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”. :)