2017 Twin Ports Open -The Saturday

   The Barkers Island Inn’s room was quiet and comfortable and I had a good night’s sleep. Even though I had no beagles to walk I still woke up at my normal time of 4am. Tim’s student Troy was rooming with me and being a college kid was still asleep and after washing up I had six hours to kill before the 10:30 first round start time. Even though it was Saturday I still had plenty of work to do on the program I was supporting that interfaces with a government entity. I checked to make sure the morning reports were downloaded and reconciled the accounts like I do every day and worked on some programming assignments.

  That took a couple of hours and after heading to the hotel lobby for a free cup of coffee (sadly there was no free breakfast) I headed back up to the room for a nap. I felt I played good in the 2016 Twin Ports Open except for settling for a quick draw in the Sunday morning round so my goal this year was to fight in all my games. I’ve had very little time to play or study chess since I took on my second job in April and had no idea what to expect from my play since my chess work has been limited to doing tactics puzzles on my amazing iPod’s Chessimo app and the occasional bursts of one minute play. I was considering purchasing Grandmaster Simon Williams Master Method series titled ‘Chess Improvement Secrets for the Busy Player’ but I was just too busy to order it much less download or study it. I’m not complaining about not having any time to work on my chess, mind you. I am merely stating fact and the fact is that I am taking a financial windfall now and letting everything else take a back seat. Anyway I’ve won tournaments days after playing some of my worst chess so it wasn’t inconceivable that my relative inactivity would lend itself to having the ‘beginner’s eye’ and a fantastic result.

Josh Denton

  As I mentioned there was no free breakfasts (continental or otherwise) at the Barkers Island Inn but I did bring some apples and granola bars on the trip so I had an apple for breakfast and headed down to the tournament room. This year the open section was in its own room and the reserve section for players rated under 1800 and the section for players rated under 1200 were in a separate room. The time control was 90 minutes for the game with 30 seconds added for each move. Except for the first game which gave us only 60 minutes for the game and the extra 30 seconds per move. I was the fifth seed in the reserve section and my first round opponent was Josh Denton. Josh looked to be in his 30s and was wearing an impressive array of new looking golf apparel which made me think he was either a golf fan or a golf apparel salesmen or perhaps a golfer. I was attired in black pants and a Punisher skull t-shirt as I sat down in front of the black pieces to start the tournament.

pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net

  A week later this game looks smooth as silk – fight off the attack, win a pawn, and grind to the victory. At the time it seemed very touch and go with my opponent seeing more than I was. During the game I didn’t understand why Josh was giving me the pawn but in hindsight it was clear by his reaction that he had counted it out better than me. Josh’s 7.Ng5 got me wrong-footed and I never saw his attack on f7 until I had to defend against it. My Qd7 was a big concession but I was pleased with aggressively grabbing the center with e5. Overall a workmanlike effort in a game that took a little over two hours. I grabbed a quick nap in the room and with about an hour to go before the 2:00 second round start time headed to the hotel restaurant for lunch.

  The Barkers Island Inn’s restaurant has a full menu with some reasonable prices. There was a $10 pizza buffet and an $8 salad bar in addition to the giant prime ribs and bottles of wine that I saw other people dining on. The salad bar had some tuna and herring for protein and beets for filler in addition to the normal vegetable type salad bar stuff. I had three plates from the salad bar while Tim, Troy, and Ty had pizza and then it was time for the next game.

Allen Hanm

  I had the White pieces in the second game. My opponent was Allen Hahm, an older well-dressed guy with a suit jacket, cane, and a large amount of jewelry including a giant class ring on his hand. I looked up Allen after the game and saw that he is a member of the Twin Ports Chess Club that plays in their events at least twice a month. I don't have any strategy for playing against older players but if I did it would be to try to stay away from the endings and not be afraid to mix up the position, which is exactly the opposite of my strategy against younger players. The only problem with this strategy is that I am getting to be an older player myself and I am as likely to make a mistake as anyone. Almost as soon as I sat down I felt myself getting tired from my third plate of salad at the Barkers Island all you can eat salad bar so I chugged two cups of free coffee during the first four or five moves and perked right up.

  This game took a little longer than two hours. I never took more than two minutes on any of my moves and only took a minute a move when it became clear that my opponent was never going to resign. I could have saved myself an hour and a half if I had spent a couple of extra minutes on the follow-up to Qh7. Someday someone will have to explain to me why people who are losing trade off all their pieces. In my first two games my opponents could have kept pieces on the board to keep swindling chances but instead traded down to completely lost endgames. I do have to admit that if Allen Hahm had seen the early checkmate that I missed he may have been encouraged to keep playing to see what else I would miss.

My traveling companions Tim, Ty, and Troy with a typical plate from the Barkers Island Inn salad bar...

...and here is Tim with our server of the day Brody or with our Brody of the day the server along with a view of the harbor from the restaurant.

  I got in another nap and then took a walk along the island with my traveling companions. I like walking my dogs but am not big on walking for walking’s sake. There were some geese and seagulls around and a few people swimming in the water despite all the signs mentions that there have been drownings on Barkers Island. After the walk it was back to the salad bar where we were served by someone who said “I’ll be Brody your server today!” I wanted to ask him who he was going to be tomorrow but thought the better of it and instead struck up a conversation with the teenage girl that was sweeping the floor. The restaurant was facing a harbor with lots of massive expensive looking boats. I asked the sweeping girl if the people parked their boats here all the time or only when they stayed at the hotel. She didn’t know but we came to the conclusion that the people who stayed here had a lot of money since none of these boats looked cheap.

Marcus Gardner

  At 7:00 the final round of the day was starting. I was expecting to play one of the higher rated players in the field but was instead matched up against 13 year old Marcus Gardner who defeated the third seeded player in the previous round. I didn't know this at the time but Marcus is pretty serious about his chess - he has a chess coach, went to Nashville for the youth Supernational tournament this year, and plays a tournament a month at the Chess Castle in Minneapolis. I have always had good luck playing youngsters by taking my time and trying to win in the ending and was hoping this game would be no different. I had noticed that I hadn’t used much more than an hour in either of my first two games and tried to remind myself to take my time.

   Like my previous two games I barely used an hour of my almost 2 hours (including the increment) but this time it cost me half a point. For the third game in a row I was outplayed in the opening but Marcus made no obvious errors and I had to dig my way out to equality. I felt like I missed some chances so I took advantage of the free analysis that was being given out by organizer/master chess player Dane Mattson. Also in the room was Bill Harrison, another master chess player and Marcus’s coach. Dane is in the mental health profession and immediately saw that I was playing by very basic guidelines instead of challenging myself to think ‘outside the box’. He pointed out that by taking on d5 with my c pawn I don't get pushed backwards and instead of trying to hang on to the d file and trading off I should have been working on getting my queen to e5 where it could do damage behind enemy lines. Of course Dane saw that 29…Bd3 wins the game as soon as the opportunity presented itself. I spent three minutes on what I was going to do after I played Qe1+ but my only thoughts were how to not lose my queenside pawns after White played Qc8+ or at least how to win as many of White’s pawns. This tournament had a $60 entry fee but when I count the lesson with Dane it was the best $60 I’ve spent on chess in many a year.

  After three rounds of the 2017 Twin Ports Open I had 2 wins and a draw the same as last year with the only differences being I never played a stronger player, I had 2 blacks this year instead of 2 whites, and that I missed chances in every game. I joined Tim, Troy, and Ty for a post-mortem of all our games (Tim found my mistakes as fast as Dane and the computer) and I rolled into bed around 11.