Gata Kamsky won the 2011 US chess Championship weeks ago, and advanced to the semifinals in 2011 FIDE Candidates Matches for the world championship by defeating Veselin Topalov days ago. Maybe he will bring us another surprise later.
That’s what I told Abe before the tournament last Saturday. It worked this time. Abe drew with a Master in the first round. After the game I congratulate him by saying “Good job. I was especially happy for you since you fought until the last second.” He literally had one second left on his clock after the draw was agreed upon by both players. If not the time delay, Abe would lose on time, even on a theoretical drawn position.
So Abe was very excited. He gladly promised to take a ten-minute walk together outside after next round — We did not have time to take a walk right now since next round would begin in fifteen minutes.
It’s cloudy as we found after stepping outside the chess playing room, but still it’s Spring time. The air’s fresh and grass green. Noticing not far in front, a goose strolling leisurely across the side walk, wagging his tail behind him, Abe said: “Maybe he is lost.”
“Lucky for him, at least he is outside.” I replied, even not sure what I meant.
Last week, we drove to Columbus, Ohio for the 2011 National Junior High Championship. Abe played in the K-8 section and got a small trophy for tying with 20th place. He felt he was lucky with his parings as he got four points from much lower rated players and two losses were against much higher rated players. He found he missed his winning moves in one of the two losses upon re-reading his score book today. So he was not exceptional lucky all the way. “Maybe you played too quick to find the right moves?” I asked him.
One thing he’s improved, as I saw in the last two tournaments, is his concentration level. He probably learned his lessons from several of his recent very bad tournament performances. I asked him taking a shower and a nap in his hotel room between the rounds. We used to go back our hotel room watching sports news on TV. I thought the new change should help him at a higher concentration level during the games. In addition, our hotel room was about one mile away from the tournament site, we have walked back to hotel twice. Being able to walk outside in Spring helped Abe having a good mood and being lucky.
We had a good time, so are many others, I believe. In the chess playing hall, one thousand kids competing under one roof!
About one thousand kids playing at the 2011 National Junior High Championship
There were three junior events held concurrently at North Shore Chess Center last weekend. Most of the state top junior players competed there; it was quite a strong field.
Many top junior players in the state compete at the chess center
Abe continued his bad performance this month. In fact, Abe did not play that quickly in several of his games, while he lost them at the end anyway. As I thought the patience was very important in chess games, for a while, I’d been telling him that I would be satisfied “if he slows down no matter he wins or loses his game”. So, I tried to find some positive sides of his games and could not criticize his loss much. However, I did notice that although he slowed down, he spent more time looking around at other games including setting his eyes long and often on his neighboring board. When I told him that, in several instances I watched, he had a better position or material advantage and later careless mistakes cost the games again and again, he seemed agreed. He said he was so easily being distracted.
“He must have been lack of concentration,” I guessed. “Maybe he was tired, he usually spent all of his energy in playing in parties or in playing video games.”
Next weekend, he will test his patience and concentration again playing in another tournament. “He must not get too tired before that,” I thought. “But it’s Spring Break next week!”
Abe played in a G-45 chess tournament last Sunday afternoon. Back about four months ago, he played the same G-45 tournament when the tournament was debuted as a monthly event. At that time, only four players showed up. So they played in a round robin format, every one played each of the rest, which resulted in three rounds, although four rounds was advertised. I remembered we went back home around 6:00pm.
Since 32 players showed up yesterday, there were enough players for four rounds. Some people withdrew from the last round in order to return home early. Abe played all four games— finished his last game around 8:45 pm. If you plan to play the same events in future, you might want to register early, the chess center can only hold 40 player as I counted yesterday.
In case you do not know Ms. Ruan, she is the runner up in the 2010 Women’s World Chess Championship, and she is also a full time student pursuing her PHD degree in accounting at Carnegie Mellon University.
What an opportunity it’s to join the lecture by a world elite chess player who is, at the same time, highly successful academically in a LOCAL chess club! I might not understand her games in the Women’s World Championship, as a chess parent, however, I was eager to know her growth and advices on parenting chess kids.
