Musings from USATE 2011 Or “I am getting the band back together!”

Rust is toxic.

Mark came back. Don came back. I managed to cajole, plead, harass Tom, Mark & Don until they relented. Now Tom plays a bit (couple tournaments a year), but Don and Mark both were returning to tournament chess after a prolonged absence. Therefore, they were bound to be rusty --- couple that with 3 days and 6 rounds of chess, fatigue will set in and blunders will come. For Don, his inaccuracies were early but he managed to shake off the rust after the first couple rounds. For Mark however, he had the opposite problem as his mistakes came in the last round. Unfortunately they also came late and they came big. Fortunately, my fatigue was relatively mild and was less apparent than my opponents’, especially in the last round.

Who killed the heat?

I guess the global recession has hit hotel chess scene as the Main Ballroom of the Hilton was a decidedly balmy 50 degrees on Saturday noontime. I can understand the rational: billions of little heat producing chess machines all in one space will challenge any air conditioning system. However, even a couple hours into Round 1, the temperature had not climbed one iota and I was still shivering like a little kitten in a room full of Rottweilers. However, by the end of the tournament things had returned to normal as Sunday & Monday were much more tropical climes as the Air conditioning gods had decided to frequent other places. Thankfully I had donned my customary short sleeved shirt and was able to adapt.

Theme: Sit on them until they give you things

If you have read my post from last year’s USATE, you know that USATE has this species of murderous IM-trained little chess thugs who love to slay the older generation. You will also know that I fare a bit better than most of the older generation as I have adapted to defeat these nefarious mini-giant killers.

My guiding principles are simple:

One - don’t go tactical on these kids (it is a death sentence FOR YOU)

Two - steer toward the endgame (kids don’t know squat about endgames. Endgames are boring, they hate them).

Three - sit on them until they give you things. Trust me it works every time.

For example, Don played one of these little minions from hell in Round 5. They blitzed through 17 moves of the Ruy Lopez Marshall Attack. The kid took all of 3 minutes for those 17 moves. THAT IS CRAZY.

Give up on 1. e4. Throw it away. 1.Nf3 is the antidote. Even Tom who has never played 1.Nf3 in his life tried it without any prior preparation against a kid only 100 points lower rated. Now admittedly he only drew, but he had all the play, was a whole hour ahead on the clock and stated afterwards that it was the easiest game he had played all tournament.

Scenes to a cheat

True story. I heard this antidotally, but from a trusted source. In the final round of the tournament, one of my friend’s teams was playing a kids team. He finished pretty quickly and sat down to watch one of his teammates play and subsequently noticed that the opponent’s father was standing behind his teammate. He thought it odd but initially gave it no mind. But as the game went on he noticed that the kid would look to his father quite a bit and that his father seemed to be making hand gestures. He summoned the TD and a major brouhaha ensued outside as the father – in broken English – claimed he had the right to “coach” his son while denying that he was giving his son advice on moves. Unfortunately because my friend did not quietly tell the TD, who could then observe the behavior, the TD could do little except expel the father from the playing hall. Unbelievable that this kind of behavior would occur, especially at a “fun” tournament like Amateur teams.

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!