State No. 18 - Nevada

It should be noted that I was not able to leave the Strip or the Downtown area due to some damaging phone issues.  So I pretty much only did CrossFit, Hoover Dam, Fremont Street, & The Strip until the tournament started at the Westgate Las Vegas Hotel.  This blog entry will not cover any part of Las Vegas outside these areas, as I did not get to any.

I wrote a medium-to-long length review of my experience at Freestyle CrossFit on my yelp profile, & I'm providing a link to it right here: FreeStyle CrossFit review  Suffice to say, I regretted going to this place.

Very important warning about Fremont Street & the Strip: If you hate secondhand smoke, avoid these places.

There are a lot of people walking around & at least half of them smoke.  My eating & sleeping habits were affected so badly that I couldn't enjoy most of my meals & had a hard time finishing entrees that I normally finish without difficulty.  The insides of casino hotels are usually no better since smoking is allowed in the casino areas.  There may be exceptions, but I was not lucky enough to find them at the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, MGM Grand, Planet Hollywood, Westgate Las Vegas, Circus Circus, Harrah's, & the Linq.

While I did visit the Venetian & the Palazzo, I visited the second floor & thus avoided the Casinos.  I detected no secondhand smoke there, but I did see a few gondoliers, as they created an indoor water area for anyone to ride a gondola in for the right price.

At Bally's, if you approach Bally's from the Las Vegas Monorail system, you can gain access to a food court where I did not detect secondhand smoke.  Very important to be able to eat away from the tournament hotel & not have to worry about such bad air.

The Las Vegas Monorail takes you from the SLS Las Vegas all the way down to the MGM Grand, stopping at Westgate Las Vegas, Las Vegas Convention Center (site of a Magic Tournament during the same weekend as the Chess Tournament), Harrah's/The Linq, Flamingo/Caesars Palace, Bally's/Paris, & MGM Grand.  Cost is $5/single ride, $12 unlimited for a 1-day pass, $22 for a 2-day unlimited pass, & other rates on their website.  Las Vegas Monorail.

I did schedule a trip to the Hoover Dam.  It is a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.  I also got to see the Mike O'Callaghan - Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, which was built to bypass the Hoover Dam.  The tour guide Preston was great - he was able to explain in detail how it was conceived, the construction process, & lots of other interesting facts about the Hoover Dam.  The exhibits are very interesting - they even had one exhibit about special words the workers used while on the job.

I highly recommend you go & visit.  It is between 60-90 minutes southeast of Las Vegas.

The National Open is one of the most efficient, large-scale tournaments that I have ever been to.  In four of the first five rounds, the total starting round time delay was all of 3 minutes.  This was so small that I had to be told that rounds started late & the TD staff was angry that lateness occurred. (For comparison, when I last played in the World Open, 20-minute delay to a round was a good round.)  The TD staff are on point about enforcing rules & settling disputes, & no controversies that I know of erupted.

Now, I haven't finished analyzing all my games yet, but I show you my Round 3 win because I believe that the positional pawn sacrifice/breakthrough is something I struggle with even as recently as a year or so ago, & this is more of an attacking style game that would be interesting to readers.  Attacking players can find the buildup & breakthrough fascinating, while positional players can recognize that attacking the king was the only correct strategy here.  (Also showing this to you since it breaks the pattern of me typically showcasing an ending of some sort.)

(I apologize for ampersands not showing up in the text - it is my kryptonite.  I love using the ampersand, but ChessBase notation doesn't react well to it.)

I do have an interesting Queen vs. two Rooks game that I would like to show you, but I have not yet finished analyzing this game & this may be a separate post.  (Of particular contention is where I believe White has an advantage in a certain variation with the engine agreeing, but the play looks very difficult to execute & I'm not certain that these best moves can be found naturally.)

One of the interesting things about this tournament is that in the last round, with Black having draw odds, the winner gets the board & the set.  I won my last round outright, so I was able to go home with an extra board & set as shown here.

This finally explained to me why I occasionally see National Open Chess Boards - the organizers give them away at the end of the tournament!  This is very nice of them!

I finished with a 3.5 out of 6, not enough to win money.  However, the organizers gave $50 gift certificates to the plus score players (for the uninitiated, a plus score is a score that is above 50%.), so I was able to walk away with a few extra chess books.  I'm not going to object to getting something in my third out-of-state tournament out of three out-of-state tournaments this year.

