| Fear and Loathing in Fredericksburg | |
| by Bo Wilson |
| (with
apologies to HST) On the weekend of June 21, I was found myself happily in the midst of the eleventh annual Fredericksburg Open, a Grand Prix event which drew one hundred seven players, including yours truly. It was only my second tournament, and so my critical yardstick consisted solely of what I've read and my one other experience, a one-day swiss held here in Richmond. Having offered the above disclaimer, I must say that I had a terrific time and remained impressed with the way the tournament was run, especially since it had a great many opportunities to go off the rails, not the least of which was the less-than-wonderful "support" of the host facility, the local Sheraton Inn. (Pause for rant:) I don't know anything about managing a hotel. For this, I give thanks thrice daily....but having said that, the management of the Sheraton surely knew that it was hosting a two-day Chess Tournament (I base this conclusion on the fact that they offered a very reasonable "Chess Rate" of $55 per room, each such room permitted to accommodate up to four people.) The above-named management must also surely have known that the great majority of entrants were staying for only one evening, this information being readily available from their handy-dandy computer-management registration. Finally, I'm convinced that someone had an inkling that people would be arriving for the event early Saturday morning, because someone thought to make sure there was plenty of coffee and ice water in the main tournament room. Given all of the above, it's more than a little astonishing that we weren't allowed to officially register as Guests until 3:00 pm Saturday... which happened to be spang in the middle of the second round of play, making registration impossible for most folks until four or four thirty. I know the maids have to get the rooms ready. I know that checkout isn't until noon and so most rooms have a three hour window in which they can be made beautiful. But the wedding which was in residence at the same hotel was being allowed to register and to actually get rooms as early as 11:30 am! (Neat trick to get a room before the previous party has left!.) I wonder if future organizers reading this can't manage to get some kind of leeway on such policies in the future. Maybe we could do the paperwork of registering early, maybe even--heaven forbid!-- dump our luggage in an un-vacuumed room, and let the housekeeping staff work its magic around us, the same way they do for any multi-day guest. Check-out at 12:00 noon was problematic, too, given that this time was also mid-round. I have no magic-lamp answers, but there's got to be some reasonable alternative to checking in at four- thirty and checking out again at 8:00 am the following morning (on the other hand, maybe such limited use is why they offer the low rate!) Then there was the air conditioning. Note my use of the past tense. There was a great deal of teeth-clenched-in-something-like-a-smile-lying being done by the staff ("Oh, yes, they've already fixed it, it just takes awhile to cool down"... a statement which, when I quoted it to a maintenance engineer, drew a derisive snort followed by his announcement of "If that's what they're telling people then I'm out of here before these people lynch me..." And get out of there he did, tool belt flapping behind him. (rant concluded.) So-- the registration process was maddening and the lack of AC made it easier to lose those pesky Father's Day pounds so many of us had put on..... aside from this, the tourney was really pretty super. One of the most impressive things about its management was the way the organizers accommodated the turnout, which was much higher than they anticipated. TD Mike Atkins tells me that they had planned on around sixty people, and at eight-thirty Saturday morning, found themselves staring at over a hundred. To exceed your plans by more than 60% sounds like a good thing, and Mike is enthusiastic about it after the fact.... but I saw his eyes that morning, and I know that "Bughouse" is more than just a variation of our beloved pastime... (By the way, if Mr. Atkins' name is ringing a bell with any of you, that shouldn't be a surprise; he is not only one of the more active organizers/TDs in the Washington DC area, he's also a builder of web-sites, and his reputation as such seems to grow almost while you watch it. His latest effort was the page that tracked the New York Open-- http://w-w-w.com/nyopen -- which he designed, implemented, and maintained throughout that event.) At any rate. extra space was made, the registration delayed only the smallest time, and play in the first round began very close to the scheduled time. I have no doubt that I am the chess-tourney equivalent of the farm-boy wandering Manhattan, craning his neck to see how they get them thar buildings so dang high.... but the sight of over a hundred players bending to focus in unison was exciting. If I'm ever lucky enough to