2016 Jackson Open - Déjà vu

  “It's like Déjà vu all over again” - Yogi Berra

  I headed to Jackson, Minnesota last weekend to play in my friend Sam Smith’s Jackson Open for the 5th year in a row. The first two years I played in Jackson I was so tired after the first three rounds that I skipped the last round of the tournament. I managed to play all four rounds the next two years and accomplished one of my Jackson goals last year by tying for second place and collecting a cash prize. Now that I finished in second place I had one unfulfilled goal in Jackson which was to take first place, a lofty goal that would require a lot of good play and a lot of luck but not entirely out of the question.

  I had an excellent warm-up at the Twin Ports Open in Duluth two weeks ago and spent the time between tournaments doing tactics puzzles and reviewing my games from Duluth. As usual the Jackson tournament had one game on Friday night and three games Saturday, all at a time limit of 90 minutes per player with a five second delay instead of the 30 seconds added to each move like in Duluth. Not wanting to drop $131 at the EconoLodge like I did last year I booked a room at the Earth Inn Motel online. There was the possibility that Sam’s friend Joel was going to be sharing my room on Friday so I picked the ‘Queen Room’ which had a picture of 2 beds for the incredibly low rate of $49. I also asked in the special request section of my order to have 2 beds in the room.

  I left the house at 10am and started the 240 mile trek to Jackson. To the delight of my beagles I made a bologna sandwich to take with me as well as some excellent red grapes from the Wal-Mart which were underpriced because they inconveniently were not seedless. I stopped for gas at Albert Lea where gasoline cost $2.15 a gallon which was 6 cents more than Iowa on Friday but 4 cents less than Iowa’s tax inflated gas prices by Saturday afternoon.

Welcome to Albert Lea!

  I made good time and arrived at the Earth Inn Motel in Jackson around 2:30. The Earth Inn Motel isn’t the kind of place with a front desk so I rang the bell and was soon greeted by Joe Manger (who was wearing a shirt that said so). Joe Manager gave me a room key. I headed to the room and found there weren’t two beds in the room as I had requested so I headed back down the hall to talk to Joe Manager. Joe told me that I needed to have ordered a room with two double beds from the web site or better yet that I should have called the Inn directly because if I had called him he would have 'had control'. I didn’t want to discuss control issues with a guy whose shirt said ‘Joe Manager’ so I asked if I could switch rooms and Joe said that was fine as if I hadn’t ‘dirtied up’ my room. Joe Manager said I was lucky that he had one room with a double bed left and switched me for an extra 10 dollars. I thanked Joe and moved my bag over to the next room.

If you have a problem at the Earth Inn Motel in Jackson, Minnesota Joe Manager will take care of it!

  The Earth Inn Motel’s room was just fine. It had a little microwave and refrigerator, exceptional wireless internet, a big television, was spotless, and best of all cost only $64 after the taxes and all were figured in. I settled into the room and took a nap until around 6:00 and headed over to the church where the tournament was being held for the 7:00 first round.

Steve Heinisch

  The church was less than a mile away from the Earth Inn and the only two people there were Sam and his wife Ana. There were only six players signed up in advance for the tournament but 13 more players decided to travel to Jackson to play on the day of the tournament with six players taking a half point bye instead of playing on Friday night. Sam doesn’t charge extra for not registering in advance and while that practice encourages people to make a last minute decision to play it also encourages long distance travelers to wait until the last minute in case bad weather makes the trip impractical. One of the late arrivals was Joel so I knew I was going to have a roommate at the Earth Inn Motel.

