State No. 20 - Texas

Post finished 2018.03.23 7:20 AM

The Battleship Texas

I visited Battleship Texas.  It is an interesting site featuring a ship that served in both World War I & World War II.  The different areas aboard the ship showcased different ideas from an area that resembled a pop culture store, where you can buy listerine, magazines, dentyne, & other pop culture products.  It's interesting to see famous name brands today have such different looks back then.

Near the Mail Room, they had a list of censorship regulations.  Such a list would extend to social media in this day & age.

NASA Space Center

I visited the NASA Space Center.  I found the item on computer memory fascinating, as it was one of the first advances of computer size during their time.  Also, LOL stood for little old lady who assembled the memory by hand.

They usually packaged their food in such a way that they can add water to it, & they did have a waste management system.

There was a Space vs. Earth Chess Game, & this is the set used in Space.

There were also a trainer used for the Skylab, the first US Space station, and a replica of the Shuttle Independence.

Fogo de Chao Steakhouse

I ate at Fogo de Chao on Westheimer Road.  It was an interesting buffet Brazilian steakhouse with a double-sided green & red coaster.  If the green side was up, servers would come with different cuts of meat to your table.  Anything you liked, they would put on your plate.  If the red side was up, that means your play (or your stomach) was full & they would pass.  Nice place, no dress code.  A little bit expensive, but definitely worth it.

Traffic

Traffic in Houston is generally nuts.  I-610 & I-45 was full of cars going less than 25 mph more than half the time.  I would consider using Uber if I ever get a chance to make a return visit.  There was a Rodeo somewhere on the western loop of I-610, which caused some unexpected additional problems, even at 11:30 at night!!  Also, their warning signs for work zone areas are more sudden & less conforming than they are back here in NJ.

CrossFit Vertigo & Scaled WOD 18.4

Vertigo seemed like an appropriate place because loss of balance could easily be achieved with handstand pushups & handstand walks for the RX athletes.  I did this workout scaled, so the handstand pushups were hand release pushups & the handstand walks were bear crawls, which were actually fun.  I got 122 scaled reps with an 8:12 tiebreak time.  I was very surprised about where I finished the first part (4:24 vs. an expected 6:00 or worse), but that jump from 135# to 185# felt more like 235#.

Coach Kurt was very good & the other athletes were pretty supportive of each other & of me.  I would definitely return.

Dancesport USA

I started to take lessons in ballroom dancing nearly two years ago via a friend from 5th grade who posted a facebook status update looking for guest dancers.  I have loved it ever since, & I still go regularly.  I wanted to try on this trip to find a ballroom or latin dance place, & I struck gold when I hit another facebook search.  This location was hosting Friday night ballroom dancing from 8:00pm - 10:30pm.  You pay $10 as a guest & the owner gives you a list of the expected songs & dances, as shown below.

There were some interesting tidbits, such as meeting a Scrabble Tournament Player (min 5,000 new words per year), a couple from Garwood, NJ who moved South because they hated snow, & a visiting couple from Laredo, TX who knew about this place & also dropped in.  Since I was the only unpartnered male, I had to walk around to random ladies & ask if they would like to dance to certain songs.  A few were not, but most were amenable to it.  Apparently the previous week had numerous unpartnered ladies, but I still got some dancing in.

And yes, their dance room is at least 2x - 3x the length & 2x-2.5x the width as the studio I dance out of here at home (The Westfield Ballroom).  If I did purely Foxtrot Sway tempo on the long side, I would not have to turn the corner at all!

Whataburger

I was hungry after dancing, so I decided to drop in at a fast food place I don't see at home.  I tried the Honey BBQ Chicken Strip Sandwich, which was interesting.  Fair warning: If you eat in, be prepared to listen to country music nonstop.  This chain is extremely popular in Texas.

Other Places

Other places I ate of note are Fat Cat Creamery yelp review & Shipley Donuts.  It should be noted that Shipley Donuts locations were everywhere, but this may have been the first time that I saw exactly 0 Dunkin Donuts locations while driving around Houston.

Chess - Lone Star Open

This was an interesting tournament run by Chief TD Korey & the other staff from Cajun Chess with the following link to the Cajun Chess Website.  The tournament was run pretty smoothly, & spectators were not allowed in the room.  I liked the execution of having the players wear badges so that they are known & allowed to enter playing room.  The rounds tended to start a few minutes late, but after suffering through many late starts to rounds in Cream Cheese City, including 20 minutes or longer at the World Open, Philadelphia Open, & National Chess Congress, an average late start of 5 minutes or so at the Lone Star Open is not really going to bother me that much.  

The U2000 section was full of wild games.  One of the contenders was down two Rooks in his game, & came back to win.  I'm hoping to look at a copy of that score.

