I can't bring myself to do that even if the situation would excuse such an action.  My opponent was playing in his first tournament so the least I could do was play a real game and see what happened.  I ended out getting a third Black because he had played Black in rounds two and three.  One never knows how weak or strong an unrated opponent is going to be.  He played solidly and we ended out drawing anyway.  However I felt better about the game being a legitimately played draw.

I took this entire week off from playing chess.  I was away on Monday and Thursday we went out to dinner with one of our neighbors.  This weekend I'll be playing in the New York State Championship.  Because I play every year, I tend to do things on auto-pilot.  I didn't even look at the format for this year's tournament.  I just automatically entered the under 2000 section because there's never been an Under 1800 section.  However after a little exchange of comments on Facebook I found out there is an Under 1800 section this year.  The question is, should I switch to that section or take my chances in the Under 2000 section?  I'll make up my mind once I see whether or not the Under 1800 section is loaded with under rated little kids playing up a section or two.

Stay tuned....

Joshua Colas Simul at Westchester Chess Club

Even though many of you have not met Joshua in person, you have met both him and his dad through this blog.  My first encounter with Joshua was when he was 7 years old and rated around 1100.  He gave me a good scare before blundering in my time pressure.  I knew this was a kid with talent, and sooner or later he would go sailing right past me.  It was less then two years later when his rating crept by mine.  Then it just flew by me.  The last time I beat him was August 26, 2008.  That ended a 6 game losing streak against him.  Two weeks later on his birthday a new losing streak would begin.

In the mean time his rating has risen substantially and in October he will be representing the United States at the World Youth Championships in Halkidiki, Greece.  Qualifying participants have to pay their own way.  Between airfare, meals and hotel for his dad and him it's quite an expense.  The chess coordinator from his school has been spearheading a fund raising drive.  The Westchester Chess Club helped out by hosting a simul at the club on Wednesday, and asked participants to make a donation towards his expenses.  He played 15 people who ranged in rating from 1100 to 1750.  Participants contributed over $600 and the club contributed another $200.  He had 10 wins, 4 draws and 1 loss.  His lone loss was to Jacob Spitzer, rated 1719.

I decided I was not going to play in the simul, but would come and take pictures instead.  I figured I've played him enough times in tournaments.  I did not need to play him in a simul too.  I have very little patience with simuls.  It's hard enough sitting still and staying focused in a game where I have the opponent's undivided attention.  It's even harder in a simul when it may be several minutes before the player gets back to my board.  Little did I know that my next opportunity to lose to him would come the next night at the Marshall Chess Club.

Here are some pictures from the simul.

Young and old played against Joshua.

Joshua going head to head with his dad.
Yes he beat his dad.

Thinking about his next move.

Jacob Spitzer, only one to score a full point.

If anyone would like to contribute towards Joshua's travel expenses and coaching tax deductible contributions can be sent to:

White Plains Foundation for Public Education
3 Milford Close 
White Plains, NY 10606.


Write "Joshua Colas — Chess" in the check's memo line.

I have made a financial contribution.  I also contributed a few more rating points with this game on Thursday night.  


JColas-pw082610.pgn


I would like to say that beating me in the first round helped inspire him in his second round win against a 2200 and his third round draw against a grandmaster.  Somehow I don't think the former had anything to do with the latter, but one can hope.  The loss sure didn't do anything for the rest of my evening, but that is a whole different story.

Riding the Orient Distress Right Out of Town

Normally when I play in a tournament that I have flown to, I spend Sunday night at the hotel.  That way I don't have to worry about how long my game is going to be, or whether I'll make my flight on time.  There have been times when I've taken a red-eye flight back home.  With 11:30 pm departures, games running late are not an issue.  However I wasn't leaving California after the tournament.  I was heading down to San Diego to spend a few days visiting my nieces.  It's great having family out in California.  Makes for a good excuse to spend extra time out there.