  Some late signups and pairing problems caused the first round to start about 20 minutes late. When I arrived at Jackson I was the highest rated player but by the time the tournament started I was the fourth highest rated player and had the White pieces against Steve Heinisch. My more avid readers may find that name familiar and it should be because I played Steve in the same Friday night game of this same Jackson Open with the same White pieces in 2013. Three years ago I drew Steve despite being rated over 300 points higher than him and I was lucky to get the draw. As it happens I had reviewed our game in the week before the tournament and felt fairly prepared as we sat down to play.

pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net

  A long game but not especially draining. Steve used all his time and never got up from the board even once. After losing the pawn on move 7 Steve hung tough with his two bishops but the less time he had on the clock the more inclined he was to trade down until he had no pieces left. I was pleased with my play but now I think I could have made things a lot easier on myself by keeping my two bishops and using my extra pawn as a battering ram instead of an endgame trump. All in all I was pleased to have beaten someone who outplayed me three years ago.

  My game was the second to last to finish and it was a little after 10 when Joel and I left the church. Two years ago Joel and I roomed together and headed to the SuperAmerica convenience store for a snack but Joel said he needed a meal this night. Joel’s legs don’t work so he gets around using stick braces that hook over his arms. This puts a lot of stress on Joel’s back and he had to undergo back surgery last year and is still on pain medication that has to be taken with a full meal. The problem I had was trying to find somewhere to eat in Jackson, Minnesota after 10pm. The only place still open was the Burger King drive thru so we ordered some food and ate it at one of the picnic tables outside the restaurant. At 11 even the drive thru closed and the Burger King staff turned out the outside lights. We finished our meal in the darkness and headed back to the Earth Inn Motel for a good night’s sleep to prepare for the next day’s three long games.

A late night dinner in Jackson...

  I woke up at 4am like normal but forced myself back to sleep until 7am since I had no beagles to walk at the Earth Inn Motel in Jackson, Minnesota. The low priced room at the Earth Inn Motel did not provide for a free breakfast so Joel and I checked out and headed to the Embers restaurant next door. Joel had this big breakfast of eggs, toast, and bacon. Eggs tend to get me sick so I decided to have a Reuben Sandwich with hash browns. For the uninitiated, a Reuben is a corn beef sandwich with swiss chess, sauerkraut and Russian dressing (which I skipped). I must have been pretty hungry since I devoured my sandwich and hash browns in record time and had a couple of cups of coffee and then it was back to the tournament for the second round.

Dan Voje

  I was the fourth seed out of 19 players but with six players taking a half point bye instead of playing the Friday night game I found myself having the black pieces against top seed Dan Voje in the second round game that started at 9am on Saturday morning. My more avid readers may find that name familiar and it should be because I played Dan on a Saturday game in this same Jackson Open with the same Black pieces in 2014. In that game I was getting crushed by Dan until his attack went wrong when I found myself a pawn ahead. Dan had less than a minute left on his clock but I made several substandard moves to cost myself the game and a chance at the championship. I got myself a big cup of cold water, squeezed a lemon into it, and sat down for my second round game.

  What a disgusting game. Two years ago I lost to Dan by making a bunch of substandard moves at the two and a half hour mark and two years later I cost myself a game against the same player at the same tournament with the same color pieces in the same opening by making the substandard moves at the same two and a half hour mark. If it wasn’t so similar to the game two years ago I would blame my play on the combination of my lemon water and the Reuben sandwich making me as sick as I’ve ever been at a chess tournament but I know better. Starting from when I took on b4 I never saw the board as an entire unit. Dan’s capture on a7 came as a complete surprise and I never even noticed that I was going to lose my bishop until he took it. This poor play will never get it done against a tough as nails type of player like Dan.

  After that game I was sick of my playing and sick to my stomach and sick that I had no chance to win the tournament. There was an odd number of players so I decided to call it a day and withdrew from the tournament and headed home around 1. I made the long defeated drive home with another gas stop in Albert Lea at which point my stomach started feeling a lot better and at 5:30 I was greeted by an enthusiastic pair of beagles that were delighted to see me and couldn’t care less about whether I lost to Dan Voje or beat Steve Heinisch or anything else unrelated to the refrigerator or an afternoon walk.