go to one of the super-tourneys like the World Open, I'm sure my circuits will quickly overload; I was thrilled simply to be in the same room with International Masters! (Here's a note of trivia for any of the more world-weary players among you who find that it's no longer any great thrill to see a Master or a Grandmaster play: Our own Joan Dubois tells me that in the United States we have about forty Grandmasters. There were more than three times that many Oscars given out this past year, and I daresay that almost anyone would find it exciting to be able to claim to have spent a weekend with an Oscar winner.Just food for thought....) As seems to be common with such events, there was an Open section for ambitious players playing for real money, and the much-fuller Amateur section for all the rest of us. I was not surprised at the strength of play on the boards of the Open section (strong indeed) but I was pleased to see how exciting the play in the Amateur section could be. Especially fun to watch were those games in the late rounds in which a draw was death for one player, and as good as a win for the other. It's one thing to have an intellectual understanding that the drawn games in your database can be fullof sharp tactics and dynamic play.... it's quite another to have the competitive context of money at stake for the guy that manages to eke out just one more half-point. (I'll end the suspense now and inform you, Oh Constant Reader, that I did not get skunked but finished with a very humble 1-4-0, dropping some two hundred points from my provisional rating. The silver lining is that I can continue to enter at the U1300/Unr. level for quite awhile!) My strongest image of the tournament, though, is of a Master named Emory Tate, who had traveled to Fredericksburg from Indiana. Mr. Tate was the 2nd highest-rated player in the tournament, (2493) and seemed to be expected by everyone to walk away with the big money prize. As one of the top players present, those curious rubes among us sought out his games to watch as soon as we had dropped our latest rounds. He was certainly something to watch. I'll confess utter ignorance as to "normal" behavior OTB; I've certainly heard all the horror stories of kicking and smoking and mumbling and whistling and all the other irritants one player can foist upon another, and in the context of that sort of example, it must be said that Mr. Tate was a model player--he was quiet, and he kept his hands and his feet to himself. But the stare on that man! I've seen films of Fischer, and of Kasparov, and of NFL defensive linemen, and I thought I had a good idea of what a cold stare looked like. Trust me: When the next edition of Webster's comes out, it'll have Tate's picture next to the word "sneer." His distaste for his opponent seemed to literally bake off of the man. (I had actually gone the first two rounds without seeing him play because he finished quickly, and so I had no image of him other than "That Angry Dude Stalking The Halls." He looked like a man about to prosecute an infidelity with a machete.) As interesting as it was to watch, he definitely cast himself in the role of the "Black Hat" at the tournament, and other players seemed to be hoping-- very quietly, mind you-- for him to receive some sort of comeuppance. The stage could not have been more excitingly set, then, for the final round, in which Mr. Tate faced Stephen Booth,(2402, from Georgia) in which a draw would lead to a four-way-tie for first place, but a win would ensure clear claim to the prize.The game was as exciting as this set-up would suggest, with Mr. Booth seeming to quite literally fight for breath within the fusion furnace of the Tate stare. It being the final round, many players were already finished and saying their good-byes, a couple of them too loudly -- but one blast of The Stare and they dropped their eyes, scurrying from the room like children after a stern reprimand from a feared uncle. I have appended this article with that game, in which Mr. Tate sacrifices a pawn for an attack that seems almost unstoppable. It was, all in all, a very fine weekend, and it served only to strengthen my addiction, for which I'm sure my family is simply thrilled. Organizers Helen Hinshaw, Catherine Clark, and Mark Johnson did superb work, paving the way for the already-lauded efforts of TD and webmeister Mike Atkins. Rounds began promptly, and the very few disputes that did arise were handled quickly, quietly, and accurately. If the Sheratonites can solve the check-in dilemma and fix the air conditioning, it ought to serve as a splendid model for what a weekend tournament can be. And I'll definitely be ready to lose a few more points by next year.
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| Bo Wilson is a free-lance writer living in Richmond. His writing ranges from film scripts to stage plays to children's stories, and has won a variety of national awards and fellowships. He also works as voice talent for radio and television commercials. |