Blood on the Floor

Just a short update for the moment, as Round 2 is still in progress. Round 1 was very good for Team USA. Last evening, Aviv and Armen had set up in a corner of the ground floor café in the absence of any other space in which to conduct post-match reviews, and steadily our players returned with good news: win, after win, after win. In the Boys U-16, Adarsh was first to finish. His was not a difficult game, I believe, and his report on Stuart: a pawn up in a complex situation. Well that is typical – ‘complex’ and ‘double-edged’ I hear a lot in descriptions of Stuart’s games. Next out was Chris, again it was comfortable, and the Stuart update was that now he had simplified and should win. Ultimately he did so, and the team finished with 11 wins, one draw and 1 full point bye. If we can keep that up, we will do very well!
I don’t have the full picture on Round 2, but although most of the team came through, unfortunately it seems we suffered at least a couple of defeats this time. Still, there is a long way to go for everybody in this tournament. In the U-16 in which I have a special interest, Adarsh and Stuart both won, but Chris had to give a draw from a strong position due to time pressure. There was evidently high-rated blood on the floor in this round, as the pairings for Round 3 show Adarsh moving up from Board 4 to Board 1, Stuart moving up from Board 8 to Board 3, and Chris moving up from Board 12 to Board 7! In the Under 10 Open, we will have the first all-US match up, between Jonathan Chiang and Vignesh Panchanathan.
To avoid going crazy, I went out for an hour and a half’s round trip walk downtown this afternoon. It was nice to see ‘normal’ life in the city, and some of the sights. I had not been outside the hotel since we arrived, but I think I’ll take this therapy on a regular basis from now on. I got back to the room about 25 minutes before the third round, to find Stuart buried in his computer. It was lucky I did not leave him to his own devices, as he was going by the east coast US time on his computer, and thought he still had well over an hour until the round started. Given the rule is that you default if you are 30 minutes late, he would have been in trouble!
Steven, August 3nd