  I felt kind of crummy bailing out on Sam and the tournament but ultimately I go to any chess tournament to have a good time and if I’m not feeling good I’m not having a good time and if I’m not having a good time there’s no reason to stick around. In reviewing my games in Duluth and Jackson the two trends I noticed is that my play got noticeably weaker into the third hour and I used way less time than my opponents. There’s a good reason for using less time – I run out of things to think about. The poor play late in games is more worrisome, especially if I continue to play in these longer time control tournaments. If I’m not spending time thinking I should have more energy later in the game and I don't. These aren’t new problems – they’re as familiar as the people I played in Jackson last weekend and it is a little discouraging to see that I have made little to no progress in solving them. I don’t have any more tournaments on my schedule and after a decidedly lackluster 2016 I should have plenty of time to work on these problems.

2015 Jackson Open - It Ain't Over Till It's Over But When It's Over It's Over

The new focus staple or the latest fad...

  You many have noticed that all through the past three posts about the Jackson Open I haven’t mentioned one word about AMP Focus Energy, my preferred beverage to meet my energy and hydration needs. That’s because the good folk at AMP Energy drinks redesigned their product line earlier this year and AMP Focus Energy has been discontinued. Taking AMP Focus Energy’s place in the AMP product line were fancy flavors like Strawberry-Limeade and Passion Fruit and zero calorie flavors Blueberry-White Grape and Watermelon. All of these new flavors have Caffeine and B-Vitamins but none of them offer the promise of increased concentration of AMP Focus Energy.

  I drank lots of AMP Focus Energy at last year’s Jackson Open and given my pedestrian play didn’t think it helped me much if at all. After my poor play at the Okoboji Blitz I paid a lot more attention to nutrition and sleep habits at Jackson – I drank water with lemon juice instead of energy drinks, got plenty of naps, ate an apple after each game, and snacked on a few almonds during the games. This was all as planned but I still wanted to have something for a little boost in case I needed it. When I got to the Casey’s at Marshalltown Iowa to fill up my car with $2.64 a gallon gasoline I saw a tiny bottle in a large cardboard container on a rack with the letters ‘FOCUS’ printed on the container in large letters.

  The two and a half ounce bottle was called REFocus. The RE stands for ‘Rushmore Essentials’ which is the parent company and the ingredients were 21 fruit juices that made up the product along with ginseng (and green tea to provide caffeine). There were no other extra sugars, sucralose, or aspartame to add sweetness but there were also no added chemicals like choline, taurine, guanine, or kerosene that went into most of the other energy drinks. The company also makes REVive, REShape, and REBuild and they all are in the same little bottles with green tea and 21 ‘all-natural superfruits’ with REFocus having added protein and ginseng, REShape having added Yacon Syrup and REBuild with added protein. If I owned the company I’d make a product called REIncarnate and watch the money roll in. I doubted the REFocus would help but since I wasn’t likely to find anything better between the Casey’s in Marshalltown Iowa and Jackson, Minnesota I plunked down $7 for two bottles and made my way to Jackson.

Ian Stone

  When I woke up from my nap after my game with Joe there was still one game finishing up on a lower board. Top seed Dan Voje won his game to maintain the only perfect score with three wins and there were four players a half point behind : myself, second seed Josiah Jorenby, Ian Stone (one of Riaz Khan’s traveling companions), and Minneapolis teenager Franklin Zhou. I expected Josiah to play Dan while I would play Franklin with Ian playing someone with in the next score group since he was the lowest rated player of the four. Once again my expectations were wrong but this time it had nothing to do with the pairing software. Franklin decided to go home instead of playing the last round which left me playing Ian Stone on board two in the quiet room reserved for the top players in the tournament.

  Ian is a college student from the University of Minnesota with a distinct Irish accent. I didn’t know anything about him but since he came with Riaz I assumed that he was one of the Chess Castle crowd and therefore as tough as nails over the board as I have found every Chess Castle player to be.

  My tournament situation was dependent on the board one game between Josiah and Dan. If Josiah won or drew I could sneak into a tie for first with a win. If Dan won a draw would assure me of a tie for second place while a win would give me second place and $200 all by myself. I was back in the extra quiet room reserved for the top players in the tournament and had earned the right for the final round instead of merely being a guest as I was in round two. I got myself a large cup of water and squeezed a half a lemon in it. I felt like i needed a little boost so I poured a bottle of REFocus drinkinto my lemon water and started my game with Ian.

