Primates take a Holiday!

We wrapped up tournament 46 in solidly middling fashion, with Steve playing like a superhuman on Board 4, Fabio getting the hang of the 45 45 league, and me playing like a complete chucklehead. As a result we missed out on the playoffs (but to be fair we were only 3rd in our division). Ironically, I somewhat reluctantly decided to join a U2200 team "Rhenium" but more as a role player (or as I prefer to call myself a "scrubstitute"). But as it turned out, Team Rhenium had their board 4 suspended from league play after Round 2 due to numerous forfeits, and thus I became a "starter". Furthermore, Team Rhenium proved tough competition, plowing through their opponents undefeated, winning the division and going to the playoffs. Whilst I truly enjoyed playing 2 matches a weeks, my schedule is decidedly busier now that to play on 2 teams would prove problematic. Therefore with an open invitation to play on Board 4 for Team Rhenium in Tournament 47 (I don't know what the Team Captain Paulkov is thinking, he must be delusional), I have decided that the Primates are going on vacation for a bit, but will return once Paulkov realizes the errors of his ways.

I have truly enjoyed this team and the players who played alongside-whether just for 1 tournament or for many. Thanks, guys!

No fear though, as I still have many stories to tell. You can also follow Team Rhenium here:

http://chesselements.blogspot.com/

The Oddest Post-mortem I have ever seen

I will protect the names of the innocent and guilty, basically because I am lazy.

Long time ago (close to 20 years, I think), I went to my first major tournament. A good friend of mine, a Senior Master now long retired from competitive chess, wanted to go play in a “big” tournament and asked if I was interested. So we headed off with him playing the Open section and me playing in a lesser mortal section (where I did quite well, thank you very much – but that is a different story). Anyway, one of the games my Senior Master friend played against was this older IM. Now for years, this IM had had stories swirling around him about the validity of his IM norms and possible “payments” towards earning said IM norms. In other words, this IM was considered by some as a decidedly shady character but still a very strong player (and would have crushed me a hundred times over).

So my friend and the IM square off – my friend has black. And during the game my friend is slowly getting beaten, and realizing this decides that rather than getting tortured for hours, he would go for a riskier continuation – which ultimately did not work and he quickly went down in flames. I had wrapped up my game and watched the latter part of the game, including the “flame out” part.

After the game concluded, the IM asked my friend if he would like to go over the game (i.e., a post-mortem). Sure, he replied, and I gladly tagged along. After all Senior Master and an IM were going to conduct a post mortem – what an incredible learning opportunity for me. So they sit down and begin to go over the game and IM completely dominates the conversation. OK, I think, he won the game, probably within his rights. But then the IM says, “And according to Alekhine”… and then speaks GERMAN for a good minute or two. I think, "What???????" I look over at my friend, who is impassive. The IM then goes over a couple more moves and then repeats this with “And Botvinnik stated…”and then says something in RUSSIAN. Again, I look over at my friend, still impassive. And I am thinking to myself: "Wow, I have a lot to learn about conducting post-mortems."

So the post-mortem lasts a couple more minutes, during which my friend says absolutely nothing. They shake hands and part. As we are walking away and not within earshot of anyone, I ask if that how all post-mortems go between titled players. My friend gives me this look like I am crazy and says, “Absolutely not. I stopped listening when he quoted Alekhine and started thinking of the ways I could kill him.”

Why are chess players so crazy?

Why indeed? What is it about chess that seems to attract the crazy ones? I was chatting with an old friend from Europe who used to play competitively (to the point of reaching FM and earning an IM norm before deciding to pack it in before he lost his sanity), and we both commented about the U.S. and the number of decidedly odd chess players. Now for those who don’t know me well, I never tell anyone I play chess. I am more than happy to tell them I play old man soccer, used to race bikes, played water polo in college – sure those “crazy” passions I am more than happy to talk to people about. But, chess? Absolutely not. I have close friends who have no idea I play and take it so seriously. And those who know that I do play, I explain it this way: I am just learning it so that I can encourage and teach my kids to play while still being able to beat them. The average non-chessplaying John Q Public would understand and accept this answer without thinking I am just a maladjusted lunatic, so that is what I tell everyone.

