Night before the Ogden Scholastic Tournament

As you can see, we made it safely.  All the kids that came are wonderful examples of kids.  They keep me entertained and look after one another, they are polite, thankful, and spend their time doing kid things.  I feel slightly guilty having them sign a Code of Conduct that the athletes sign.  After all, what chess player would spend their free time smoking alcohol and drinking marijuana?  My players were in the pool and on their xbox within 5 minutes of entering the hotel.  We went to eat and then played chess.  What a great evening!

Of course, the middle school team became raucous as soon as we arrived and they drew first blood on Desmond as he was wrestled into something near the pool.  All the boys look like they should be tired with all the scrapes and scratches, red, blood-shot eyes, and large red welts from belly flops.  The girls hung out watching and wading with suspicions, but the boys were interested only in one-upping one another.

After much debating and discussion, the high school boys persuaded me to drive them to a downtown area that featured a surfing wave park, climbing gym, indoor sky diving, Cinema 13, and several eating establishments.  Of course I brought a chess board and played a game with myself wondering, "what would Bobby Fischer do?"  I showed Hunter some safe openings:  the Scotch, the Petroff, and the 4 knights.  Colby Guisasola and Riley Clark explored tactics with me.  The city square we sat in had a gas-lit fire, typical of the resort mountain towns around here. Ogden was a bustling city at 9 pm and Alex and Andrew noticed that Ogden sports many lovely ladies!  We stopped at Farr Ice Cream Parlor and indulged in ice cream instead.  On the way to the car, Andrew, Curly, and Colby tried to catch a stray kitten that was dodging them under cars.  I think I might have kept it if they had caught it.  It escaped behind a dumpster.

During this time, Lynnet and Darwin stayed at the hotel to swim and then went to the hotel grill to eat.  Curly vetoed the grill earlier as it was "old people night" and the restaurant "smelled like old people."  I get his drift as old people do have a unique odor.  Lynnet verified that indeed there were a lot of old people there.  Max Mihalic stayed in the hotel and ordered Chinese Take-out.

After every kid piled into the weight room for more frolicking, the kids broke out chess boards.  Max practiced with Riley C. and Chris Ellis, Andrew Uriarte, Alex Bates and me played a chess variant called doubles chess (a board shaped like a star that all four players play on at the same time).  Of course the middle school boys jumped back in the pool.  By 11:00, everyone went to their rooms, some asleep immediately without any prodding from me.  I hope they dream about their games tomorrow.

Team Members:
Darwin Porth, Kindergarten
Dylan Porth, 5th grade
Katie Patterson, 7th grade
Desmond Porth, 8th grade
Riley Neel, 8th grade
Riley Clark, 8th grade
Hunter Frye, 8th grade
Jake Whitlock, 8th grade
Colby Guisasola, 9th grade
Max Mihalic, 9th grade
Alex Bates, 12th grade
Andrew Uriarte, 12th grade
Chris Ellis, 12th grade