Top board tension!! In the super quiet top board room I battle Ian while 10 yards away Josiah and Dan fight for first place. Notice how on each board the player have adopted the same placement of their hands. I don't know whether this is some sort of subliminal one-upmanship, psychic sympathetic stuff, or just my own psycobabble....

pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net

  I felt then and I feel now that this was an excellently played game on my part where I outplayed my opponent. Excellent but not perfect. I missed the way to win an extra pawn on move 30 as well as the Nc6 follow-up to winning a pawn on move 18. I was quite impressed with my REFocus drink – I spent plenty of time on the critical moves and although I didn’t come up with the right answers I never thought I was thinking in circles. Once Dan Voje won his game and locked me out of a chance to sneak into a first place tie I saw no reason to try to win this game but if first place was on the line Ian and I might still be playing. Objectively the game might have been a draw but with the extra pawn I would have been happy to keep playing to see if I could trick or exasperate Ian into making another mistake. As it turned out I only had one goal left to attain from the 2015 Jackson Open and that was to finish high enough to cash in which the draw made a reality.

  Slowly and surely the other boards finished up and when the dust settled I finished in a six way tie for second and collected $65 dollars which was half the price of my $131 room at the EconoLodge. Ironically if I had won my last game I would have collected $200 which was $135 more than $65 and just enough to have paid for my $131 room at the EconoLodge. I helped Sam get the tournament rated, Dan Voje and I helped Sam set the church hall for Sunday, and at 9pm Saturday I headed home from Jackson 35 hours after leaving Marshalltown.

I'm not often a winner in this world so it was a special pleasure to take a place with the Jackson Open prize winners!

  I drove through 80 miles of the worst rain I ever drove through on my way home which gave me extra time to reflect on this year’s Jackson Open. I met almost all my goals – I cashed, played aggressively, took my time, had excellent stamina, and as a bonus was undefeated. Part of the reason I had more stamina this year was that my games only lasted five and a half hours compared to nine like last year. I was far from perfect – I missed shots and drifted into a lost position against Joe but overall I was really pleased with my performance and especially how I took my time at critical points in the games.

  The Jackson Open is the only weekend chess tournament I’ve played in since 2012 so I treat it like a big deal to play in which to me it is. Sam ran a great tournament, the new playing hall was tremendous, and just like Okoboji everyone gets along great. I had a great time and played so well that the possibility exists that I may have hit another chess gear even though I’m barreling towards 55 years old. This possibility has me planning on playing in another weekend chess tournament later this month. The one goal I didn't reach was to win the tournament and get my name on the Flores Cup of Jackson Open champions but I’ve been at it just four years and the 2016 Jackson Open is only 50 weeks away!

2015 Jackson Open - If You Can't Be Good It's Good To Be Lucky

  After Josiah and I had finished going over our game and before my nap I hung out with Okoboji Open organizer Jodene Kruse and Joe Hall-Reppen for a little while. Jodene organizes the Okoboji Open each year and I see Joe at Okoboji and Jackson almost every year. Joe is in his 20s, works at a radio station, and is a volunteer chess teacher in Algona which is 20 miles east of Cylinder and 70 miles southwest of Jackson. Joe is a reader of my blog and when we get to Okoboji we generally talk about basketball but on this day we talked about who we thought we would be playing in the next round.

Joe Hall-Reppen

  Joe thought that we would play against each other. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to my next opponent but then I started thinking about it. Joe was one of the eight players who took a half point bye instead of playing Friday night. There were no draws Friday night so the players who took half point byes played each other on Saturday morning. Joe played the lowest rated player of the group and won his game. There were three players with two points and seven players with 1 and a half points including Joe and myself. I assumed that as highest rated player with a point and a half Josiah Jorenby would play one of the players with two points. That would leave six players in our score group and as the third highest rated player in that group I expected to play the lowest rated player among us who would have been Amir. Amir had the half point from the first round and collected a point in round two when his opponent failed to show up. The computer did not agree with my expectations. It kept Josiah from playing one of the 2-0 players because of color considerations and then did some more color magic to give him sixth seed Amir while making Joe’s prediction come true by pairing him with me.