But getting back to my original question: Why? Is it that chess makes them crazy? Does Chess encourage crazy behavior? Or is it just the fact that it attracts crazy people here in the U.S.? I don’t know.

Perhaps I’ll just play No Limits Hold ‘em Poker like lots of other better-adjusted chessplayers.

T45 wrap up & Looking Forward to T46

Every blog (and I suppose every “Blogger” by extension) must go through that period of inactivity for any number of reasons. I noticed the other day – actually one of my friends noticed and pointed it out – that I had not updated the Primates blog since the start of the last tournament. Given that, here is a wrap up of the last tournament. In summary, we were so close but soooooooo far. Curt, who had taken a break from playing the 45 45 league in T45 said it best when he observed that we were much more competitive than the final score would indicate. We lost most of the rounds 1.5 – 2.5, so while we didn’t earn Match Points we did have plenty of game points. We finished midpack in our division and did not qualify for the playoffs.

So T46 has started and the lineup has changed quite a bit from past years. Bob, Tom & Trond have all decided to take a break from the league due to the demands on their time. Cesar initially was on the T46 team but earned a 5 tournament suspension due to an accumulation of forfeits. From the “old days” Curt is back, playing as a “backup backup” player. In their places, new Primates have arrived: Merciful, Sammj & Upsan. Welcome, gentlemen.

After two rounds, we are 1 – 1 and, if things go well, we should be competitive (but then again, I say that every tournament).
From Round 2, I nominated Upsan’s game for “Game of the Week” for his patient and very clinical endgame technique.
Check it out and see if you agree:
http://www.4545league.org/pgnplayer/pgnplayer.php?id=39076

Finally, I am not sure that I’ll be posting weekly updates. Anyone who has read a chess tournament article realizes that a tournament can only be written up in so many ways. Instead, right now I am leaning towards just outright “genteel chess pontifications”, while highlighting great teammates’ games I watch from the sidelines.

Round 1: Primates 1.5 : Tellurium 2.5

For our first round match, we squared off against the #1 seeded team, Tellurium, which is a uniquely comprised team in that they have their 1st & 2nd boards rated above 2200, then their next two boards around 1700. So for them to do well in this tournament, their top boards really have to produce consistently every round, while their lower boards try to win points when they can. I’ll be interested to see how they fare with this setup. So Tom and I squared off against 2 masters and lost. I held my own pretty well for a good 35 moves, but missed a pretty simple tactic then it was all down hill after that. Cesar unluckily got nicked for a half point draw, not being able to convert a rook & pawn ending whilst being a pawn up. The good news was that Cesar was never in any trouble during the game despite having the black pieces this round. Bob had the game of the round, defending against a pretty scary attack right from the start, calmly repulsed the attack and converted nicely in the endgame.

So we lost the match by a half point; but as I told the team, every point counts. If we can avoid an off round, I think we could in fact win this division. In round 2, we play team “Mediterranean Warriors” in what could be described as a “Geography Battle” (i.e., Mediterranean v Caribbean). I wonder if the 4545 TDs have a sense of humor and placed us in the same division on purpose?

T45!

Tournament 45 is here and hope springs eternal. Curt is taking the tournament off, so we have the newest addition to the Primate team - Cesaralexander. Welcome - Cesaralexander!

We are in the Maple Division and if we all play to ability, we should be pretty competitive. Round 1 starts Tuesday, so stay tuned!

T44 Wrap Up

Tournament 44 wrapped up its regular season and so did the Primates. It is pretty easy to provide updates when "the going is good", quite another when things are not going your way. Last time we left our intrepid chess warriors, they had triumphed over their erstwhile first round opponents. Here is how the rounds have gone since:

Round 2: Lost to the Runners, 3 - 1. Bob and I drew, Tom and Curt lost. I had mentioned in an earlier post that we lack a "rival"; seeing as we have faced off against the "Runners" now a slew of times, they now represent the closest thing to a rival. I drew "Chiiwen" in this game, which now numbers the 5th time we have split the point (plus we each have a win).

