State #11 - Mississippi

I had been thinking about this blogpost for a while.  It is not usual for authors to present a game where the author loses.  However, when the opponent goes on to win the tournament, that feels like a justifiable exception, even if the game lasted only 18 moves.

(There really isn't much to say from my point of view from the actual game.  I played too loose in a tight game & went from slightly worse to dead lost in two moves.)

I had achieved a similar position a few years ago, where I blunted White's attack by trading off first the minor pieces, then forced an endgame where I used the e-file to good effect.  I haven't really gotten good results since, so it may be time to explore castling long to avoid this attacking setup.

My fourth round featured a game where my opponent mixed up ideas, playing closed opening moves when the position was fairly open.  I used this opportunity to grab a pawn & hold on.

I would like to comment that the Mississippi Chess Association members that I saw there were very accommodating.  Chief TD Mark Nicholas & Assistant TD Jeff Hensley were very kind, & ran a pretty good tournament.  Virtually all the local players that I got to talk to were very nice.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/115931459677/
Misissippi Chess Link via Facebook

There were a few tidbits about the tournament that I found interesting:

• The highest rating according to the wall chart was 2004, so anyone can really win the tournament.

• The players in Mississippi don't get to play rated tournament chess as often as we do here (As a reminder, I live & play in New Jersey.).  I believe I heard the Chief TD remind the players before Round 1 that it is touch-move.  (For the non-chess players, if you touch a piece, you must move it.)  I've only heard the touch-move rule mentioned in scholastic tournaments here at home, but I guess you have to adjust to your clientele.  (I have no problem with the reminder itself, just so you know.)
• The MCA holds their annual business meeting in between rounds of their state tournament.  I have a feeling that in states with smaller chess playing populations, it is popular to have your business meetings (where you elect officers, etc.) in between rounds of the state tournament, knowing that a large percentage of your players will be there to vote on issues.  If I remember correctly, Utah did this as well when I was there in 2014.

This concludes my year of traveling to new states for 2015 for #fiftystatesofchess.  If things go according to plan, Massachusetts, Delaware, & Montana may be on deck.

Other Non-Chess Topics

The roads in Mississippi are not very well constructed.  Light drizzle/rain caused some roads to have lots of standing puddles.  Drivers in Mississippi also like to accelerate all the time & get uncomfortable if you set your cruise control to a certain speed.  Luckily, there usually are so few drivers that driving around isn't a problem.  Pass them or they pass you; either way, you never see them again.  You could go 60+ miles without hitting traffic signals along the correct roads.  (I-61, anyone?)  When you do hit them, they tend to be uncoordinated.  I have a higher appreciation of cross-section drainage slopes in road design after driving 750+/- miles in Mississippi.

Vicksburg National Military Park is one of the important battle sites of the Civil War.  Vicksburg was dominated by cannon fire on both sides.  As you drive through the park, the

cannons can be seen pretty much everywhere.  It was interesting that the veterans of this battle went back in the early 1900s to mark out the locations where they fought; this became one of the most accurate historical sites in the country. This park is a drive-through park where you can spend 2-4 hours in it.  As you drive through, they let you know when you enter Union Lines & Confederate Lines.  I wish they had a few more walking paths to the educational structures, but I guess you can't control everything.  The hardest part to get to is the surrender interview site structure.  If you plan your trip, you will know where you can park on the main road & then take a short walk to the surrender interview site structure.  $8 for park entrance, no other charges to drive yourself through the park.

I also traveled to Birthplace of Kermit the Frog Museum.  Jim Henson was born in Greenville, MS but was raised for part of his childhood in Leland, MS.  He brought to life many, many characters.  I can't imagine growing up without Kermit the Frog & Big Bird from the Muppets & Sesame Street, respectively.  He was a very nice man with a vast imagination.  The museum itself is a small museum - it takes 30-60 minutes to go through.  The lady working at the museum indicated that they are photo-friendly museum & that visitors come from all over the world.  A group of people from Germany came in about 20 minutes after I did.  This was a great place to see pictures of Jim Henson, his family, & many of the different characters that he created.  No charge to enter, though donations & purchases are encouraged.