Last Saturday, Abe and I went to the lecture. As it turned out, part of her lecture on the games in the championship was very enjoyable, even to me. I felt all the audience, both kids and adults, were engaged and amazed by her lecture. On advices giving to parents, she said, based on her own experience, parents might want to study together with kids at beginning. Later on, parents should put a faith that the kids can be on themselves and let kids have more freedom. Lufei said, even now days, she still got many advices from his dad, she usually disagree on many of them, but some are useful. She said, her dad might be equivalent to a Class B player. I thought: ” His dad is much better than me, I probably is a class H player at my peak. Abe might disagree more than many of what I’d say later.”
A lecture by Lufei Ruan
On the way home I listed to Abe somethings I learned from the lecture such as “do not play passively” “Always try to win” and “endgame is important”; I asked Abe what I missed. “Do not create (too many) weaknesses.” he added.
In the last weekend’s state K-8 championship tournament, some one had a good tournament, some one had a bad tournament, Abe, however, had a very bad tournament. What could you complain about after you remembered the name of the town — Normal!
Before the last round of the tournament
The tournament was held in a university student center. At first, it seemed crowded. Actually, it’s not a bad place. There were rooms and seats for all the waiting parents and siblings. Nice.
It’s the first time that Abe played in a team tournament. It looked that it’s a lot of fun. What a strong and diversified field! Many teams were from out of the state, even many local players were not familiar to me: some from high school, with a lot of energy and determination, and greatly underrated; some senior masters, with a little bit of rust but still enough prohibitive capabilities.
USAT North
After one of Abe’s losses, I asked him did he blundered. He said “No, it’s just a miscalculation. I was winning before that.” In fact, a later computer analysis revealed a swing of at least seven pawn values (I thought one pawn value loss could be considered a blunder).
He said he was so scared of sacrifice, I guessed that his miscalculation could be on a bad sacrifice. I told him that there are two options to deal with it. One is to think more to make sure it work. The other is not to take that risk if you are not sure, instead, try to transfer the game into a favorable endgame.
Abe mentioned his sacrifice worked except his opponent got too many compensations. I replied ” You meant that your sacrifice did not work, didn’t you.” I guess if my suggestions were good, Abe would knew them already since he read much more chess books than I do. Therefore, he won’t listen to me. A better alternative is, as I hoped, to let him learn from his mistakes.
For those who participated in the 1st North America Amateur Open last weekend at North Shore Chess Center, you probably agree with me at the title. I took some pictures last Friday night:
The road leading to the chess center
Outside of the chess center
Inside of the chess center
It’s a pity if you missed it. By the way, there’s more snow falling the next day.
I am sorry for the people who have to work and drive today. They may not like snow at all. But for kids, snow is fun. Wow, it’s a big snow. They have waiting for it for days. Finally, it’s here. Even no school today and tomorrow—a dream came true?
Abe went to a chess tournament last Sunday afternoon. The tournament was great for him as he played with several strong opponents. Although the tournament last until evening, it’s no problem for us since we were no far away from home.
A chess tournament on a Sunday afternoon
On the way back home, I believe, I heard an interesting story from the NPR, a public radio station. At first, I heard “Tiger Mother”. Oh, more on Pushy Parenting, I thought. Then I heard that this guy’s IQ was estimated to be 50 to 100 points higher than Albert Einstein’s. Then, this guy entered Harvard University at age 11 while being qualified for admission when he was nine. What a child prodigy! If you are interested to hear the story, click here.
A year earlier, I made a New Year’s Resolution, but I did not achieve it. Upon looking back, I found that my resolution was so naive and silly. This year, instead of making a New Year’s Resolution of Abe’s chess improvement of x rating points increase, I found a better alternative — making no Resolution at all for this year.
Since Abe, based on a long term trend, is still on his improving stage, I do not want to put any additional pressure on his short term performance. It’s fine that he loses many games now in order to fix his weakness (such as the bad habit of playing too fast) and gain experience. It’s fine he keeps losing but keeps playing. I’d have a New Year’s Resolution if I can measure how much he increases his interest in chess and how much he slows down in his games, but I could not find any measurements. So I had to give up the thought of a New Year’s Resolution.
