USATE 2012 wrapup: Happy endings

UPDATE 3:

Crosstable’s up!

 

UPDATE 2: USchess.org has a writeup of the grand finale – the last game going, among all 1300 players, was Hess v Goletiani on board 1, table 1, winner-take-all.

And Hess won. Great drama!

UPDATE 1: The New Jersey chess federation has posted a prize list (as a download). One team – one of the Tebow ones, the 17th seed at 2185  - finished alone on 5.5.

Three teams are listed on 5 points: Master Maters, Go Ahead Mate My Day, Three-and-a-half Masters, and our friends Caro-Cain Defense.

We (Shmelov Sox) lost Best Massachusetts Team on tiebreaks to Won for All and All for One.

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Round six:

That’s the top table - Goletiani’s team (the ones who beat us in round 4) versus GM Robert Hess’s team, with (I think) his brother on board 4. Sorry it’s a crappy picture.

On table 3, Martirosov’s Massachusetts team squared off against IM Fluffybunny (David Vigorito)’s Massachusetts squad.

I’ll have the results posted here as soon as they’re available, along with some additional observations. (Like the answer to the burning question “who is Ted McHugh?” and much more.) But for the moment:

My team finished at 5-1, with top boards Denys (6-0!!!) and Anya (5-1) killing their last-round victims quickly. I had my fourth draw in a row - bleh. Matt, um, I couldn’t watch Matt’s final game <grin>. Huge congratulations to Denys.

Were you there? Hope so. It remains the best tournament on the calendar, whether you play well or poorly. If my updates sound a little grumpy, it’s all said with the utmost affection. Great time, great people.

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While we wait for updates, let me take one more chance to point you to my wife’s IndieGoGo project video: http://www.indiegogo.com/myfreshlocal

It’s about accelerating the growth of healthy local food systems. Thanks.

USATE round 4: Naming conventions

I failed to do my annual USATE Team Name prediction thread. Tsk tsk.

There are a couple of Tim-Tebow-is-a-virgin+bad-chess-sex-jokes this year, and at least one Whitney Houston reference in poor taste, but the overwhelmingly popular theme is “Occupy”. Occupy d4, We Occupy the 7th Rank, Occupy Open Lines, etc etc. I didn’t see anyone who did anything particularly clever with it, and sourly imagined that the “best team name” judges would pick at least a couple as finalists, which they did.

But in a pleasant surprise, the winner by applause (and by a clear margin at that) was “Mitt Romney Variation: We Play Both Sides of the Board”.

As for chess: 12 teams entered the round with 3-0 match scores. We moved up to board 4 – intoxicating, scaling the heights. We were paired down marginally against Caro-KanCain Defense: 999 Plans to Mate (or something like that). [update: Denys had to explain to me that it's a Herman Cain reference. Doy.] I drew my 2249 opponent, unfortunately blundering in a very strong position on the white side of the first Nimzo Indian I’ve allowed in the last 100 years. We lost the match 1.5-2.5, assuming Denys won.

Drat.

That’s WGM Rusudan Goletiani versus Denys Shmelov on board 1, late in the evening. Vadim Martirosov is watching on the right. Everyone behind the blue rope is what we call “riffraff”. :)

USATE round 3: Driving yourself crazy

Remember, you can’t mis-spell Parisppany without Paris!

One of Parsippany’s most excellent features is its divided highway, Route 10. While it is theoretically possible to drive to the hotel, check in, and not leave the premises for three days, that would deprive you of discovering the many joys of this semi-suburban gem. Here are a few navigation tips:

1. It’s possible to go from the Marriott to the Hilton without ever driving on Route 10. Once you know about the secret tiny back driveway of the Marriott lot, you’re home free. Just look on Google Maps at Malapardis Drive, Route 202, and Campus Drive.

2. To the first-time player, this looks like an exit from the Hilton parking lot:

But it’s a trap!

If you drive here, you will enter the parking area for Daiichi Sankyo, FROM WHICH THERE IS NO ESCAPE!!!

 

Anyway, more navigation tips later.

Round 3 – a win behind the ropes! On board 7, we played the 2100-rated team that had chopped up Cambridge Springers in the previous round.

Denys and Anya won, Denys beating wonderkid James Black. I offered a draw heading into an ending I thought worse for me, though Denys thought perhaps better for me. Anyway, that’s my third game ever behind the ropes, all with black and my first half-point. Tougher pairings and even better games lie dead ahead!