As regular readers of this blog know, I'm not the most organized person on the planet.  At times I'm "Last Minute Molly" when it comes to little details such as how will I get from Irvine to San Diego.  My original intent was to rent a car in Irvine and drive down to San Diego.  I was going to need a car in San Diego anyway.  However when I went online to try to book a car the prices for a one way rental were insane.  It was going to cost over $100 a day even for a little rinky-dink economy car.  I even tried Priceline.com where I normally have really good luck getting a reasonable price.  I had gotten an excellent deal on a one way rental from Hilton Head to Savannah last fall, so I figured I could do just as well.  Wrong!!!  California is not South Carolina and Georgia.


Time for plan B.  What was plan B? Could I get a ride from someone heading to San Diego after the tournament?  Was there a train to San Diego?  Amtrak has train service to San Diego.  Next question.  How often and how late do they run?  It turns out they run a number of trains and they run one as late as 11:09 pm.  I would only need that train if I played the full 6 hours from 3:00 pm to past 9:00 pm.  Not likely that would occur, but at least I had late options if necessary.


The problem with leaving on the last day of the tournament is having to check out of the room ahead of time.  That means having everything packed and ready to go ahead of time.  I was a little slow getting up on Sunday because I had stayed up late playing hearts with friends.  It was the renewal of an old tradition from the 80s.  Consequently I found myself running around the room throwing stuff in the suitcase as I'm eating breakfast on the the move.  Eat a few spoonfuls of cereal, throw a few things in the suitcase,  eat a few strawberries, pack up my assorted chargers for my various electronics, so on and so forth.  Also I was getting bombarded with instant messages from someone who was upset about one the decisions voted on by the delegates.  I don't type really fast, and when I'm trying to do three things at once, eat, pack and message I slow down even more.


Fortunately I didn't have to check out until 1:30, so I would have time to clear out of the room after the delegates meeting was done.  I finally got my computer and headed down for the second day of the delegates meetings.  As I got there they were discussing suspending the rules in order to go back and reconsider one of the decisions voted on the day before.  Yes it was the decision that I had gotten bombarded about via Facebook messenger and my email box.  It was decided to hold off implementing the rule change until January of 2012.  


Here is how John Hillary of Western Chess described it:  "Motion by Mike Atkins to suspend the rules to delay implementation of abolishing the 5-minute deduction. Steve Immitt in New York has apparently been haranguing everybody who will take his IMs, and and we get to waste a lot of time on this to placate him. Lots of smoke and mirrors. Since I've spoken against this, it would be unfair for me to summarize everyone's argument. We're up to 9:45 now, no real progress. Several claims that the Delegates "didn't understand" what they voted on. I certainly did. Motion to delay passed implementation for a year. Idiots."


I guess I'm an idiot since I not only voted to delay, but I spoke in favor of delaying.  If that was the most idiotic thing I did all day, then Sunday would have been a good day.  However there's still this matter of playing another under rated kid from California later that afternoon.  Despite Hillary's perception of no progress in the meeting, we actually breezed through the remainder of the agenda.  The meeting adjourned at 12:05 which was 55 minutes ahead of schedule.  


I stayed in the meeting room to finish up my round 4 train wreck post.   I had not paid for additional internet time in my room, so it was finish the post in the meeting room or wait until I got to San Diego.  Considering that I did absolutely no blogging in San Diego, it would have been back in New York when I'd finally get around to finishing my round 4 post.  Since it's the only one of my US Open posts that has generated any sort of comments, I'm glad I got it up in a somewhat timely manner.  My remaining posts have been rather late and very out of date.  Perhaps my readers enjoy my train wreck stories more then those moments when I play decent chess.


To make a long story short, I manage to clear out of the room on time, go out for lunch and make it back in plenty of time for round 9.  I had forgotten to write down the train times for getting to San Diego, so before the round I asked Kim Cramer to look up the times for me.  Kim runs the registration table and chess control at all the big nationals, so I knew she would still have internet access.  She gives me the times starting with 5:09 pm.  I wrote the time down, and said to her "That's rather early.  If I can make that train then something has gone horribly wrong."  You would think after "me and my big mouth" remarks on my part I'd know better then to say something like that.  