The tournament organizers will apparently mail a commemorative DVD with the pictures, games, newsletters, & more.  When I receive that DVD, I will post a picture of it.  So I guess there will be an addendum post to cover the DVD image & the Queen vs. two Rooks game I promised you.

And that concludes Nevada, State No. 18.  #fiftystatesofchess

State No. 17 - Montana

I got off the plane in Missoula around 4:14 or so local time.  I had been in contact with the Owner of 5 Valleys CrossFit, & we had discussed me dropping in either Thursday night, Friday morning, or Friday night.  Missoula Airport is, however, small enough that I was able to get my rental car situation squared away before the checked baggage carousel activated.  I was already off to 5 Valleys CrossFit in about 15 minutes.  Those of you from my area know that the time from plane landing to sitting in a car heading to [Insert destination here.] is not usually that fast in Newark Airport.

It should be noted that along the outer edges of Missoula, that there are various places that advertise that they have casinos inside.  Apparently the gambling laws are very different out west, though that shouldn't be a complete surprise.

On Friday morning, I ended up taking a short hike to the M on the M trail.

http://www.missoulian.com/app/hikebike/MS-mtrail.html

Having not hiked in over a decade, plus doing 2 WODs within the last 24 hours (I went back to 5 Valleys CrossFit on Friday morning), plus almost choosing the wrong path, resulted in me taking around 37 minutes to reach the M.  (Unknown distance on the harder path to get there, elevation gain 620 feet)  There were, however, some beautiful views & I tried to capture some of them while I was up there.

I went back to the room, napped for far longer than I thought, & then made my way over to the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula.  The funniest story I remember reading when there was that the fort commanders tried to stop a group of Native Americans from traveling southeast by building a hastily-erected earth & log barricade at Lolo Canyon, but the Native Americans went around them.  This site later became known as Fort Fizzle.

I took additional pictures of a one-room school below & the internment center during World War II.  Except for the school, none of the outer buildings on the grounds were open as it was too early in the calendar year.

This was the second trip in a row that a friend of mine joined me on the trip.  My friend was a classmate of mine in college, but she happens to live in Montana now.  I met her & her family for dinner in the downtown area.

It should be noted that this is the first time I drove through an area that had flashing yellow arrows for dedicated left turn lanes, as the downtown Missoula area has several of them.  They seem to love this in the Northwest, as a Professional Engineer once spent a two-page email telling me about its benefits.

Before I move on to the chess game, it should be noted that there is no sales tax in Montana that I observed, similar to Delaware.  You know your bill instantly by simply adding up the prices of things you ordered.

The tournament was interesting.  It is safe to say that I was the only player from the eastern time zone at this tournament.  Gary Solomon & Daniel McCourt did a good job of organizing the tournament.  It was strange at first, but refreshing overall to hear them introduce me as the player coming from New Jersey prior to the start of the tournament.  These two, as well as a few others, gave me some warm welcomes & overall were pretty friendly.

There was an interesting oddity in Round 2 - Out of 9 games involving a Round 1 winner, 6 of them finished in draws, including mine.  I can't recall ever seeing 2/3 of the field do that.

I had a hard time selecting a game for this blogpost, as I promised my third round opponent that I would not post the miniature, & the other games were decided in the ending.  I have selected my game against the Oregon National Master in the Fourth Round.

After drawing this game, I was able to win the last round & seal up a tie with the Oregon NM for first & second, marking this the 5th state that I have won a prize in.

Full standings available as a pdf here: http://www.montanachess.org/2017/04/09/2017-mt-open-april-1-2/

Edit: Map updated

And this ends State Number 17.  #fiftystatesofchess

State No. 16 - Delaware

This was a short trip, but I still got to make one sightseeing visit & one CrossFit visit before the tournament started.  One of my friends actually joined me for a few meals.

I got to visit New Castle Courthouse Museum.  (Free to visit, ample parking in front.)  Found out a few interesting facts from my historian/tour guide:

Lumberton, NJ was named for a gentleman who eventually settled in the present day area of Lumberton, NJ.  Prior to settling there, he was convicted of inciting the natives by engaging in the fur trade illegally.  He had to relinquish all his furs.  An Englishman was caught years later in the same crime, & Lumberton served as a juror on that case.  The Englishman was also found guilty & forced to relinquish all of his furs.