Additional trip photos can now be seen here.

Statistic of the return flight home: My flight from Memphis to Chicago Midway had 8 wheelchair people & 3 dogs.  I can't remember previously seeing more than two of the either category on any flight!

Edited 2015.11.01 10:24 PM because I found some additional trip notes of random interest that I forgot to mention.

Someone was playing Mario Kart Double Dash on the plane from EWR to MSP & actually tried to go underwater on the Daisy Cruiser Course.  I'll have to investigate this path.

The airport massage therapist at MSP I visited has actually been to 45 out of the 50 states, so it was fun to hear her describe selected states she visited.

Churches are so prevalent in Mississippi that there are warning signs for churches on some part of US 61!

2015 NJ Open - Quick Summary

GM Magesh Panchanathan is the new NJ Champion from this weekend's NJ Open! 

We had 10 GMs, 4 IMs, & over 240 players in the three day event. 

Thank you to all who played & thank you to the organizers & TDs.

State #10 - Arizona - US Open - Part 2 - Chess Games

My play during the US Open was only average to above average.  I lost the two games I played to higher rated players, & lost in Round 1.  I finished with 5.5 points out of 9 rounds.  Had I drawn the first game & reached 6 points in some way, I would have won $658 +/-.  Had I won the first round & somehow finished with 6.5 points, I would have won $2200 +/-.  (Depending on the percent payout of the prize fund.)

2015 US Open Full Results

I used a MonRoi supplied by the TD staff for the first time against the two higher rated players.  It was interesting because there was extra pressure knowing my friends & family here at home could follow the action in those two rounds if they so desired.

If you click on this US Open Games by MonRoi link, do a search for Chen in Rounds 4 & 6.  In Round 4, I made a blunder on the 16th move which eventually lost me a Rook.  In Round 6, my opponent's heavy pressure was just too much for me to handle.

Below is a snapshot of the first round.  I've wanted to play the Schliemann variation for a while, but never had the chance to do so.  I think if I had played 9...f4, I might have had something on the kingside, but it wasn't fully concrete.  The best chance was to simply trade the light Bishops (11...Bxf3 12. Bxf3 Nd4) & try to establish the remaining knight.  I opted to try the kingside attack, but it wasn't really there.

This last game is from Round 8, after I correctly guessed that chances at the money disappeared after the Round 7 draw.  I avoided the Nimzo-Indian & dared my opponent to trade dark Bishops.  It seemed like he mixed up concepts between fianchettoing the Queen Bishop & playing for ...c5.  After the trade of pawns on d5, it seemed like I could eventually play Knight vs. Bishop.

Still, even with the disappointing first round, it wasn't a bad tournament overall.  My next chance is in two days at the NJ Open, where 9 GMs head a strong Open section - I might end up playing 1 of them in an early round!

State #10 - Arizona - US Open - Part 1 - Non-Chess Stuff

So, for State #10, I sent myself on a 7-8 day trip to Phoenix, where the US Open was being played at the Arizona Biltmore.  This first part covers non-chess stuff.

Let it be known that this hotel is normally $400-$500 a night when it is peak season (October to May).  I can tell you for a fact that August is NOT peak season in Phoenix.  Since the chessplayers' rate was published online somewhere, I have no qualms about telling you that the rate we paid was $99/night with no resort fee.

Below are pictures of the bathroom.

Yes, there are glass mirrors seemingly everywhere in this bathroom.

I have a friend at CrossFit Westfield who happened to visit Phoenix a few months earlier.  He gave me a specific restaurant, Los Reyes De La Torta.  There is more than one, but I happened to go to the same one he went to on North 7th Street.  (Scroll down on thekecmaster.yelp.com to find it.)  I am not normally a fan of Mexican food, but I really did like this place.  The sandwiches were enormous, & they were very presentable & definitely enjoyable to eat.