I grab a piece of paper and make a list of train times:


5:09 (WTF happened? or Gift from Caissa!)
6:11 (Oh crap! or Somebody played too fast?)
8:17 (4 hour game with an hour to spare.)
9:31 (5+ hour game, and/or extended good byes.)
11:09 (Last game done.  Miss this train, spend the night in the station.)


Now at least I knew how I would get to San Diego.  The only question that remained was how would I get to the station without taking a taxi.  The taxi ride would cost more then the train ticket.  I figured depending on what time I finished I could find a ride with someone who was heading out at that point.  However before I could figure that all out, I still had a game of chess to play.  So what happens when my score is 3 out of 8?  I get paired down again!  Not only do I get paired down, I play another kid, and another female.  I'm not sure if I've ever played another woman in the US Open, but I've certainly never played more then one, much less three in one US Open.

I had Black which actually I was very happy about.  I was even happier when she opened 1. e4.  In fact I was very pleased with how things were going until I noticed on move 14 that I was down a piece!  How the hell did that happen?  She walked into a line where Black wins a pawn.  Unfortunately in this case Black had a serious brain fart, and totally misplayed the line.  After White plays 10. Nxc6 Black is supposed to simply recapture.  Instead I played 10...Nxd2.  It wasn't until her 14th move I realized I had misplayed the moves and was down a piece for the pawn I "won".

I finally noticed when she played 14. Nbd5.  She has all these really annoying threats, and I'm thinking to myself "Wow she's gotten a lot of play for that pawn.  She might trap my rook on a8.  I haven't developed my light squared bishop....Hey wait! Why do I only have  two bishops and she has two knights and a bishop?  Where did my knight go?"


That is probably one of the most sick feelings to have in a game.  I'm worrying about losing the exchange or giving back the pawn, and then realize I'm already down material.  WTF?  She launched a vicious attack, won pawns and forced me to make trades that I didn't want to make.  By move 24 she was forcing a pair of rooks off the board, and I was going to lose more pawns.  I resigned at that point.  I was shell shocked.  Totally crushed by an 11 year old girl.  Don't let anyone tell you that girls play more positional type of games.  Not true.    Why I played the opening that way defies logic or explanation.  However I give my young opponent credit for how methodically she forced trades and made threats.  Here's the game:


SShao-pw080810.pgn



My snarky comment about not needing information about the 5:09 train had come back to haunt me.  It was just after 4:00 pm.  We played less then an hour.  I could make that train with no trouble if I could find a ride to the station.  I was ready to get out town, and go down to San Diego for my real vacation.  Dewain Barber was willing to give me a ride as he was getting ready to leave.  I just wasn't sure if my niece would be ready to pick me up for that early an arrival.   I also wanted to say good bye to a few people first. Skulking out of town on Amtrak was not how I wanted to exit the scene.


I took the 6:11, which was still way earlier then I anticipated.  I had not planned to lose the last round in an hour.  However bad things happen, and one has to find the silver lining.  What was the silver lining behind the black cloud?  Views that I've never seen on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line. Views that I would not have seen in the dark on the 8:17 or 9:31 train.  This is what I saw from my seat on train #784, Pacific Liner to San Diego.

My early arrival in San Diego also allowed me to enjoy some outstanding pizza and local brews with my niece.  Losing horribly doesn't have to be too horrible.


So where do I go from here? One anonymous poster asked me what has happened to my chess?  I don't have an answer yet, though a few wins since I have gotten back makes me feel that all is not lost.  I have a lot going on as I prepare for my black belt test this fall.  In a future post I will discuss some of the challenges I'm facing, and how I might be able to apply them to my chess. 

