hardcore pawnography

i miss the city. the vibe, the energy, the smell of piss and body odor in front of macys, the sketchy looking dudes in the alleys. seriously, i miss it, and when i got to philly for the 34th annual world open, it felt kinda good to be in the middle of it all again.

i got there a day early, so i walked around, got a picture of the liberty bell

and ate a pastrami rueben, consuming more meat in one shot than i do during a regular week. damn it was tasty.  it was the best pastrami i’ve had in years, if not in my whole life.

as i walk around the city, i find it best to keep a sharpened pencil, point up, in the same pocket as your cell phone, so when the phone rings, you get a great surprise that lasts for quite awhile, so you can enjoy it hours later.

i was gonna get a picture of the stairs used in Rocky, but they were covered with crap for the upcoming 4th of july festivities, so that didn’t happen. there was a fiesta in the street, with a salsa band and latina’s in tight shorts and high heels dancing with latino’s with addidas and fedoras. it was pretty freakin snazzy and cool, i didn’t want to interrupt them so i watched and enjoyed and moved on.

see, i never saw chess as an endurance event, but it is, holy crap it is. you don’t realize it takes a toll on the body, you think sitting around playing a game is nothing, but you eat like shit (i consumed a small village’s worth of pizza and burgers) you punish your liver (vodka and beer) you don’t sleep (up all night thinking about that one fucking move where i blundered a piece and lost the game, or didn’t take his piece, etc) and it all adds up. nine rounds seem like a month.

the world open was definitely the largest chess tournament i’ve seen, larger than vegas i think. it was a mixed bag of humans; the teams, the kids and the parents, the hustlers, the regulars, the pros, and the bad ass street chess going on in the skittles room with hilarious raucous kibbitzing and chess that looked deadlier than anything a well coiffed grandmaster would come up with. i loved every second of it.

i got to see my good friends Blunderprone (i got a kick ass “what would morphy do” t shirt) and Ivan (i still can’t believe your age), i got to meet the world famous ray cheng (whose book i have and love), likes forests, who won a big ass trophy, and i even got to interview dan hiesman and the dreamy Elizabeth Vicary. (interviews will be posted tuesday and wednesday).

i also met a cool cat named Ernest Cronin, who was playing in the U1600 section. he had the coolest chess tattoo i’ve ever seen.

one interesting thing, due to the layout of the hotel, the chess hall was split in two, with the lower rated folks downstairs, and the grandmasters and upper rated folks upstairs. i guess cause grandmasters are godly, so they get to sit and play closer to heaven, above us mere woodpushing patzers. brahmins up top, untouchables down below.

but that’s cool, cause in the gutters we were partying, as evidence by the world famous ray cheng enjoying his lebowski round.

i myself had a few beer/white russian rounds.

ROUND 1:

i’m excited, i’m ready to kick some ass. i lose. i just play like shit, and that is that. ok, no problem, first loss out of the way, i’m warming up. i’m pissed, but i let it go and that is that. tomorrow i come out in force.

ROUND 2: i’m playing a chess dad whose kid is playing a few sections up. nice guy, owns a bookstore, so i like him, cause i love books. i don’t know what happened, i lose again. goddammit, what the fuck? ok, clearly i am not going to do well here in philly, so i then figured, fuck it, if i can’t play chess, i’ll have fun, and i started drinking. then i started winning

ROUND 3 i’m hanging out in my room, i head on down and notice the elevator is unusually empty. it doesn’t hit me until i get to the paring room and that too is empty. “does the round start at 7?” i ask. “no, 6,” says the sage TD, and i freak out. i rush to the board to find out where i’m playing, i walk around with my drink looking for my board, i find a kid sitting there, waiting for me. i sit down, i have 4 minutes to spare, and i make a move. no doubt the kid was thinking “sweet, free point,” when i come stumbling in and ruin it for him. a few moves later i win my first round. damn. he had probably already won the game in his mind and relaxed, let his guard down. i used psychological warfare on the kid and i didn’t even mean to. i hope that is what it was, cause honestly, he played like shit. nice kid, but he played like shit.

