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.

Garden State Chess League Round 2

The DOCA Knights have defeated Hamilton Chess Club at Hamilton 2.5-1.5 to kick off Round 2 matches.

Round 1 for the DOCA Knights will take place Thursday vs. lehigh Valley.

#gardenstatechessleague

KEC vs. MS - one-on-one 8-game match

One of my DOCA Knights teammates has challenged me to a one-on-one match, similar to the World Championship matches.

We have agreed to play 8 games on roughly alternating Friday nights.

11/7

11/21

12/5

12/19

1/9/15

1/23/15

2/6/15

& 2/20/15.

Scheduling Notes: 1/2 I'm not here, 2/13 is the World Amateur Team Tournament in Parsippany, NJ.  (Hint: play in that.)

Start Time 7:30pm

Time Control G/60, 10-second increment.

The Utah Open + the Conclusion of State # 7 Trip

Photos from the Utah Trip

First off, the link to the tip photos are above.  Second, the pgn display of the third round game is above.

The tournament was pretty fun.  I got to the University of Utah around four hours before the start of the tournament, so I did some random stuff & walked around campus a bit.  The tournament had a slightly rough beginning with room conflicts & people searching for the playing rooms, but overall, I thought the tournament was run acceptably.  They used SwissSys for the pairings (I got a glimpse of the laptop while waiting for one of the rounds), which is also used in New York but not in New Jersey.  NJ uses WinTD.  What was strange for me was the open section finished before the other sections did.  

There were roughly 27 players in the Open Section.  For NJ players, this may seem small, but one has to remember that there aren't that many chess players in Utah, either.

My round results in order were loss, win, win, draw, & win.  The person I lost to in Round 1 ended up jumping from B-player to A-player at the end of the tournament.  My last opponent was at the 2014 US Open for one of the invitational tournaments (Denker?) & hopes to come back in Phoenix next year.

The Utah Chess Association was pretty nice.  Gina kept in constant contact with me as I was setting up this trip, & Grant the Chief TD was solid.  I won a trophy & some cash for my efforts as the top U2000 player.

So the tournament ended on Saturday, & I planned to use Sunday to go sightseeing in Salt Lake City.  This did not work out too well.  I did go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance at Temple Square, & then I walked over to the Cathedral of the Madeleine.  However, I opted to take lunch after the mass, which was a mistake.  I ended up walking between an 60-90 minutes since most of the places I considered going to for food were closed or dodgy.  Interestingly, between the Cathedral & Dim Sum House, you could count on 4 hands or less the number of people walking around.  I thought I was in a ghost town rather than a big city.

I went to Dim Sum House, & Dim Sum was still open.  However, since I was by myself, I ate a little too much & had to go back to the hotel.  By the time I was done in the hotel, it was past 4pm Mountain Time & just not worth it to get to the Capitol Building, which closes at 6pm Mountain Time.

Side note on weather: Friday & Saturday, according to the locals, was 3 degrees higher than the previous record high.  Wearing a sweater & the New York Giants jacket was a clear mistake.

So, on Monday, I had to travel home with the trophy.  I get to the airport early, & ask the ticket agent if I was allowed to carry the trophy onto the plane.  She redirects me to the TSA staff 100 feet to her right.  They give me the okay on the trophy, & I'm in business.  The flight path going home included a connecting stop in Dallas Fort-Worth.  When I stopped in DFW, the odd thing about this airport was that there were not one, but two Dallas Cowboys apparel stores in Terminal C.  I don't think I have seen even one sports apparel store in an airport before, & I see two of a rival team in one place.  Luckily, at least 13 people between the first two airports stopped to ask questions or comment on the trophy, which drew attention away from the fact that I was wearing my Giants jacket so I didn't have to hold it.  When I got to the final airport, I told my dad picking me up, "I'm holding my trophy.  You shouldn't have a hard time finding me - I don't think there will be any other trophies visible at the airport."