I played Ultimate Frisbee on the First Sunday (August 2) at night in Tempe with a group called DISCepticons - Phoenix Area Ultimate Frisbee Pickup.  (You can look them up on facebook.)  They have two games, a more serious pickup, & a more casual pickup.  They wait until 7pm & play under the park lights to avoid the triple digit temperatures that one would read about in the desert.  (Side note about weather: Listening to locals complain about 20% humidity was hilarious.  Come east for a few days & 20% humidity suddenly isn't so bad.)  Since I took an uber car trip there, I asked if anyone was heading back toward the Biltmore that could drop me off.  One of the players was nice enough to do so (I feel bad, I forgot his name, so sorry I can't give credit where credit is due.).  As he drove me back, we talked about red light cameras.  In the middle of the discussion, he gets flashed by a red light camera!  Oh boy, I hope the police decide that he was already in the intersection before it turned red, but I wouldn't put it past the camera companies to have intentionally mistimed the lights to favor the collection of money.

Monday August 3, I went on a planned one day tour with Detours Arizona to Sedona & the Grand Canyon with 6 others from Toronto, 1 from Germany, 1 from DC, & 1 from California.  Our tour guide driver Jason M. was really knowledgeable about the climate, the plant life, the history, the statistics, the fun facts, & the geology covering both sites.  One of the cliffs in the Grand Canyon (Visible from Lipan Point, look North from there) is the basis for all those falls with Wile E. Coyote.  Cartoon history aside, it was really breathtaking to be so high up that you couldn't see people hiking or anything else below.

The second part of the trip that was really fun as the trip to Desert Botanical Garden on Saturday August 8.  This place explains all the different plants of the region, how they survive different seasons, & how people in the area adapted to life in the area.

I went to Back Alley CrossFit on Thursday August 6 in the morning (7:30).  The instructor seemed to be more in tune with the attendees (compared to my first road box visit at a different place on Tuesday 7:30 AM) & my warmup partner was really welcoming.  This instructor gave us a lot of different tips & worked with everyone to see if they could do the hard part of the workout.  The warmup exercises were different, but at least made sense & I felt ready to tackle rope climbs.

Side note: Part of the warmup was a partner row.  If you both row exactly 100 meters, no pushup or situp penalty.  If you end short of 100, the difference is the number of pushups & the number of situps.  If you go over, the Price is Right Style Penalty is either 10 or 15 of each.  (I lost the screenshot, so I forget which number)

I think, however, (aside from my workout partner & the instructor) that the social atmosphere wasn't very good here either - I still felt like an outsider & not at home.  I do wonder if in general, the evening classes welcome drop ins better than morning classes.   Neither location in Phoenix that I went to held a candle to the social atmosphere pre & post WOD in CrossFit EPC - I really felt at home there, & I'm not forgetting that ever.

Other than scary stories (leaving my phone in an uber car & running 2 minutes before catching up with the driver), eating like a local, wishing the connecting flight from Philadelphia to Newark wasn't delayed 3 hours due to bad maintenance & no backup plan, appreciating Arizona summer weather, appreciating the best food service at Snooze & Grassroots, that's pretty much it for non-chess stuff.  I'll talk about the two Monroi games, the opening round loss, & more in the next post.

Edit: 8/19 11:27 am.  This post will be edited to talk about the other Ultimate group in the Northwest part of Phoenix that I forgot to talk about.

I would be remiss if I forgot to mention that I woke up early on Sunday August 9 to play Ultimate in the Northwest part of Phoenix.  You can lookup Ultimate Frisbee - Northwest Valley on Facebook.  This is a nice group that actually determines the teams before play.  The interesting thing is that rather than rest players to go 7-on-7, all 18 of us were on the field.  They play 2 games to 7 & then a sudden death game to 3 or 4.  This is a really friendly group that has been playing for about 8 years.  I mentioned that I got there by Uber, & one of them offered to drive me home if I installed Lyft on my phone.  I did so & got a Lyft ride home.  Sweet!