The Audience would be to the left of this picture.  Once a verdict is reached, the sticks are rotated so that they can see the verdict.  On the White & Red Arrow sticks, white is innocent & red is guilty. 

Penn’s Landing is actually two blocks from the New Castle Courthouse Museum.  When Penn first landed in America, he stepped foot in New Castle, Delaware first, not in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

CrossFit Diamond State – Drop In

Coach Gia, the Owner, was very nice.  I ended up doing Open WOD 17.3 Scaled with them at the 4:30pm class.

It was tough, as squat snatches are a clear weakness of mine.  I finished two reps shy at the 8 minute mark, posting a 70 in the scaled workout.

Delaware State Open
The tournament was nice, low key.  Staff ran it well despite a 30-minute hiccup prior to Round 1.  I tied for the U2000 prize with 3 other people, scoring 3.5 score out of 6 rounds.  This is the 4th known state where I have won a prize.

Below is my last round that catapaulted me into the four-way tie:

And this ends State No. 16 #fiftystatesofchess

Fifty States of Chess Map + CrossFit Games Update

As I wait for Chess Tournaments to advertise their tournaments for 2017, a couple of developments have sprung up.

1) The CrossFit Games will be in Madison Wisconsin during 2017-2019.  (See the Facebook post dated November 20, 2016, at 8:38 pm for the video announcement.)  The US Chess Open will be 6 miles away or so in 2018.  If the dates lineup, I will likely be a spectator at the CrossFit Games.

2) I would like to produce a visual map of my journey so far, so here is one, produced from https://mapchart.net/usa.html

This map is accurate as of now & is subject to updates in the future.

State No. 14 (Ohio) & No. 15 (Indiana)

It was an interesting trip, covering two states in one vacation.  I flew into Indianapolis, drove to Cincinnati, drove back to Indianapolis, took a 1-day side trip to Chicago, & then back to Indianapolis.

In Cincinnati, I visited the American Sign Museum.  This museum displays signs from various time periods...business signs.  You walk through & see descriptions on the colors, the lights, the lettering, etc.  This museum take about 60-75 minutes.

After this, I drove over to the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, which is the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge.  I understood the similarities as I walked on the bridge & noticed that the suspension cables were very similar to the suspension cables on the Brooklyn Bridge.

I also visited the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.  When I was there, they not only covered the period up to & including the Civil War & Restoration, but they also touched on slavery in different forms going on in today's times, & how they are trying to fight it on those multiple fronts.  Below are two pictures of how a few people were able to escape.

And the following two pictures show how they disguised messages back then.

I then walked over to the beginning & endpoints of US Route 22.  US Route 22 actually starts off as US Route 22 North, & then goes as US Route 22 East.  The signed end point is two blocks or so different from the end point listed on their Straight Line Diagram.

I think I played pretty well in Cincinnati, though I didn't win any money.  Below is a 3rd round game versus a local master where I had to fight to save a draw.

2 points (+1, =2, -1) out of 4 rounds.

On the way down to Cincinnati, I discovered that 11 different Grant County communities erected a Garfield statue.  Garfield is the legendary fat cat comic character created by Jim Davis, & his home county growing up was Grant County.  So, after visiting the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum (60-75 minutes), I drove around Grant County taking pictures of each Garfield Statue.

After a day long side trip to Chicago (Who knew "Keep me in the loop" is a reference to downtown Chicago?), I went to the Benjamin Harrison House.  There were plenty of interesting facts I learned on this 60-75 minute tour, including but not limited to:

First president to electrify the White House

Digs into his own money to provide fire protection for the neighborhood, & is given a lamp at the stair base

Loved Cherry pie, said it was sweeter than beating a Democrat

Brought 6 states into the Union, most by any President

Last president to have a beard

At the US Open, the hotel rooms provided for the USCF players & staff was terrible - I thought these rooms were worse than college dormitories.  Stuff was broken, requests for items didn't get fixed, hallway continuously smelled of smoke, rooms were in terrible shape upon arrival, desk was sticky - I would recommend not staying at the Indianapolis Conference Center Hotel ever again. 