i keep drinking and end up in my room with decredico and ray cheng.

it makes me wonder, i don’t know the truth or science behind it, but it seems i play better when i’m drinking cause the booze quiets the voices in my head. if i think too much about the game, i invariably make the exact worst move possible, which should count for something, cause it’s equally difficult to make the worst move as it is the best move. you make the best move, they accuse you of cheating. you make the worst move, no one says shit. i should get some prize or something. but anyway, when i drink, i play more on “intuition” and i seem to do ok. perhaps if i study super hard and get the actual knowledge deeply burned into my brain, i can rely on intuition and let my subconscious play? i’ll write more on that another time.

ROUND 4 i’m hung over really really bad, i’m tired, i manage a win. i think it was cause i wasn’t thinking, i was just playing. he is aggressive, like a border town pimp peddling his wares, but i hold him off and turn the tables and i somehow manage a win, followed by going to my room and sleeping.

here is the game, i’m black:

1. e4 c5 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nc3 g6 4. f4 Bg7 5. e5 e6
6. Nf3 Nge7 7. Be2 O-O 8. O-O b6 9. d4 Bb7 10. dxc5 bxc5
11. Qd6 Nd4 12. Nxd4 cxd4 13. Qxd4 Nf5 14. Qf2 d6 15. Bg4 Nh4
16. Bh3 dxe5 17. fxe5 Bxe5 18. Rd1 Qe7 19. Bf4 Bxf4 20. Qxf4 g5
21. Qf1 f5 22. g3 Qc5+ 23. Qf2 Nf3+ 24. Kf1 Qxc4+ 25. Ne2 g4
26. b3 Qb4 27. Bg2 Nxh2+ 28. Kg1 Nf3+ 29. Kh1 Rf6 30. Bxf3 Rh6+
31. Kg1 Bxf3 32. Kf1 Rh1+ 33. Ng1 Qb5+ 34. Ke1 Rxg1+ 35. Kd2 Rg2
36. Qxg2 Bxg2 37. Ke3 Qe5+ 38. Kf2 Bf3 39. Re1 Qb2+ 40. Ke3 Rc8
41. Kf4 Qd2+ 42. Ke5 Kf7 43. Rad1 Rc5#

ROUND 5 i’m playing a beer round, and i win. what the fuck is going on? i don’t know if i can take the pressure, it feels weird. eventually the dam is gonna break, my luck will run out, and i will lose. i’m tired as well.

here is the game, i’m white:

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 d6 4. Nc3 g6 5. e4 Bg7
6. Bd3 O-O 7. Nge2 Na6 8. a3 Bd7 9. Bd2 Nc7 10. O-O a6
11. Qc1 b5 12. b3 Ng4 13. h3 Ne5 14. Bc2 bxc4 15. Bh6 cxb3
16. Bxg7 Kxg7 17. Bxb3 Rb8 18. Rb1 Nb5 19. Qd2 Bxh3 20. f4 Nxc3
21. Qxc3 Bg4 22. Ng3 f6 23. fxe5 fxe5 24. Rxf8 Qxf8 25. Rf1 Qd8
26. Bc4 Qb6 27. Qe3 Rb7 28. Qg5 Bc8 29. Nh5+ Kh8 30. Rf8#

i’m walking around in my bathrobe, and i see dan hiesman. i ask him for an interview, and he agrees. cool, i interview him. (i’ll post it tomorrow).