Delay for Blog on the August Trip US Open

Dear Readers,

There is a delay on the blogpost for the US Open as some untimely issues have come up.  I will try to update you all by this weekend with my trip to Arizona.  Feel free to read my yelp reviews (username: thekecmaster) if you are interested in the food portions of the trip.  I'll try to expand on them more in the coming post.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Chicago Open 2015

So, State #9 was Illinois, where I opted to play in the Chicago Open.  It seems that they book the same hotel every year, The Westin Chicago North Shore Hotel in Wheeling, IL.  The notable places before/during the tournament that I visited were CrossFit EPC in Buffalo Grove, Willis Tower, Begin Historic US Route 66 Sign, Crown Fountain in Millenium Park, Giordano's near Millenium Park, Level 257 (The Pac Man Restaurant) in Schaumburg, & Lou Malnati's in Buffalo Grove.

Wheeling is a NW suburb of Chicago.  Public transportation is pretty lacking here.  The best bet to go downtown is to arrange for a hotel shuttle or cab to Wheeling or Lake Cook Train Stations & then take the Metra to get to Union Station in downtown Chicago.  Otherwise, if you don't rent a car, Uber becomes important.

CrossFit EPC was nice.  I had conversed with the owner briefly by email.  Their facility, while a bit small since they can only accommodate 10 students at a time, is really well organized & conducive to CrossFit WODs.  Their board is organized by warmup, strength, & WOD portions for the current day's workout.  The instructor when I was there, Philip, is very good at guiding you through the movements in all the stages, & gives great advice.  The classmates there were awesome - I talked with a few before, & many more after.  Their community post-WOD was awesome.

I took my first ever free Uber ride from the hotel to CrossFit EPC, but since the distance was 3 miles, I thought I could just walk home.  I gotta tell you, walking in the suburbs is a bad idea.  I saw less than ten people walking anywhere in the entire trip in the suburbs.  Portions of sidewalk often disappear, bugs hang out near any kind of water, & don't forget about extra stuff on the ground from geese.

Next day, I went up to Willis Tower, the new name of the Sears Tower.  You should remember this place from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as Ferris once mentioned in that movie, "Anything is peaceful from one thousand, three hundred and fifty-three feet."  On the way back down, I bought two comedic books, one about facebook & one about only words in funny combinations.

After doing the obligatory picture taking, including non-selfie shots, I walked over to the Begin Historic Route 66 Sign, where I just asked a random person to take my picture with this sign.  I'll try to make a trip to the End Historic Route 66 Sign in Los Angeles at some point.

I walked on over to Crown Fountain in Millenium Park, where two structures display random faces & every 10-15 minutes (or whatever the actual time was), the faces would make the spitting motion & the structures display water.  There were a few people who ran to the falling arc of water & several women running around in the water between the two structures barefoot.

Since it was already after 2 PM central time, I opted to walk to Giordano's for the first of two deep dish pizza stops I planned on this trip.  There was no table open, so I was offered a seat at the bar.  This couldn't have gone any better, as I strike up a conversation with a random attractive dietitian from Las Vegas who also happened to be eating deep dish pizza for the first time.  I remember this conversation fondly because we asked each other about first time for deep dish pizza & I mentioned that I was supposed to be on a diet.  She joked, "What's a diet?" & then drops about 30 minutes later that she's a dietitian.

After enjoying the deep dish pizza here, I make a timing error at 330pm.  The Chicago art Museum closes at 5pm, so $23 for a 1.5 hour visit didn't seem worth it.  My phone was dying (22%, & I still need to call my friend), so I opt to go back to the hotel, drop off the books, & try to get to Level 257 as early as I can.  However, I miss the 357pm train heading back, so I have to wait for the 440pm train.  I luck out when the hotel shuttle picks me up right away while we wait for the other three people who ended up going to Wheeling Train Station instead.  However, when I go back to the room, I panic because I couldn't find the charger.  I whiffed because I had it the whole time!  I could have gone straight to Level 257 & had a better chance to be in the first 257 people to earn a prize, which was free 30 minutes of game play on another day.