From last Tuesday to last Thursday, Abe played at the 2010 Pan American Open chess tournament. Since the playing site was only a little more than an hour’s drive away, I decided to drive each day instead of staying at an hotel there. The driving was not bad at all— on both ways each day, there was no snow, no traffic and Abe could take a nap. I was glad Abe could stay awake during the games. Luckily for me, I could take a short nap during reading at the skittles room in the afternoon. It went like this, after the nap, I got up to check Abe’s game at the playing hall, the game was still not half way yet. So I could go back to skittles room to continue my reading. After a while, I would get up and check Abe’s game again. I, like many other chess parents, walked between the chess playing hall and the skittle room several times during a game. It might be Abe’s preference for him to see me from time to time and helping him with small things such as pointing to the bathroom or pouring some water in his cup. In this tournament, maybe still adjusting the time difference of last vacation, I achieved taking a nap in the skittles room for the first time.
Another first, I was surprised to find out, was Abe achieved being one of last few players finishing the last round. He played for more than four hours in the game. After two hours and a half, I told myself that I should be happy with Abe’s effort no matter what’s the result. After the game, I thought: “In almost all of previous chess tournaments, Abe always use less then half of the allotted time. Today, I would guess he left the game with only minutes on his clock, and he finally was patient enough to be one of the last few players finishing the round.”
Abe was one of last few players to finish the last round at 2010 Pan America Open
We just came back from a long (supposed to be) vacation. In fact, the vacation felt so short, I would say it last no longer than a chess game.
Abe, I felt, was curious to everything on the trip, the farmers’ market was definitely different there:
Abe is at a farmers' market
The land was poor, so were the people, but kids could still be happy. Not supposed to be?
I would think Abe was happy too most of the time. I took a picture when he was playing basketball with his little brother.
Abe is playing basketball with his little brother
No court, no hoop, no problem. “I love this game”. Not supposed to be?
It is winter time, it is cold outside. But we found some people are playing “chess” behind a wall on street.
Some people are playing "chess" on street in winter time (zoom in)
Let’s zoom the picture out to the street view.
Some people are playing "chess" on street in winter time (zoom out)
When Abe was bored with everything else, he played some chess games with the computer during the vacation. No one asked him, another not supposed to be.
Another weekend, another chess tournament. Another IL class (here is 2009 IL class) and another year. Same cold snowy day outside, same hot tension inside.
One corner of IL class 2010
Hope you enjoy everything, whether it is the snow, or it is the tension, whether you are young or you are old.
Talking about something without tension, Abe’s little bother likes to “read” books, but according to Mommy, he only reads the page numbers. However, he still looks enjoying it:
Two brothers enjoy reading in a Costco store
Whatever you do, try to enjoy it, even you can’t grasp everything of it.
We are on the way to our vacation, will be back after Christmas.
The 9-round 3-day tournament was held over the Thanksgiving weekend. The venue is clean and well lighted, all equipments are supplied—even the food and drink. So the plays just need to show up and play chess. A big feast of chess over Turkey Day weekend, how nice!
1st NA Amateur Closed was held at the North Shore Chess Center
Abe was playing in the tournament, so were two other kids of his age. I bet they had a good time (which is very important to their interests in chess). The three kids are playing blitz between rounds:
Kids play blitz between rounds
Before the last round, I drove the kids to a nearby park, so they played soccer for a while:
Kids play soccer in a nearby park
By the way, one of the purposes of this tournament is to help people get a FIDE rating and thus create more FIDE rated players in Chicago.
Abe did fine in last weekend’s chess tournament: 2010 Illinois All Grade Championship, he won four games against four lower rated players, lost one game to a higher rated player. In the game he lost, a delicate endgame was reached and both players played well and determined, as some observers told me. The game was the last one finished in the section, I was sure that it was a good game; I hope Abe can learn a lot from it.
The next day, last Sunday, there was another chess tournament nearby in the afternoon, “Do you want to go?” I asked Abe. “It was up to you.”His mommy added. Abe replied “No” the night before, “Yes” in the morning and then “No” again at the noon. I guessed that he was too tired and needed a break. Maybe we can stay at home and watch a movie together.