US Open Round 8

Despite a few crappy games in rounds 2 and 4, overall I was satisfied with how the two days of multiple games went.  I felt I spent my time well, and I wasn't moving too fast.  The transition from G/60 to 40/2 went smoothly despite my opponent's annoyance with my finger fidgeting.  I think trying to take it easy in between rounds, and not go jumping into the various workshops helped.  It's too easy to get sucked into all the political stuff that comes up at the workshops.  Unfortunately it was hard to avoid the politics once the weekend came.  I'm a USCF delegate for New York, and delegates meeting is held over the weekend at the US Open.

Back when the US Open was two weeks long it would start on a Sunday evening.  We would play 6 rounds from Sunday through Friday.  There would be no round on Saturday evening.  The delegates meetings would run on Saturday and Sunday.  On Sunday evening the second half of the tournament would start.  I recall that sometimes the delegates meeting on Sunday would run up to shortly before the evening round.  I also recall that almost every year I was a delegate, I would lose that Sunday evening round.

With the 9 round schedule we now play on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.  Fortunately they have made it a point to end the meetings a few hours before the scheduled start of the round.  That gives delegates who are also playing a chance to eat and unwind before playing their Saturday and Sunday rounds.  At least that's what's supposed to happen.   I got the eating part down right, but not sure about the unwinding and refocusing on chess part.

The meetings weren't quite as brutal as last year's.  The room where we had the meeting this year was fabulous.  It's an amphitheater meeting room with built in desks, really comfy chairs, power outlets at each seat, and internet access.

Delegates Meeting.  Doesn't everyone look excited to be there?

A portion of my round four train wreck post was written during a boring part of the meeting.  John Hillary was posting live updates of the meeting on his Western Chess blog.  If one is really curious about what we talked about for two days, check out John's posts.  He has a concise and somewhat snarky way of presenting the proceedings.  I won't reinvent the wheel to give my take on the meetings.  There wasn't much that I was particularly passionate about.  I only got up and spoke once during the entire two days of meetings.

At the mike.  That's Bill Goichberg standing behind me.

On Saturday we went to 5:00 pm, which gave me 2.5 hours to relax and have dinner.  I had dinner with one of my old friends at this soup and salad buffet place.  Nothing spectacular, but I still managed to eat too much.  Buffets are dangerous, especially when I find something I really like.  They had a number of different breads that I kept going back for more of.

 I'm not sure why I was having so much difficulty playing with White in this tournament.  Every game it seemed to be a struggle to get my pieces developed and coordinated.  I did mange to get my pieces out, and I did not throw my queen out early.  However I went too deep into enemy territory with my knight and it got trapped.  Unfortunately I got no play for the piece, and things quickly went downhill from there.  Here's the game.

pw-frei080710.pgn


That loss assured me of another US Open with a negative score.  The best I could do would be 3 (w)-2(d)-4(l) if I could win on Sunday.  Unfortunately Sunday would be no better then Saturday.

Very Belated US Open report: Rounds 6 & 7

I know this is over a week after the fact.  That's what happens when I continue on with a vacation after the US Open.  Thoughts of the tournament get pushed to the side as I enjoy the true vacation part of my trip.  Considering the ugly ending to my tournament, there were good reasons to put it out of my mind, and enjoy my time in San Diego.  Details will follow in a separate post.  A few pictures from San Diego and then chess.

Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve

Beach at Torrey Pines

San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park

Up close and personal with giraffe on photo caravan tour

She looks like she wants a belly rub, but who's going to volunteer?

I could fill up several weeks worth of posts with pictures from the Wild Animal Park, but I will resist the urge.  However if one would like to see more of my pictures click here.

Back to chess:  Having squeezed out the long win againts the 8 year old 600, I still had two more games to play.  One more at G/60 and then round 7 at the normal time control of 40/2.  Once again I played a lower rated kid though at least her age was in double digits.  She's 11.  The game was very quiet.  No big mistakes on either one of our parts.  I played 30. Rfc1 to reach the following position.  I offered a draw which she accepted.