After charging the phone, I utilize my second free Uber ride from the Hotel to Level 257.  The place was really more than I expected.  I got there at 730pm, bought an item at the store (Pac Man Party for Wii) & then proceeded upstairs to wander around & play games while waiting for my friend to show up.  I saw people play Level 255, the last level of Pac Man, where the ghosts only reverse directions on the power pellet, & then play Level 256, where half the screen is gobbledeygook!  There are bowling alleys with pac man themed bowling balls & pac man & ghost icons for your names!  Plenty of games abound the place.  Since this was Pac Man's 35th birthday, play was free for all visitors.

My friend gets there, & we're seated at roughly 8pm.  This is the big negative about the place in my opinion: It took us 2 hours to eat dinner.  The service was slow, & they forgot items or got items wrong.  (Items missed: Cappucino for my friend, my fake alcoholic drinks, ice in my sodas when I specifically said no ice)  We walk around the place after dinner (lots & lots of people playing &/or waiting to play, trust me.) & then head back downstairs to the store so I can buy more items.

The next day, I went to Lou Malnati's in Buffalo Grove.  Another deep dish pizza place.  So having eaten at both deep dish pizza places, I feel qualified to review the two.

Giordano's had the slightly better deep dish pizza.  While both were good, the deep dish at Giordano's did not leak on to my hands.  (It is hot when it does.)  However, the customer service was better at Lou Malnati's - the wait staff provided better service, where at Giordano's, the only reason I didn't notice the long periods of service at first was the dietitian to my left.

By the way, deep dish pizza takes 30-45 minutes to make.  If you are not talking to anyone in particular there (friend or random other customer), you may want to order an appetizer.

And now for the Chess...

Since this is an event organized by the Continental Chess Association, the new rules about electronic devices are in effect.  The cell phones have to be completely off, & you cannot bring them into the bathroom with you.  A TD is sitting at each bathroom entrance saying, "No cell phones, please."  They say it even if you make multiple trips in the same round.  It is best to leave your phone in your bag, leave it in your room, or give it to your significant other so she/he can hold it.  Since I normally use my cell phone for step tracking, I now have to get a non-Internet pedometer for big tournaments.

Before I forget, I saw a few people from NJ, & A few people from Utah!  I enjoyed talking to them for a little bit in between rounds!

The play was interesting, if not great.  It seemed like I would make a small mistake between moves 12-20 in each game.  When I lost, I compounded the mistakes, creating my own avalanche.  I had 2.5 points after 4 rounds, but struggled the rest of the way & finished with 3 points out of 7 rounds total.  Rounds 1 & 5 featured opponents who went on to win money.  Rounds 5 & 7 are roommates who drove from Ohio.

Statistical oddities: I never won with Black in 5 opportunities (4 rated) between the US Amateur Team East & the Chicago Open.  The trend reversed in Wheeling, where I never won with White in 4 opportunities.

A 14-year old IM won the tournament, earning a GM norm & a 5-digit prize.  (Source: chicagoopen.net)

The best games were my 4th round, when I turned down a draw offer to win a knight ending, & the 7th round, when I fought for a 103-move draw when neither of us would offer a draw.  The last round went 5 hours & 13 minutes, easily my longest game this year in terms of moves (2nd closest is 80) & actual time elapsed (This game took 5 hours & 13 minutes).

That concludes State #9.  State #10, barring anything unforseen, will be a little farther away.  #fiftystatesofchess

US Amateur Team East/World Amateur Team 2015

This is one of my favorite tournaments of the year.  Over one thousand players form amateur teams where the rating is 2199 or under & play six games over three days.  Pictures from the event have been provided from the previous link.

