2012 Barnes & Noble Round Robin

2012 Barnes & Noble Round Robin

The WRHS Chess Club/Integrating Chess Class visited Barnes & Noble in Twin Falls Tuesday night to learn and play games with the Magic Valley Chess Club.  President and CEO Barry Eacker invited our team for their monthly meeting and we decided to conduct a round-robin G/5 tournament!

WinTD Problem:  Maybe someone could help us out.  The wintd program would not pair past the 12th round and provided the message "value too large."  And it would not continue to pair.  Does anyone know what happened or why we might get this message?

Students were practically fighting to come to this event, but since I only had a mini-bus, I could only take 14 kids.  One student even crossed another's name off the list!  That was a forfeit for his chances of going.  We had a mixed-mash of abilities and a diversity of students attending this "field trip."  New players, beginners, and a couple of seasoned chess clubbers.

Taylor Walton

Barry enthusiastically greeted our group when we arrived and everyone sat right down and began to play and warm up.  I introduced the MVCC members:  Barry Eacker, Fred Bartell, Gary Dugger, and Alexandr Vereschagin.  Alexandr opted out of the blitz games but played students that finished their games.  Former WRHS Chess Club President and Champion also visited to play, and a Canyon Ridge High School student, Jarod Arp also came to play.

WinTD Problem:  Taylor arrived after round 2 and I tried to add him to the tournament.  The software would pair him for round 3 but kept pairing one player twice.  Does anyone know how to add a player after a round robin tournament has started.  He ended up playing Alexandr for most of the night.

Wyatt and Megan play in their first tournament

The Barnes & Noble staff in the cafe were very accommodating and provided the tournament participants with a 10% discount for beverages.  Lattes and Mochachinos were flowing all night!  In fact, the tournament began around 6:30 pm and we played until nearly 9:30 pm.  It certainly was a late school night for our students as we also had an hour long trip to get home.  Youth is resilient, but I noticed that several students missed school the next day and the rest were pretty lethargic in classes.

Don't make a bad move against Fred, he'll make you pay dearly!

This was a great experience as the MVCC members passed along better moves and strategy to the students.  Barry was encouraging, "You really play well and followed all the right opening strategies . . . good development . . . king safely castled . . . center control . . . rooks linked up," I heard him say several times.  Gary Dugger was good at helping his opponents understand some of the middle game tactics like pins and skewers.   I even found myself allowing take-backs by remarking, "do you really want to make that move?"  Fred Bartell was a hoot!  He talked smack as well as any New York street player and the students appreciated his sense of humor and comments when he scooped up a piece en prise or snagged an unprotected king.

Fred offers an entertaining game and commentary to Wesley

Most Improved Player Award (from Barry)

Some of the games that proved exciting and drew a crowd of spectators were the games that eventually ran out of time.  Spirits were very positive and Dylan exclaimed, "Darn it, I ran out of time again!"  Megan missed a checkmate against Fred, but felt good about how she played.  Victor learned much - don't move that fast there is time to think before moving.  Better to lose with seconds on the clock than to have 3 minutes left.  Brandon told me, "I think I play better in slower games."

Fred plays Des while Victor observes

Blitz chess is sometimes an equalizer among players of differing abilities.  Sometimes being down a piece is not too bad, because the player down material can complicate the board enough to run their opponent out of time.  So don't go exchanging pieces or even pawns when you go down in a blitz game. Blitz can make a solid player give away pieces and lose in exchanges.  That happened to me a couple of times.

Dylan plays Brandon

Barry plays Anna

Andre 

Barry and I faced off in round 3 and I successfully ran him out of time after going down material near the end.  And against Gary Dugger, round 9, we ended in a draw without knowing whose clock ran out first - my chronos blinking "00" on both sides of the clock.  I reiterate the value of contracting and being very conservative when down material in blitz matches.

A great field trip

I played my son, Desmond in round 7 and he usually beats me in blitz.  I was feeling pretty confident this night, however I gave up a bishop in a queen exchange and was in very bad position.  As the time ticked and Des began his smiles and chuckles as he destroyed my pawns and pieces that were left, I went into the final seconds of the game with my king against a queen, four pawns and a rook.  I successfully meandered to the corner and he moved his pawn forward thinking he was going to promote.  "NOOOOO," he lamented after he hit the clock and realized I had achieved a stalemate.

Adam  vs. Des, round  7

Thank you to all the participants, Barnes & Noble, and Barry Eacker.

WinTD wouldn't pair after Round 12, but everyone is tired anyway and the store is closing soon.

Results:

Place	Name/Team	Rate	Score	SBx2	Solk	CumOp	Cum
1	Bartell, Fred (16)	nnnn	11.0	115.0	65.0	435.0	74.0
2	Porth, Adam (11)	nnnn	11.0	108.0	63.0	403.0	73.0
3	Eacker, Barry (7)	nnnn	11.0	91.0	56.5	385.0	67.0
4	Dugger, Gary (1)	nnnn	9.5	94.0	70.5	502.0	64.0
5	Porth, Desmond (3)	nnnn	8.5	87.0	75.0	517.0	54.0
6	Avila, Tyler (14)	nnnn	8.0	68.0	63.0	402.0	47.0
7	Moffett, Kalen (10)	nnnn	8.0	56.0	57.5	368.0	60.0
8	Arp, Jarod (19)	nnnn	7.0	70.0	69.5	490.0	46.0
9	Brimstein, Wesley (17)	nnnn	6.0	44.0	76.0	517.0	35.0
10	Clark, Riley (12)	nnnn	6.0	40.0	71.5	459.0	48.0
11	Saldivia, Victor (13)	nnnn	5.0	44.0	73.5	469.0	40.0
12	Caccia, Wyatt (4)	nnnn	5.0	27.0	71.0	489.0	30.0
13	Murphy, Anna (6)	nnnn	5.0	20.0	66.0	456.0	21.0
14	Yagla, Brandon (18)	nnnn	4.0	30.0	77.0	531.0	27.0
15	Hartegon, Nash (2)	nnnn	4.0	29.0	74.0	523.0	22.0
16	Porth, Dylan (15)	nnnn	4.0	27.0	67.5	446.0	22.0
17	Jones, Megan (9)	nnnn	3.0	3.0	63.5	410.0	18.0
18	Murphy, Andre (5)	nnnn	2.0	4.0	64.0	438.0	7.0
19	Vajello,Victor (8)	nnnn	2.0	3.0	70.0	464.0	12.0

WinTD Problem:  After discussions with Barry, we determined placements looking at head-to-head tie-breakers, however, I was interested to see why wintd placed me behind Barry on the crosstable.  I learned that the crosstable is not in placement order.  In order to obtain placement using the assigned tie-breakers, the TD must go to the Reports tab and click on "Show Prize Lists..." and then choose "Use Tie Breaks?" choice.  Doing this produced Fred Bartell as the winner, Adam Porth second, and Barry Eacker third.  Even more confusing is the crosstable function on the main menu - it provides a different player order on the crosstable in the reports tab.  ???? Go figure ????