One my friends saw the position and made the comment that there was a lot of play left.  I didn't really see a clear cut way to gain some advantage.  I had around 11 minutes left and my opponent had 21 minutes.  Considering the clock issues I had in earlier rounds, I didn't want to risk getting even further behind on the clock.  Also knowing I had another round to play, I felt getting a draw at this point would give me more time to relax before round 7.

Little did I know how wise it would be to conserve energy for the 7th round.  I was paired against a much older woman who took a lot of time on many of her moves.  Sometimes I've had difficulty with the transition from the fast time control to the much slower 40/2 G/60 controls.  There have been many times where I've played too fast because my mind is still thinking in "fast mode".  I was not having that difficulty in this particular game.  I think part of it was due to how much time I did use in most of my G/60 rounds.  Two of them I flagged and one game I had a minute left when I won.  Given those games I was happy to have more time to think things out.

Sometimes I'm not sure whether it's worse playing hyper kids or elderly adults.  My last game against a much older opponent did not turn out well for me. This time I was hoping the rating difference and the time of day would work in my favor.  She opened with 1. d4 which made me groan to myself since I'm not particularly fond of playing against d4, especially if it goes into some sort of Colle or Stonewall type set up.  It ended out be neither.  It was sort of a Queens Gambit-Kings Indian Attack hybrid.

There were going to be queen side development problems if I wasn't careful.  I played 8...Na6 since c6 was occupied by my c pawn.  She played 9. a3.  I guess she was concerned about my knight coming into b4 and attacking her queen.  That wasn't really my plan at that point so when she wasted a move with a3 I decided I would take the pawn on c4.  I knew I was allowing her e4 with the threat of e5, but I wasn't overly concerned since the threat was easily defended.  She should be able to get the pawn back relatively easily, but she wasted time by playing a4 which allowed my knight to come to b4 followed by d3.

The first 25 moves took a little over two hours.  She was using more time then me, but I had managed to not be bouncing off the walls.  Though I had stayed seated that didn't mean I was totally still. Sometimes I bounce my legs up and down when I get really nervous.  I wasn't at that stage, but I had started fiddling around with the captured pieces.  I wasn't tapping them on the table or making noise with them. I just would pick one up and fiddle with it between my fingers.  I guess it may have been in my opponent's line of sight because she got really annoyed with me and told me to stop it.  I put the piece down and regretted the fact that I had left my beaded bracelet at home.  Often I will take the bracelet off and hold it in my hands under the table.  The beads have a nice texture and gives me something to do with my hands while I'm thinking.

By move 28 I was up 3 pawns, but she was defending tenaciously.  It took almost an hour to play the next 10 moves.  I was getting increasingly antsy because I had a protected passed pawn on c3, but she had blockaded it, and I was having trouble coming up with a plan to bust through.  One of my other little quirks when I'm restless is playing with my Mon Roi stylus.  I used to chew on it, but after a couple incidents where I bit on it wrong and launched it I decided perhaps that wasn't such a good idea.  I like keeping it in my hand because sometimes I end out dropping on the floor.  I try to make sure I don't tap it on the table.  I've had to tell a few opponents not to tap it on the table or pieces.  I'm not sure what I was doing with it this time, but once again my opponent snapped at me.

I was getting frustrated with myself because I'm up 3 pawns and I can't make progress.   I'm almost afraid to make any sort of motion lest I incur her wrath again over my quirky fidgeting.  I resorted to tapping my stylus on my leg to resolve the twitchy hands issue.  Finally after 4 hours I come up with a plan to chase the rook off c2.  She resigned when she saw my knight was coming into a3.  Once her rook vacates c2, I can push the pawn.  She'll end out losing a rook to stop the promotion.  After the game is over I whispered something about how well she defended.  At that point she tells me I need to speak up because she's hard of hearing.  I guess it wasn't that I was making noise when I was fiddling with the piece and stylus.  I wonder how she fares against the little hyper kids who are far more restless then me.