ROUND 6 i am ready to play really well. i don’t. fate was getting me back, my opponent showed up with 10 minutes left on the clock. i knew it was gonna happen so i didn’t relax and expect a point, but i think i was still shaken up a bit. waiting for your opponent was stressful. i stress when i play, i stress when i don’t play. what the fuck is wrong with me? i should have lost, i sucked like a vampire in a black hole.

so we are playing, it’s kind of even, but she is a bit better off i think, she has initiative and a nice attack, she is all up in my grill. i made a move that, after making it, i saw it was over for me, the lady just had to take my bishop and i would have resigned. my hand was reaching out to lay my king down for his dirt nap, but she instead didn’t take the bishop and played another move. damn, an unwelcome respite. i had to see where this was going, we jockeyed around a bit, and then SHE was the one who blundered, and i ended up winning. i actually snatched victory from the esophagus (way past the jaws) of defeat. holy shit. i was one move away from resigning, and i win. i was fucked up, bigger than jupiter, and i win. i’ll take it, i aint proud.

ROUND 7. i just DO NOT want to play. i truly didn’t, i wanted to not be there. i sat down, set up the board and clock, and my opponent arrived: the most annoying kid in the world. first off, he wanted to use his clock, cause “he can read it better.” yeah, ok. then he wanted to use his board, cause the squares on my board were too small. yeah, ok. then, i ask him to spell his name and he can’t, it takes him four tries. and then, in the middle of the game (and i saw him do this to everyone he played), he wouldsay “adjust, adjust, adjust, adjust” and touch EVERY PIECE ON THE BOARD. ok, so the kid isn’t even 12 and he is already obsessive compulsive. i’m sure he’ll go on to be a grandmaster. unless someone knifes him over the board someday. maybe i should have taken the attitude of “you are pissing me off, so i will destroy you and make you cry” but i’m not like that. i’m more passive aggressive. if i hate you, i’ll lose and move on, it’s just not worth my time.

by move 5 i decide to commit suicide and made the shittiest moves possible, not even looking at the board. this made him happy, he felt he was playing really well (and he was, i can’t take that away from him, he played well). i eventually got bored waiting for him to mate me so i resigned. it wasn’t the kid’s fault, it was me. i just didn’t want to play, i was burned out or something. it was karmic payback for winning the last round. i don’t even feel bad about losing this game.

i found out the next day that, while i only had 4 points, i was actually close enough to be in the top 20 and had i not thrown/lost the game, i would have possibly won some cash. if i had known that, i wonder if i would have played more seriously? perhaps i now feel a bit bad about losing that last game.

so last day i figure i will try to win the last two rounds and end up with a good score.

ROUND 8. i am ready to play well, it is a good game, we fight it out to the end, a tough fight, i really really try hard, i try to calculate moves, i get an edge, and i win.

ROUND 9. ok, the last round, i’ve got god on my side, i’m gonna win. it was a weird blitz kinda round, this old guy attacked and kicked my ass. i think he hustled me, i feel hustled. actually, i fucked up my opening and punished me for it, he just got me good, it was a good game and i enjoyed playing it, he deserved to win and he was a nice guy about it. we both had 5 points and at the end of the day, he finishes with 6 points. he deserved them.

so the tournament was over, i’m walking around, watching the games and such, and i that is when i see the dreamy Elizabeth Vicary and she graciously grants me an interview, which, as i said, i’ll post wednesday.

overall, i had a great time, and i will most likely go back next year if i can. if you can go to the world open in philadelphia, but your not sure if you should…you should definitely go. tons of fun, lots of GMS, and you can learn an assload of chess just watching the money change hands in the skittles room. it’s the whole chess subculture in one building. yeah, i’m going back next year.

this will be my last tournament for the year, i’m a bit burnt out. i’m taking one week off of chess, no chess at all (which is gonna be hard, i wanna log onto ICC right now, i wanna look at some games, but no, i must not). after a one week enforced break, i will study super hard, super serious. for the next 6 months i am going to study like a fucking fiend. next year, i will play only U1400 sections. and i plan on winning.

tomorrow is the dan hiesamn interview.

and just so everyone knows, the tour de france began on saturday, the 5th. america now has 2 teams in it, and even if they didn’t, i’ll still watch every stage. vive le tour.

rock on…..