  Sam asked me to look over the pairings which put me in a tough situation since competitively speaking playing the lowest seed would give me a chance at a very easy game and the chance for another nap heading into the last round. The thought crossed my mind because I thought that was the correct pairing but I didn’t want to write in my blog how I gamed the pairings in my favor. I did notice that Sam had put the results from the forfeits in the prior rounds as if they were played. That may have affected the color considerations the computer was using so I suggested he correct the results and do the pairings over. After all that was done nothing changed in the pairings so I sat down on board 5 to play Joe with the Black pieces. After playing my second round game in the quiet of the special room reserved for the top two boards, the main playing hall seemed like a blur of activity and noise. Actually the playing hall was quieter than most libraries but after spending my last game in the quietest room I ever played in every sharp inhale after a blunder, rustle of clothing as a player walked past my board to see the nearby crosstable, and gurgle of sipped water seemed louder than the music blaring from the passing cars during my daily walks with Daisy and Baxter.

  I’ve seen Joe play at Jackson and Okoboji every year but didn’t remember any of his games. I did remember that he used to play in the open section at Okoboji and pull off some early upsets but couldn’t maintain his momentum. When I researched Joe’s chess tournaments for this post I saw that he had one of his best tournament results a few weeks ago when he finished second in the Missouri Class Championships, and gained almost 150 rating points. I also found out we were both in Skokie, Illinois for the US Game 60 and US Game 30 championship in 2008 which was years before we ever met. Before we started our game I reminded myself to be aggressive and take a minute before every move after the opening but my mind had a mind of its own.

pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net

  Joe was disgusted with himself after this game. He completely outplayed me over the first 17 moves and just fell apart. I could relate because I’ve been there and done that plenty myself over the years and I’ll try to remember this game the next time I fall apart. For my part in this game I was awful and awfully lucky. I started off taking my time but as my position got worse and worse I lost my discipline and started moving really fast. I’ve been working with my students on a method of thought to help them decide what move to play. My mantra has been for them to look for ‘checks, captures, and undefended pieces’ but in this game I missed a simple double attack on two undefended pieces. Not only did I miss it during the game Joe and I both missed it again when we went over the game. I gave lessons on Saturday and showed the position to my students and they all found the double attack effortlessly.

  Our game took a little over an hour which meant that I had spent about as much time on the middle two games of the tournament combined than I did in my first round game. Depending on how the other games finished I would be no worse than a half point out of the lead heading into the final round. So far the tournament had broken perfectly for me. When I needed to grind out a win against Mark in the first round I was a grinder, when I needed to be at the top of my game against Josiah I was at the top of my game, and when I needed to be lucky against Joe I was lucky. I had been focused on trying to play good moves up to now and not thinking about winning and losing but as I found my way back to the recliner in the back of the church for another nap I knew that I could tie for first if I could find one more win in the last round.

2015 Jackson Open - Diary of a Wimpy Chess Player

  I had a great night sleep in my $131 room at the Econo(NOT)Lodge in Jackson, Minnesota after my round one victory against Mark Hansen on Friday night at the Jackson Open. I woke up refreshed and relaxed but it was only 4am – my normal wake up time. I didn’t have any beagles to walk and I had the potential of nine hours of chess ahead of me so I went back to sleep and refused to get out of bed until 7:30 which was the latest I’ve woken up in over 10 years.