Here's the game.

CMayer-Kleist-pw080510.pgn


Next: Chess and chess politics don't mix.

The 4th Annual US Open Round 4 Train Wreck

As I mentioned in yesterday's post I felt good and relaxed heading into Friday's rounds.  Friday is a brutal day on the four-day schedule.  Three more games at the G/60 time limit, followed by the merge into the main event for round 7 with the 40/2 followed by G/60 time controls.  I went into the fourth round not thinking about previous years' disasters.

Thursday's 2nd round game with White was pretty ugly.  I was lucky to scrape out a draw in that game.  Here is that game:

PW-TRouse080510.pgn


That game was in the back of my mind, but I knew that I had to avoid wasting moves in the opening.  I had been happy with my third round play despite losing, so I felt like I could bounce back.  Overall I had been satisfied with my play on Thursday.

After getting through 3 rounds with no kids, that streak came to an end with my 4th round opponent,  a little kid rated 1247.  I had the White pieces.   I stayed with my English Opening despite Thursday's ugly game.   When he replied with 1...e5.  I was perfectly happy to play an Accelerated Dragon in reverse.  Sometimes when I'm playing my Black opening as White it's easy to try to stay "in book" or go back to book.   The problem in trying to with trying to stay or revert to book, is sometimes it's easy to overlook better moves.  When I play the Accelerated Dragon as Black I play 7...Qa5 in the main line.
In this particular game I opted to play 8.  Qa4, however I missed 8. Nxe5 Nxe5 9. d4.  Ultimately playing 8. Qa4 caused many problems as the game progressed.

Sometimes I've had problems with behavior issues when playing little kids in Southern California.  This was not the case.  With the exception of the occasional foray to look at other boards, he was very focused on the game.  I was also happy to note that there wasn't the crowd of friends, coaches and parents coming over to watch.  Mom brought him to the board, and I didn't see her again until after the game was over.

Sometimes things happen that defy explanation.  Mentally I felt alert and calm.  I wasn't anxious, and I certainly wasn't taking the kid lightly despite the rating and the young age.  However all it takes is one bad move and things can go to hell quickly.  I was so the most annoying aspect was every time he gave check he announced it in a voice that could be heard beyond our board.  He was not being obnoxious about it.  He was just letting me know it was check.  I did not need the reminders.  Each pronouncement of check make me want to sink further and further into my chair.  I was being totally crushed and each check was a reminder of the checkmate that was inevitable.  Unlike many of his previous opponents who probably play all the way to mate, I chose to resign.  I asked him how old he was.  7 years old.  At least he wasn't 6 years old.  I've yet to lose to a 6 year old.  I'm sure that day will come.

Here's the game.

pw-SGe080610.pgn

Solomon Ge with his coach Joe Hanley

Often when I get smashed by some little kid I take consolation in that his real rating is probably 200 points higher.  I was quite distressed to find out he had dropped almost 200 points since National K-1 Championships. So his pre-event rating is 1077.  Oh well!  One of my friends who was following the game live on Mon Roi told me "He didn't play like any 1200 I know."

I didn't sweat the blow out much.  It left me over 2 hours before round 5.  The advantage of being in a nice location is there is life outside of chess.  I borrowed a bike from the hotel and went out for a nice bike ride on the Mountains to Sea Trail.  It was not a fancy bike, but it served its purpose.

The problem with going into the 5th round with .5 - 3.5 is getting paired way down.  Welcome to the back of the room in the children's zone!

Paired with another little kid was inevitable.  This kid was 8 years old and had a 637 rating.  His September rating is 910, but even so he played way better then that!  It went all the way down to a rook and pawn ending with me short on time.  I did manage to win, but it took 66 moves.

Do I look scared??

Here's the game.

APaul-pw080610.pgn

I'm running out of time.  Qick recap of remaining games on Friday.  A draw in round 6 aaginst a young girl, and a long win in round 7 against an older woman. Details in another post.