Round 3: Lost to STC Identity 3 - 1. Tom and Bob drew (Bob's was an "agreed" draw). Curt and I lost. I got completely outplayed in an NvB endgame. Bleah.

Round 4: Got off the snide and beat the Runners 2.5 - 1.5. Once again I drew Chiiwen. I think it was 3 draws and a win for us, but I cannot recall.

Round 5: We got crushed 4 - 0 by STC Identity. I again got completely outplayed in an NvB endgame. Bleah. Second time in 3 rounds (I see a trend), so it is back to the endgame books for me.

Round 6 came and went, we were out of the playoffs. Overall we have not been particularly sharp, but I believe it has more to do with the positions we have gotten (from the obvious department of "duh"). What I mean is that each of us excel in certain positions resultant from certain opening variations, and whether by accident or by design, we just haven't gotten those positions. Also, hats off to our competition this round. Every round has been tough, both the Runners and STC Identity have the potential to go very deep in the playoffs - even win it all. As Curt had noted in an email earlier this week, we have made the playoffs 3 times out of the last 5 attempts - a pretty good average. I guess I should expect a down tournament from time to time.

Musings from the USATE

Tom and I ventured off to the snowy landscape of Northern New Jersey to participate in U.S. Amateur Team East, one of the largest annual chess tournaments held on the East Coast. USATE is a six round event held over President’s Day Weekend (and Valentine’s Day OBTW for all you married folks) with a luxurious 40/2 SD/1 time control which has participants ranging from GM’s to little, little kids. Rather than recap the weekend (others have done so far better than I ever could), here are some stray thoughts (sprinkled liberally with attempted humor):

1. 4545 play (or any online chess activity) is a good complement but no substitute for Over the Board play (OTB). My first 2 rounds were pretty rough as I shook off my recent OTB chess inactivity (Hey, I got a wife & 2 young kids, a fairly demanding job and I coach soccer pretty much year round. I am happy I can disappear for a whole weekend to do something as esoteric as play chess even once a year). However, I will say that slow online play does provide benefit to your tournament chess, but you must play over the board in a slow time control in order to avoid be rusty – for me it was readily apparent in the early rounds. HOWEVER, I will say that once I shook off my rust, I played fairly error-free and quite well, largely due to all the work and studying and playing I have done on the computer. In fact, as I saw lots of other players apparently suffer from “chess fatigue”, I began to get into a rhythm, improving with each game. Therefore, in my estimation (and Tom’s as well) the best path to no kidding, real chess improvement involves both forms of playing.

2. Kids. I watched more of my contemporaries (and teammates) get mowed down by kids this past weekend than I think I have seen in a looooonnnnnnng time. It was amazing. I actually don’t mind playing the under-18 (or actually under-12) crowd as I think my style really suits playing hyper-aggressive, super-tactical little balls of energy. Having said that, two things really bother me about playing kids.
• Kids are super underrated. Nothing worse than sitting across from some IM-trained, mega-booked up kid who has a played a billion scholastic games against other super underrated IM-trained, mega-booked up kids. Talk about an incubator of chess-killing machines. One of my games from USATE with a SEVEN YEAR OLD went ~ 18 moves into theory. When I was seven, I couldn’t even SPELL theory – much less know the moves. I would recommend to the USCF that you might look to have an alternate rating calculation when kids are playing that enables them to earn/lose higher ratings points when they play while also minimizing the points their opponents gain/lose. I believe this would more accurately reflect the true nature of the situation when a kid sits down to play a game, and most importantly cushion the older generation’s collective egos after we get crushed by a kid who isn’t even in middle school yet.
• (The following is meant tongue in cheek and with a grain of salt) Kids don’t know diddly squat about Chess Etiquette but should. Note to you all you chess trainers – take 15 minutes and teach your kids a little chess etiquette vice spending it on the latest Theoretical Novelty on move 15 in the King’s Indian Bayonet. No kidding, after the fifth time your star pupils, who is sporting your Chess Academy’s T shirt, asks for a draw (on my move for the 5th time) when he is 600 points lower rated and down material with no compensation, don’t be surprised if I don’t react politely (as opposed to the first four times I declined the offer with replies like “Hmmm, let’s play on for a while” or “No, thanks”). And hey all you kids, I know you are taught to play to the bitter end in scholastic events, but give us old codgers a bit of credit that we can mate your solitary king with a queen, a rook and a whole plethora of minor pieces. Really, we might be sporting more hair on our backs than on our heads nowadays and drooling at the chess board, but we still can muster that capability between naps during the game. This is not some scholastic event and we do not have a rating possessing only three digits.

