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.