2003-02-17 - 11:49 p.m.

Amateur Teams, Day Three

The last day of the tournament dawned, and we had to get up early to make sure that we were checked out before the round started at 9 a.m.

Hauling the stuff out to the car, we saw that at least a foot and a half of snow had fallen overnight. An attempt had been made to plow out the parking lot, but what they had mainly succeeded in doing was plowing the car in. Swell.

There was a pause in the storm in the morning, but it was supposed to start up again, and points north were getting dumped on continuously. I was starting to consider that staying another night wasn't a bad idea.

Round 5: Almost-Lucky F-player (950) vs. Uberhamster (1930)

This round we were paired against a team pretty far below us. Not that it mattered - we were ineligible for any sort of a prize. However, we could definitely affect other teams that COULD still win a prize. Is that fair?

In spite of the fact that I managed to win, this game was just about the low point of the tournament for me because I came rather near to losing it.

My opponent was rated about 1000 points below me and I should have been able to beat him blindfolded, literally. And yet, he got a good position and started to creep forward. If this kept up, he was going to crush me. I started to take a lot of time on the clock again. Luckily he missed a finesse - when I re-deployed my knight I was threatening to win a piece. Once I won the piece he crumbled quickly, and I won in short order.

However, when I looked at the game later I discovered that immediately after I won the piece I made a blunder that would have allowed him to win it back again! However, by that point he was so demoralized that he didn�t think to look for something like that. Lucky for me!

Chess is supposed to be a game of logic, but recently it's like I've been playing mumbledy-peg. I'm lucky I don't chop my own feet off.

The end of the game allowed me to move on to more serious subjects, like the weather. A look out the lobby windows confirmed that it was still snowing, in fact all the distinguishing features of the world outside were obliterated under a blanket of gleaming white. On the TV, the Weather Channel said that the snow was going to be stopping soon in New Jersey, but points north were going to get pounded far into the evening.

It seemed much smarter to spend an extra night at the hotel and go home early in the morning, rather than brave the roads tonight. According to the news the New York Thruway was closed, and NJ state troopers were handing out $1000 ticket to silly people out driving around without good reason.

While I felt that it certainly would be possible to make it home after the last game tonight, it would be a tough trip and dangerous. Why take a silly chance? So, I went to the front desk and had the room held for an extra day. In spite of all the scary talk yesterday, the special $99 room rate was still in effect. Well, it wasn't likely that they were going to get more guests coming in.

The fact of the matter was the hotel was having problems. They were short staffed because many employees couldn't get in. In fact, some of the people that were there had spent the night. One of the off-duty maids was hanging around the bar the previous night, trying to bum cigarettes off of various chess people.

The kitchen was short-staffed too, and they had a further problem: they were running out of food. First, the hotel restaurant became buffet-only, then the variety of dishes began to diminish. Toward the end the kitchen staff had to resort to opening up huge cans of spaghetti. Some of the hotel guests started to grumble about playing $12.95 for Chef Boy-ar-dee, but they were a captive audience. What could they do about it, stage a hunger strike?

I was grateful that I'd brought a lot of snacks with me.

Even though we had technically checked out of the room, Frederick and I had not turned in our key-cards yet. Oops! Frederick was up in the room asleep when I told him that we were staying an extra night. He was definitely not pleased: he wanted to go home tonight to show that the rest of our teammates were weather wimps. I thought that pride was a silly reason to risk winding up wrecked in a ditch. Since I'm the one who was driving, I had the deciding vote and he didn't feel like arguing with me about it, he was sulky for the rest of the trip. Well, better that than dead.

Round 6: Uberhamster (1930) vs. Hapless Substitute (1200)

The final round we were paired down again, against a team that was handicapped by having only three players. They were missing their second board, so boards three and four moved up a board, leaving me with nobody to play. That, in a nutshell, is the problem with playing bottom board.

Luckily, the tournament directors was able to scare up a substitute that had been abandoned by the rest of his team. He was a confused-looking guy rated about 700 points below me. It turned out to be my only easy game of the event. He played an unusual opening that I knew had to be bad, but I only got a modest advantage against it. However on move 12 he made a mistake that allowed me to win a piece, and that was pretty much it. The rest of the game consisted of me prying open his kingside, and he resigned just before I was about to win his queen.

I didn't have anywhere to go so I spent an hour going over the game with him. As it turned out, his unusual opening was a mistake - he accidentally grabbed the wrong pawn on the first move. D'oh!

The rest of the evening consisted of me putting the tournament to bed, at least as far as I was concerned. I needed to collect all the scoresheets, and I needed a copy of the crosstable so I could make some sense of them. My experience from the previous years was that I needed to hang around the directors so they wouldn't forget about me. Since I was spending the night, there was no pressure - I could wait patiently since I wasn't driving home until tomorrow morning.

The team that came in first was one of the teams from the University of Texas at Dallas, which has a kick-ass chess program. What was the University of Texas doing at Team East when they should have been at Team South (or even Team Midwest)? Search me. Probably because the East is the biggest, therefore the most challenging.

I was in the directors' room, waiting for the final results, and the TV was on. It alternated between the Weather Channel, and Fox, where the finale of Joe Millionaire was playing. Everyone in the room was mocking it out - you could see what the ending was from a mile away. I suppose that is the main appeal of shows like that, the fact they are so cheesy and dumb. At least I hope that's what the appeal is.

The last thing I had to contend with was a little mystery - someone had taken one of the boxes that I had brought down to collect the scoresheets. Why on earth would someone do that? It's just a cardboard box with some signs taped to it for heaven's sake! I just hoped that they didn't take any scoresheets along with it.