Below is my fourth round game to put me at 3 points after 4 rounds, ensuring that I played up rating-wise until my score drew back to even prior to the final Round 9.

Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than to be good.  5 points (+4, =2, -3) out of 9 rounds.

Chief TD Brian Yang ran a pretty good tournament.  I didn't witness any problems during the tournament, & there were no missing results in the first 8 rounds.

I also visited CrossFit NapTown.  Coach Rachel did a fantastic job in demonstrating the movements & working with each person individually to ensure that everyone was doing the movements correctly.

I thought that I would not have a chance to play Ultimate Frisbee during this vacation as I missed a chance to play on the first Sunday due to the Hunt for the Garfield Statues.  Luckily, my opponent on the second Sunday lost early (dropped a piece on move 15), so I got to play Pickup with the Tuesday & Thursday Indy Frisbee Group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/downtownindyfrisbee/

They also play Sundays at 4pm - 6pm or later.

This was a good group of athletes, & I highly recommend playing if you can.  Parking is free on Sundays.

I also did a hunt for the Ndy Statues (Warning: They can be moved without notice, so keep this in mind.)  This hunt was inspired by a woman from CrossFit NapTown doing a handstand for the I!!  While I cannot do that, I did find all three of them listed on the website, even though one of the locations was outdated.

And that concludes this post.  #fiftystatesofchess

State No. 13 - Georgia

CDC Museum
The David J. Sencer Centers for Disease Control & Prevention Museum was a fun museum.  Admission is free & it takes about 60-90 minutes to go through the entire museum.  The first two levels (ground, 1 level below ground) have a lot of user-created maps, & the bottom level takes you through the history of the centers for disease control.

Civil Engineering (Walking Routes) Map! I would be excited to design this.

How food production errors cause bad things to happen. 

CrossFit Identity
They do a social question of the day in order to learn something new about members & drop ins.  The question of the day when I was there had to do with the last time you ate taco bell when you were sober.  (failing or absent any taco bell trips, any fast food)
Strength
High hang Squat Snatch
Masters Qualifier WOD #4 from 2016
55 Bar Facing Burpees, 34 OH Squats, 21 Muscle ups

After the workout, while I was waiting to get a T-shirt, I noticed that the Vending Machine had a Pure Protein Shake Can.  I tried it, & it is good.  It gave me the extra time I ended up needing in order to get food.

I wanted to go to Stone Mountain, but allergies acted up after the WOD & I was forced to check in to a nearby hotel & then go out to get dinner instead,

In going to get food, I saw at least ten & maybe twenty strip clubs & sex shops galore in less than a mile off Cheshire Bridge Road.  (No, gentleman's club is a phrase play fake that doesn't work.)  It should also be mentioned that I thought I saw 5 drunk driving defensive course locations along the same stretch.

Restaurant #1 was attire-restricted, Restaurant #2 had a loooooong line.
Restaurant #3 was Grindhouse.  Their sauce didn't taste good simply in terms of the ingredients don't taste well combined.

Emory University - The Tournament site.

The campus is entirely tobacco free.

This increased the beauty of the university, not that it was ugly to begin with.  

A sign to warn about distracted walking. 

Brick Paver Detectable Warning Surfaces

Nice Entance.

Tournament - Saturday Sunday
Stole a draw in Round 1, Won by time forfeit in an otherwise potential draw situation, narrowly avoided a checkmate & then rolling to a win in Round 3, Won in Round 4, Missed a winning advantage in Round 5 & settling for a draw.

Saw two fellow NJ players there, one of them was an assistant TD.  The other thought someone was a doppelganger of me!!
Full Results Here

After the Tournament, I went to Palookaville Fine Foods to try the a decadent delicious chocolate dessert in Atlanta
(https://www.zagat.com/b/atlanta/10-decadent-delicious-chocolate-desserts-around-atlanta)

Another 50/50 decision in my favor in that they were closed for two months & just reopened the previous week.  Their milkshakes are very popular & for good reason!  I was amused that the owner/manager there was stunned that the milkshakes were so popular that they ran out of cup holders!!  The bartender was awesome there & I enjoyed a nice conversation while I downed lunch & savored my chocolate milkshake.

I'll conclude with milkshake pictures:

#fiftystatesofchess