Competing at the Oldest Chess Club in America: Day 2

Hey guys! Welcome back to the 21st Donnelly Memorial tournament at the Mechanics' Institute, which houses the oldest chess club in America. As a reminder, this is the recap for Day Two of the tournament (you can find the recap for Day 1 here). My record for Day 1 is 1.5/3 in the U2000 section, and so far I’ve only faced higher-rated opponents. 

The morning of the tournament, I had to walk to the Institute building from my hotel in the pouring rain with the wind blowing rain directly into my face! To avoid being soaked, I ran almost full-tilt to the Institute, arriving in 2-3 minutes. Soon after I arrived, it was time for Round 4.

My opponent for Round 4 was an elderly man with a 1625 rating, so I felt relatively confident, seeing as he was the lowest-rated opponent that I was matched with thus far. 

I thought I had parried his idea, but can you see the fairly straightforward tactic that I missed?

I tried to play on, but I was just dead lost, and he played well for the rest of the game.

After the game, my mom asked me how I was feeling, and I jokingly quoted Ivan Sokolov: “I was completely winning! If I don’t kill myself tonight, I’m going to live a thousand years.” As you can see, I’m still alive, so that’s nice. In all seriousness though, that game was simply shameful. I was +6 at some point, and he had no counterplay while being down a pawn. No self-respecting 1500-rated player should have lost that position, and yet I somehow managed to do so, making one careless move after another. Not to mention how that loss likely knocked me out of major contention for prize money. 

I left the building with my family almost immediately after the round. Normally, I would have offered to do a post-mortem analysis, despite the pain of the loss, but I was extremely annoyed with my opponent. 

Why was I so annoyed? Here are a few examples of his aggravating behavior: a few times, my scoresheet momentarily slipped onto a corner of the board for a few seconds while I was writing a move, as the tables are fairly small, with the chessboards painted on; whenever this happened, he would immediately and loudly insist on its removal. Initially, I didn’t mind this request, even though the paper didn’t touch a square with a piece occupying it.

However, as he made more demands, he began to become increasingly more annoying. He next became irritated that my captured pieces were on the edge of the board near me, and he demanded that I move the pieces to the side of the board because he said that where the pieces were placed was confusing. I felt like he was nitpicking because I’ve never had any of my previous opponents bring that issue up; I think that if my pieces do not infringe on the board, they're my responsibility to use at my discretion. 

But the following two incidents that happened later in the game really exposed my opponent’s insensitive behavior. When I hung my queen, I buried my head in my hands to compose myself, and he remarked snidely, “It’s just a game.” I wanted to snap out at him at that moment, but I didn’t out of respect. I have a couple of problems with this sentiment: 

1. It’s not “just a game,” it’s a FIDE and USCF-rated game that is pivotal for ratings and prize money!

2. Burying your head in your hands is a perfectly reasonable response to possibly blundering away potentially over a hundred dollars, especially in a game you had no business losing. Some of the greatest ever lose their composure sometimes, just look at Gary Kasparov! (I absolutely love that clip. His reaction is so hilarious.)

In the second instance, when I lost my last piece, he said: “You should resign now. It’s getting kind of ridiculous.” I understand that I might not have shown the best etiquette by stretching the game out, but that doesn’t give him permission to loudly disturb the people playing next to us and berate me in the process. On top of that, this game was critical for potential prize money, so I was willing to play it out until the last potential stalemate trap. He could’ve politely pulled me to the side after the game and explained why it’s better etiquette to resign and save everyone’s time, and I would have completely respected that. But he didn’t approach the situation correctly whatsoever. 

Sorry for the extended rant, but I had to get those things off my chest... Anyways, after that round, my family and I wanted to eat; we decided to sightsee while we were searching for a place to eat. As we were walking,  we explored the lobby of a posh hotel that we were passing by, aptly named the Palace Hotel; the entire lobby seemed regal, which included an elegant banquet hall with beautiful tables and chairs, and two ornately decorated thrones in the hallway. 

We finally found an open Starbucks and decided to stop there for brunch. Warning to anyone planning to play at a Mechanics’ weekend tournament: Plenty of places are closed on Sundays for some reason. It took us a while to find the only Starbucks in the vicinity that was open ― it’s located right outside Chinatown at the mouth of the gate, which is known as a big tourist attraction. After we refueled, it was almost time for the last round, so we promptly returned to the building. For my last round, I was paired with a 1399- rated player, so I was fairly optimistic about my chances for redemption.

I missed that my opponent could safely take my pawn, but how?

Luckily, my opponent missed it also, so let’s see how the rest of the game went!

Well, I missed a couple of moves, but it was a nice game overall! A great way to end the tournament, especially after that absolute meltdown in Round 4. I was grateful that I didn’t simply fall apart after the Round 4 disaster, and managed to play a good game the next round. After one or two more casual games, including a couple of bughouse disasters, 😅 we finally said goodbye to the Mechanics’ Institute and concluded our trip.

It was undoubtedly a special experience, but how did it impact my rating? Well, I finished with a 2.5/5 score, good enough for my USCF rating to jump to 1547. I previously did not have a FIDE rating, but after this tournament, I reached a FIDE rating of 1467. Overall I had solid rating gains, but what about prizes? Well, heartbreakingly, I missed out on tying for the top U1600 prize by a half point and missed out on tying for the third place prize by one point. That means, had I not choked as though I had swallowed an entire fish skeleton in Round 4, I could have won some serious prize money, based on how the last round shook out. This makes my Round 4 loss even more painful! But things like this happen, and I have mostly moved on from it, and writing about it certainly helped, so I guess I won’t need therapy now, lol… Overall, it was an extremely memorable tournament, and I hope to return to the Mechanics' Institute someday soon! So long everyone, and please share your thoughts in the comments!