The NJSCF staff running this event do a fantastic job every year.  Chief Organizer Steve Doyle always manages to give lots of prizes away before various rounds, & he'll do them in a fun matter, for example, first person to the mike with a Delaware quarter, or first person to the mike with a laptop.  I was lucky enough to wear an Amateur Team shirt from a previous year & won a book on Larry Evans.  There are prizes for best team name, so a lot of teams tried to do variations on the NFL DeflateGate Scandal, Bill Cosby, & other hot cultural topics.

My play entering the team event wasn't the good - I just came off a subpar performance in Baltimore where I recorded no wins in 5 games.  I did a little bit of research on Old Indian & King's Indian Lines a day before the team & got an immediate opportunity to test my research out.

I forgot to mention that Black's King isn't very available & the game transitions to an ending far faster than in most games.

This was a fun experience.  My team from the last few years broke up, so I got pulled onto a friend's team that needed a one-year replacement for their Board 1.  I ended up doing something I have never done before - finish a multi-day tournament with no losses.  I just narrowly missed a Candidate Master Norm with a draw in the last game, ending up with a score of 5 points (4 wins, 2 draws).  As a team, we finished with 3 match points, & nobody finished with less than 3 individual points!

Baltimore Open + Other Updates

Okay, some running updates.

1) Marvin & I finished our match.  Marvin won game 8 to win the match 4.5 to 3.5.  I won games 2 & 3 of that match, he won games 4 & 5.  1,6,&7 were draws.

2) I was down in Linthicum Heights, Maryland for the Baltimore Open.

The tournament setup was interesting: Prizes are given out if you reach a certain tournament score.  For U2100 3.5 points got $150, 4 points $350, 4.5 points got $700, & 5 points got $1500.

I scored 2 points, getting draws in losing/lost games in Rounds 1, 2, 4, & 5.  I lost Round 3 after having an advantage, which I will attach code & commentary for below.

What disturbed me was playing the sacrifice.  If I was going to play the sacrifice, I should have played it right away with little hesitation, not 30+ minutes of internal debate with my mind still not fully committed to it.  This loss knocked me out of contention for prize money, & my opponent ended up getting 3.5 points.  Final Live Standings of Baltimore Open per section

The tournament was well run.  Play starts right away at the appointed time, unless the previous round (here, Round 4) goes into overtime.  The 30-second increment, while a bit long for my tastes, does eliminate 5-second delay time scrambles & gives you an opportunity to play quality move after quality move.

Parking turned out to be a surprising problem - According to rumors, more people showed up than the TD staff was expecting.  One could see cars lined up parked on the shoulder of Old Elkridge Landing Road since the hotel lot was consistently full.

I do hope to see & play in more tournaments that feature prize based scoring, as you don't have to wait for your check - you finish & go to the TD room to get it.

GM Joel Benjamin Lecture

GM Joel Benjamin's game on active piece play

Lecture tonight Bergen Chess Mates, GM Joel Benjamin, on Mastering the Transition into the Pawn Ending.

Registration 640pm to 655pm, Lecture 7pm sharp.

Bergen Chess Mates, 100 Dayton Street, Ridgewood, NJ 07450

The Facebook page should have a photo of the flyer.

Two quick updates

Utah Open, KEC's Round 5 Game

NJ's Newest Chess Master

Just a few updates on previous posts & one new topic that I didn't provide a link to.

1) I submitted my Round 5 game for publishing to the NJ Chess writers (Pete Tamburro & Steve Doyle), & it was published above.  Everything except Monroe Township appears to be in order.

2) The match against my DOCA Knights teammate Marvin Shumowitz is currently tied 2.5-2.5.  We moved up a Friday round due to the the fact that Marvin was unavailable on Friday nights in the months of January & February.  Round 6 will be tonight, Rounds 7 & 8 will be determined as we scramble to find an alternate day & site due to work.

3) There was an article about our newest NJ Chess Master published in November 2014.  I posted it on my facebook page, but forgot to post it here.  I was really happy she got to Master level.

Edited 2015.01.02 1520 to provide an explanation on why 5 games in the match have already been played.

Edited 2015.01.02 1602 to include the article on our newest NJ Chess Master.