3. There were noticeably less GMs/IMs and other hugely strong teams. I might be wrong about this, but I guess one of the unintended consequences of the economic downturn is the fact that GMs/IMs are less apt to spend precious money to play in a tournament that offers little financial reward (I would venture the Ebay market for chess clocks and USATE plaques is probably as “depressed” as a house in South Florida). Another side effect of the lack of strong teams was the fact that there were a higher percentage of kid’s teams, and therefore a greater chance to play kid’s teams. We in fact played kids teams in three successive rounds.

4. Steven Doyle & his crew have created a tremendous tournament and chess environment that truly captures the adage “We play chess for the fun of it,” which stands in direct opposition to the many events that require large entry fees in order to offer huge prize funds to attract folks to play. Although Steven may not in fact use the term “Festival” to describe USATE, I think “Festival” perfectly describes this wonderful event.

Round 1: Primates 3 – Friends of Punk 1

Round 1 went pretty well with Tom and Curt doing all the heavy lifting, both of whom winning in distinctly different ways (some might say polar opposite). Ironically both games were Ruy Lopezes – Tom with white & Curt with black. However that is about where the similarities ended as Tom picked up an early pawn, then another and very efficiently converted his advantage. Curt on the other hand had to endure all sorts of pressure (Curt’s game definitely demonstrated why the Ruy is often deservedly referred to as the “Spanish Torture” for Black) before his opponent overreached attacking Curt’s kingside fortress. Curt finally converted after a long and grueling 3+ hour session.

On Board 4, Bob had the misfortune of being extremely busted in the opening due to a tactical oversight, then valiantly fighting back for 20+ moves to reach and even R+P endgame, only to lose in the endgame when his opponent was able to penetrate with a passer. Unbelievably bad luck, but one that I have had experienced with all too common frequency.

As for me?? Well, I had the easiest game of all with my opponent gifting me the forfeit win. On any other week I would have gladly accepted the free point; but as I am prepping for US Amateur Team East (with Tom), I was looking forward to “sharpening the blade” a bit. At least I got a couple of pretty solid, focused studying in while preparing for the game – as opposed to the hours of mindless blitz which usually fill my ICC time.

Primates gear up for Tournament 44!

The gang returns intact – with the exception of Don, who continues to concentrate on his Masters studies program. Tom, Curt, Trond, Bob & I average a solid 1990 rating, with Trond serving as the primary backup player. The 1990 average rating will not makes us a #1 seed in any division, but on the other hand we are not in any danger of becoming too highly rated as a team to compete in the U2000 section. I am intrigued to see with whom we are placed in our division, as now that we have become one of the “regular” teams (i.e., a team with a fairly solid composition and has played in the last 5 – 10 tournaments). I do not think we have any particular rivals, despite the fact that the 45 45 league has a host of other “regular” teams. Perhaps over time we will develop a “rivalry”, as there exists the real potential to face the same opponent regularly -- which I think brings interesting challenges as well as the potential for real chess learning and improvement.

I also signed up to play for a team in the U2200 division with the expressed understanding that I would be only playing ~3 rounds (plus playoffs if required). With the lack of OTB tournament play on my calendar, 45 45 will just have to serve as my way of staying in shape chess-wise for the near term.

Finally on a completely different note, I received an email asking me if I wanted to play on an over 40 soccer travel team playing in Wilmington, NC, next month. My wife said it was “OK” with her, but to be fair I have not touched a ball in about a month since fall season ended. I am squarely on the fence on this one.