2001-02-17 - 23:59:49

The U.S. Chess Teams, Day One

Alas and alack, partly thanks to the vacation Lily and I took last weekend, I have fallen seriously behind again. Worse yet, I am snowed under with other work. Still, I will try to catch up here. I'm going to try an experiment - I'm going to try to speed up the tempo of my writing. That is, I'm going to try to write without agonizing over every word. Let's see how it works, okay?

Over President's Day Weekend Lily and I went to a chess tournament, the U.S. Amateur Team East, which was played in Central New Jersey. The name of the event doesn’t sound very impressive, but make no mistake: it is one of the premiere chess events of the year. I've gone to every USATE since 1987, and while I have not played a single game of chess since July I didn't want to miss this event.

First let me describe the U.S. Teams a little but because it really is a unique event. National chess tournaments are usually big money events, like the event I mentioned above. As you might imagine, things can get pretty tense when you are playing for $10,000. However, the entry fee for USATE is only about $25 a person and the prizes are only clocks and trophies. This makes the US Teams a much more relaxed event.

Did I say relaxed? This event always seems more like a big chess party than a serious tournament. While the competition is usually fierce, a spirit of fun pervades the event. Besides the prizes for best score there are also awards for things like "Biggest Upset" and "Best Team Name" and, God help us, "Best Costumes."

Sounds pretty goofy doesn't it? While all of the above is true, the U.S. Amateur Team East is probably the biggest chess team tournament played in the western hemisphere and some of the best players in North America are regular attendees. This year I spotted at least four former U.S. Champions among the participants: GM Arthur Bisguier, GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Roman Dzindzichasvili and GM Joel Benjamin, the current U.S. Champ.

Wait a minute, what are all those grandmasters doing at an AMATEUR event??? The fact of the matter is that the term "Amateur Team" is something of a misnomer. So long as your AVERAGE team rating is below master strength, you can play. There was one team that had grandmasters on its top two boards, and two weaker players holding down the bottom boards.

The official website for the USATE is here.

The drive down to central New Jersey is usually pretty easy. Thanks to all the interstates, the trip takes less than three hours. Since the first round wasn't until the leisurely time of 1 p.m., we could just drive down the first day without having to get up at the crack of dawn.

The drive to New Jersey was uneventful, except for one incident. It was incredibly windy for the first half of the trip. As I was driving I could feel the wind pushing the car around. When I stopped at a rest area and opened my car door, the wind ripped it out of my hand and one of the parts that connected the door to the rest of the car just snapped right off.

When I closed the door it seemed to be very loose on its hinges and there was an unpleasant sound of wrenching metal. I figured that this meant that this door had a very limited number of openings and closings left in it. Since I didn’t want to door to come off down in New Jersey, I had to climb in and out through the passenger side for the rest of the trip. It was kind of obnoxious, but I felt that it was better than trying the long, cold drive home with no driver's side door.

As I said before, the Frown Town Chess Club was fielding two teams, and the most efficient way to work it was to have me be first board for the weaker team. I wasn't happy about the situation, but I figured what the heck. I was going to play badly no matter what board I was on.

We got an unpleasant surprise when we arrived at the tournament. The guy playing second board for our team didn't come because of an unexpected death in the family. Luckily we were able to pick up a replacement player, an amiable retired fellow from New Jersey named Harvey.

With an average team rating of about 1,670 we found ourselves almost exactly in the middle of the pack: we were team #101 out of 215 teams.

Let me quickly explain the chess rating system while I am at it. Every active player has a rating which is based on the games he or she has played. A grandmaster would be rated about 2,600 while a novice would have a rating of about 700. The average rating is about 1,300. Other rankings are master (over 2,200) and expert (over 2,000). I used to be an expert, but I have fallen on hard times. My rating now is about 1,870.

Round 1: Ernie (2,106) vs. Uberhamster (1,870)

Due to the peculiarities of the pairing system, we would up playing a much stronger team, with an average rating of about 1,975. They were from near Poughkeepsie in southern New York State. To my surprise my opponent recognized me as someone he had played before. Some 13 years before we'd played in a league match. In spite of his higher rating I beaten him once and drawn him once.