The DVD was borrowed from library last week. It’s named “Like stars on earth — every child is special”. Since the movie was about a kid, his parents and one of his teachers, I thought, the whole family might enjoy it, probably, at Saturday night. Actually, we watched it at Sunday afternoon.
The movie lasted almost all the afternoon — it ran more than two and a half hours. In addition, there were some conversations in foreign language. I was surprised to find out Abe and I finished the whole movie, with some help of English subtitles. “It is a long movie, but very moving.” I said. Abe nodded. The story showed LOVE was the utmost force in discovering the talent of a seemingly retarded kid with “dyslexia”. I also got moved by some song like “Perseverance will bring the applause of the world” even you are misunderstood at the beginning.
After dinner, while Abe was playing Wii games, I asked him to do his homework.
“Wait, Daddy forced me to watch a movie all afternoon.” he must thought now Daddy should not force him to do another thing.
“But you don’t need to finish it if you don’t like it,” Mommy replied.
One chess parent told me he thought one of main benefits of having kids playing chess was the constant challenge to kids. The kids learn to deal with setbacks since they are in up and down all the time. I remember I heard more than once Abe told himself “I’d better win this one”, but he lost it; Abe murmured “How I could lose all the games”, but it was real. The same challenge also applies to parents. The parents are constantly embarrassed with the high expectations for their kids. Although that expectation might come from the love of your kids and the passion of you to the game, it’ll put too much pressure to the kids and it is not healthy.
As Abe’s rating jumps and dives, I know that there are apparent weaknesses in his game, it needs time and experience to fix them. For example, as more than one person mentioned, Abe needs improve his endgames. But if not slowing down and not playing with strong opponents, as i understand, you might not have any experience playing the endgame. Abe slowed down a lot recently, and I prefer him to play with strong opponents, even most games results in losses.
In the past several tournaments, I said “good job” to him after each of Abe’ loses, he slowed down, put a good fight and I was happy for him.
We had a block party in our neighborhood last Saturday. For several days last week, Abe had mentioned that he liked to go to the party since he wanted to play with the kids of our neighbors. In addition, as usual, he has his soccer games on Sundays. In the past weekends, we, reluctantly, skipped some of his games due to the chess tournaments. He will play several more chess tournaments in the coming weekends, so we decided, maybe it’s not a bad idea, to take a break from the tournaments last weekend.
Since the weekend’s free, we could enjoy things that would otherwise be too energy consuming before a chess tournament. Friday night, we went to see the homecoming parade in a nearby university. On the way to the parade, Abe’s brother was very excited and yelled OFFENSE DEFENSE all along, maybe he thought he was going to watch a sports game. Abe and his little brother, at least, enjoyed the parade by getting a lot of candy, the parade display was very creative, the university students were dancing, singing and screaming. It was a big party. I think they tasted a little bit of college life.
On Saturday morning, we started to worry, maybe, it’s a bad idea to take this weekend off. It’s raining, we worried that the party in the afternoon would be canceled. I thought we would better to go to a chess tournament if the party would be canceled. Otherwise, what a waste to take this weekend off.
However, the rain stopped in the early afternoon, the block party started as planed, Abe played as planned, in a beautiful fall afternoon.
The next day, the whole family went to Abe’s soccer game. Abe ‘s team won the game. “Abe Scored!” Abe’s little brother exclaimed, with proud.
In a recent tournament, one chess parent told me about his chess-playing son: “He played so little in the summer.” The boy is very talented and performed splendid from time to time. Since his parenting are very busy, he has not played much in tournaments recently. “Win or lose, I don’t care. Just keep playing.”
I couldn’t agree more. “Win or lose, I don’t care. Just keep playing.” Yes, as a chess dad, I want to tell my son the same thing and, “If you win, it is good and you are lucky. if you lose, it is fine, you will learn more by analyzing your game.”
An interesting position in a chess game
The above picture showed that an interesting position was reached in a game of the tournament, Abe was playing white, he lost the game in the end. When I pointed him a late blunder analyzed by computer software, he replied,” How could I miss that, I must have messed up my notation.” — OOPS.
adult tournament, chess, life, parenting | TheChessDad May 11, 2011 | 
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