The first game is from Round 1.  I don't recall playing against the Schliemann before (3. ...f5 in response to the Ruy Lopez), & I remember my good friend Pete telling me that he used it to wipe opponents off the board fairly easily.  I made an early opening mistake by castling right away, but once my opponent made his mistake on the 6th move, I pounced on the e-file liked I wanted to & ended up with an extra pawn.  The rest of the game is a fairly typical plan of action with Knight vs. Bishop being the main characters.

Please note that I am using a new chess game viewer, so please bear with me as I try to get used to it.

Game 1

Play chess online

The second game is from the last round.  This was actually the third round with which I was surprised by something in the opening (this time, the hyperaccelerated dragon in the Sicilian with the insertion of ...Nc6) in this tournament.  My space advantage dissipated, & eventually, my opponent had the roving central pawns.  While his exchange sacrifice wasn't fully necessary, it did give the seed for a promising attack on my King.  Luckily, his incorrect 26th move allowed me to reposition the heavy artillery & launch my own counterattack.

Game 2

Play online chess

I ended up finishing with 3.5 out of 5 points.  Not a bad showing, but I still have more work to do before the Great Lakes Open (April 27-29, 2018).  

And that concludes State No. 20.  #fiftystatesofchess

State No. 19 - Iowa

Madison County Bridges

First off, I apologize for the delay in writing this blog post.  I meant to write this the day after I got home, but I didn't get around to it & had to attempt to prepare for my annual house of horrors tournament (NJ Open), where I am now -16 in my career.  [It is the strongest tournament I play in regularly & I regularly struggle in this tournament.  However, since this is my second closest tournament I regularly play in & this is my home state, I am obligated to play in it.]

The first thing I opted to do on the trip was drive around & visit all 6 bridges of Madison County.  The trip takes about 4 hours, & you are driving mostly on dirt roads as you go from bridge to bridge.  Many of these bridges are not at the original locations, but it is still amazing to see the construction they did on these covered bridges in the 1800s.

By the way, if you do this trip, your phone or camera should be more than 30% full.  Having to constantly use my wireless charger was a very interesting experience.  (My spare camera was not charged & that battery died at the first bridge.)  I should have imitated the last leg of the bridges trip & just used the map & the guide signs to preserve phone battery.

Location: Imes Bridge

This bridge had a signing that I interpreted as Cranford.  I joked with my friends from Cranford, NJ that someone wrote Cranford 2017 on this bridge

Location: St. Charles Welcome Center

For some reason, I recognize the Little Golden Book symbol/company, though I never had this particular book when I was younger.

Well, If I ever get lucky enough to raise a kid, I suspect this would be good to read to said kid. (Yes, I did purchase this.)

Location: Cedar Covered Bridge 

This bridge was burned for the second time early in 2017.  A random couple did the engraving customs that couples like to do on these bridges in 2016.  They broke up, & the guy wanted to remove the engraving, so he set the bridge on fire.  The arsonist was arrested, along with two others.  

The local government & historical agencies are attempting to raise money to rebuild the bridge.  The facebook page below has more information on this.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/rebuild-cedar-bridge/help-us-rebuild-cedar-bridge/1928626087420959/

Location: Roseman Bridge

Now, apparently there is a book & movie in the romance category titled The Bridges of Madison County.  While out here, I did not tell anyone that I have not read the book or seen the movie - they just all assumed I did at least one of the two.  This bridge is the one featured in the movie.

I consulted with my friend Squared for eating recommendations, & she pointed out Bluebird Cafe to me as part of her recommendations.  This place was so good, I wrote a 5-star yelp review (https://www.yelp.com/biz/bluebird-cafe-north-liberty, look for my username thekecmaster) & my first 5-star facebook review (username: thekecmaster) of this place.  Look for this place in North Liberty, Iowa.

However, in addition to that, the menu has a description using the phrase "...other whole positive integers."

When a friend with a mathematical nickname recommends a great place with a mathematical reference in their menu, well, that's hard to top!

Odd notes: I had the same waitress when I ate at Bluebird Cafe on Friday night & Saturday morning.  (Yes, it was that good that I went back.)  I saw the same person eat at Bluebird Cafe Saturday morning & at a random Panera Bread closer to the tournament hotel on Sunday morning!  #greatmindsthinkalike

Location: Iowa River Landing Wetland Park

I stayed at the Coralville Marriott, & behind the hotel is the Iowa River Landing Wetland Park.  I think it used to be a brownfield redevelopment site, but they did a fantastic job of transforming the site.  There is a metal walkway & a path on the non-hotel side around the park.

I ate at Fuzzy's Taco Stand & Scratch Cupcakery & enjoyed both places.  I took home the souvenir cup & a shirt, respectively.

The chess playing was so-so, though I was not the only person to struggle.  A WGM playing in this event managed only a second round draw in the first two rounds.  I lost the first two games & won the last 3, losing 7 rating points in the process.

The last round was interesting as my opponent didn't castle & I opted to chase the king throughout the game.  This was one of those classic themes where the a player wastes time in the opening & ends up forfeiting the right to castle.

And that concludes State No. 19.  #fiftystatesofchess

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