I was playing black and we wound up playing something called the Nimzo-Indian Defense, an opening that I have not had good results in. My memory of what to play was hazy, but I managed be roughly equal at move 15. However, if my opponent had known the opening better I would have been in trouble. As it was a few moves later I made an oversight and he won a pawn. Things were not looking good.

As rusty as I was, I was taking a lot of time thinking about my moves. Soon my opponent had a big time advantage to go with his advantage on the board. I started playing faster and the game became more complicated. I was still a pawn down, but my pieces were active. Suddenly I had some threats against his king and he was forced to give the pawn back. At that point he offered me a draw.

The logistics of team play are different from when you are playing alone. Sometimes you have to refuse or accept draw offers based on the team score, not on how your game is going. Even though material was even, I felt he was still better and I had only five minutes to make 15 moves. Furthermore, our team had already lost the match, so I agreed to the draw. As it turned out that was the only half-point the team got as they crushed us, 3 1/2 - 1/2.

I'd felt very lucky to draw that position against a stronger player.

Round 2: Daniel (1,600) vs. Uberhamster (1,870)

After dinner the second round began. Since we'd lost in the afternoon, our team was moved from the big ballroom into one of the smaller playing rooms elsewhere in the hotel. Most of them were off a very long hall near the lobby, casually called the Hall of Shame.

The room was oppressively hot, and we were playing what looked like a family team: a father-daughter team were on boards one and three and two other kids played boards two and four.

There are always a lot of young players at the Amateur teams. I'll be frank here: I don’t like playing kids. It's sort of a lose-lose situation. If you win, you're an adult beating up on a wee tyke. If you lose, it's just humiliating. Some of my young opponents in the past have had obnoxious habits, like offering a draw after every move. However, the main reason I don’t like them: they're dangerous! Young players are often under-rated, and I think that I tend to play worse when faced with a child.

Therefore, I was grateful that playing the only adult on the team.

I was very happy that my opponent picked one of my favorite opening to play, because I was worried that I had forgotten everything I knew about openings. But then he played a move that I hadn't seen before, and this worried me. Was this some wrinkle that I had forgotten? I used up a lot of time on the clock trying to figure out what to do. Then my opponent made a move that clearly showed me that he didn’t know how to play the opening. By move eleven I was fairly happy with my position.

However, things were not going so well for the rest of the team. In fact we looked lost on the other three boards.

On board two Harvey was struggling against his opponent - a pudgy little boy with a bored look on his face. Our board three player, a quiet bearded fellow named Ken, looked like he was losing against the daughter of my opponent who looked like she was about eleven. On board four Richard, the president of the Frown Town Chess Club, was utterly lost against a tiny Chinese boy. This was in spite of the fact that we out-rated them on every board by 300 points. See, I told you kids were tough!

Because everyone else was doing so badly, it was imperative that I win. I slowly improved my position, but my opponent was hanging tough. Then I spotted a chance to open up the position with his king stuck in the middle of the board. I made the move, and I could tell by the look on my opponent's face that he knew he was in trouble.

After a few moves I was two pawns up with an attack. Ordinarily a game like that would be an easy win, but I was very short of time.

While this was going on, the other games finished. On board two Harvey drew his opponent, in spite of the fact that I thought he was winning a few moves earlier. On board three Ken lost to the girl. Richard, on board four, managed to swindle a draw out of a lost endgame. Right when he was on the verge of victory, his opponent had blundered.

We were trailing 1-2. I needed to win for the team to just draw the match.

I traded down to a winning endgame with only about 5 minutes left for 15 moves. However, my time trouble seemed to unnerve my opponent more than it did me. With less than two minutes left we got down to an ending where I had a king, a rook and three pawns and he only had a king and a rook. As soon as I made the time control, my opponent resigned. We had drawn the match, 2-2.

Scores: Uberhamster 1 1/2 (out of 2) Team: 1/2 (out of 2)