 

USATE 2012 round 2: Kissing your sister

We traveled all the way to NJ, and got to play… GM Bisguier’s team, most of whom are Metrowest Chess Club players. I played Dr. Ed Epp, accomplished academic, researcher, chessplayer and Boston Bruins hockey fan. I’ve already played probably 8 rated games against Dr. Epp. On board 4, Matt Phelps squared off against Bill Michaels – I don’t want to guess how many times they’ve played before.

With a high number of Boston teams, it’s inevitable that we run into each other. Doesn’t add a great deal of adventure to the tourney though. This time we prevailed 4-0, with board 2 WGM Anya Corke setting the tone by simply and cleanly overpowering her 2200-rated opponent with the black pieces.

News:

• There is a team here rated 2198. They are the SIXTH seed.
• GMs in attendance, in addition to Bisguier: Joel Benjamin, Sagalchik, Ramirez, Yudasin, Hess, Kekelidze, and WGMs Goletiani and Corke.
• At least two of the 2199 teams have already been clipped in two rounds: Cambridge Springers and Overrated.

That’s it for now. More to come

Hey – if you haven’t seen it, check out my wife’s IndieGoGo project video: http://www.indiegogo.com/myfreshlocal 

It’s about accelerating the growth of healthy local food systems. Thanks.

USATE 2012 round 1: The retirement circuit

In any given round, you have a decent chance of playing a talented, well-coached youngster. Fact of life.

It seems though that you have an equal chance of playing someone who is essentially not an active chessplayer. Such was the case in my first-round game. We (Shmelov Sox) are seeded 12th. Our opponents were a crazy-quilt team, stitched together with a third-board player who was late enough to cause his teammates some consternation (“Are you sure he’s playing?”). He showed, played passively, hung a pawn, then hung an exchange in trying to get the pawn back. And then he resigned.

I looked him up afterwards and found he’s only played in one tournament since 2004.

Offhand I can recall a number of other games like this. In 2010, my second and third round games were against really rusty A players who resigned as soon as they lost some material, however much messy fighting may have been left.

I ain’t complaining.

Top seeds this year: “Overrated” at 2199, featuring Vadim Martirosov and Ilya Krasik on boards one and two. Both are Boston Blitz members in the USCL. Ilya just beat me on Tuesday at the Metrowest club. Second seed, perennials Cambridge Springers, also 2199.

But with twenty teams rated within a few points, this one’s very much up for grabs.

USATE 2012: Here we go

T minus 1 hour til kickoff of the US Amateur Team East tournament.

Incredibly, our team (The Shmelov Sox) won’t be starting out behind the ropes, even with a team rating of 2193! Just on the pre-registration list posted in the lobby, there are nine higher-rated teams. And only 9 boards behind the ropes.

Semi-regular, semi-coherent updates to follow, probably including semi-unflattering observations about chess culture and New Jersey.

Here’s last year’s wrapup to tide you over.

MyFreshLocal on IndieGoGo

IndieGoGo is a website that helps individuals or startups raise money to accomplish a goal. Some of the projects are altruistic, others artsy, and so forth.

My wife, who started learning about the US food system a decade ago to address health issues, is aiming to raise enough money to rebuild MyFreshLocal.com as a faster and more powerful tool for helping people find healthy local food sources.

Take five minutes to watch her video!

And if you find the cause compelling, by all means pitch in, blog about it, tweet it, etc.

Thank you!

3 completely non-universal rules for chess success

Point being, there are concepts and strategies and tactics that are important for every chessplayer. But there are also probably three or four things that are critical for YOU – because these things will help you avoid your most characteristic errors.

Here are mine, at this point in time:

1. Watch that endgame transition. I can stop lashing out now and start thinking about things like “do not hurry”, and centralizing your king. I’ve gotten better at this.

2. Nuke the knights. They will only cause me heartache in the late middlegame.

3. Do NOT get Happy Feet. After decades of ALWAYS having a bad opening and a bad position, and then a decade of working to fix that problem, I’ve partially fixed it. Which gives me the novel sensation of occasionally outplaying someone and getting a solid positional advantage. Which leads to sitting around thinking “I’m killing this guy!” and “My position is so good!” (That’s Happy Feet.) Which leads to making stupid blunders which leads to bad positions again. I will not get happy feet  I will not get happy feet  I will not get happy feet  I will not get happy feet.

What are your particular keys to success?