John, Edna, and their 3D globe puzzle

  After waking up I headed to the EconoLodge’s complimentary breakfast but before I could get there this elderly couple called me over. The husband was named John and the wife Edna which I knew because they were wearing nametags that said so and I didn’t think they were identity thieves. Edna wasn’t much of a talker but John wanted to know where I was from and what roads I used to get to Jackson. I excused myself to get a small cup of coffee, two slices of toast, and some apple juice. When I returned a few minutes later I told John and Edna that I was from Marshalltown Iowa by way of New Jersey and mentioned in detail all three highways I took to travel to Jackson (Iowa 30 west, Interstate 35 north, and Interstate 90 west). Edna said that Marshalltown sounded familiar and wondered if she had heard about it in the news. I casually mentioned she likely had since Marshalltown is the corpse abuse capital of Iowa (you can read about it here) and made the national headlines last week yet again when a former resident was killed after an exchange of gunfire at a North Carolina Church (If you don't believe me, click here!).

  Edna’s eyes started to get a little glassy so John changed the subject by asking me what I thought of the 3D globe puzzle on the table. I mentioned that I prefer flat puzzles and John agreed with me, telling me ‘I was his kind of guy’. Then Edna squinted at me and asked who I came to the reunion with. I’ve never seen ‘Wedding Crashers’ or ‘Catch Me If You Can’ and told Edna and John I was in town to play in a chess tournament. They weren’t very impressed and I saw Edna reach into her purse for her pepper spray. I quickly mentioned that the tournament was at the Jackson United Methodist Church. Edna took her finger off the pepper spray trigger and they both warmed up a bit since they were quite religious. John told me that there were over 150 people in town for their every three year family reunion and that there were relatives from Florida, Nevada, California, and even Iowa but none from New Jersey. The reason they held the reunion in Jackson was because their genealogy goes back to a young girl that survived an Indian massacre of the 1800’s by hiding in a corn field in what is now Jackson County Minnesota.

  I wish I could have heard more about John and Edna’s family history (and they had a lot of their own history since they are married 64 years and counting) but it was almost 8:30 and I had to get to the tournament so I said my goodbyes, checked out of my room, and headed back to the Jackson United Methodist Church for a full day of chess.

  I drove the mile and a half to the church, arriving just a little past 8:30. Sam and some of the other players were there. Sam was still waiting to see if any new players would arrive and hadn’t printed the pairings. Since I was the sixth ranked of the 10 first round winners I knew I’d be playing either top seed Dan Voje or second seed Josiah Jorenby depending on who had what color in the first round. Dan mentioned to me that if we played I could get revenge for my defeat to him at last year’s Jackson Open. I like Dan and really enjoy chatting with him. I said revenge wasn’t on my mind since I couldn’t do anything about last year but I wouldn’t mind another crack at him. Dan said that was very philosophical of me and I said it was just the truth. I was there on this Saturday to play chess and not think about what happened last year, last month, yesterday, or tomorrow. I just wanted to play a good game, make 40 or so good moves, and if I did happen to play Dan I would want to win for this year and this day.

Josiah Jorenby

  Dan and I both had the black pieces in the first round so I was paired against Josiah Jorenby on board 2 in the special room reserved for the top boards. I wrote about how Josiah scored 3.5 out of five in Okoboji this past April, scoring a win and a draw in his two games against masters. As if that wasn’t intimidating enough we’ve played six blitz games on chess.com and I haven’t beaten Josiah yet, scoring two draws to go along with four losses. I think Josiah is a great young man and I like him, his dad, and his sister Destiny but I wasn’t looking forward to playing this South Dakota State University student that was rated 200 points higher than me, had clearly found another gear, beat me like a drum when we played online, and was less than half my age! In my opinion there’s only one way to approach a game like this when you are outmatched and that is to not play like you are outmatched. Everyone is human and not above making a mistake or two. If you are an attacking player then attack. If you like to play for the endgame then by all means play for the endgame. I think players play better by playing to their strengths. If your opponent is better then make him or her prove it by playing your best instead of resorting to gimmickry. I was determined to stick to the goals I laid out by taking my time and being aggressive against the stronger player. If I played like the best me I can currently play like I would be happy to take my chances against Josiah and accept whatever result came my way.

pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net

  This was one of the weirdest and wildest games I ever played. I’ve never played against the Dzindzi-Indian defense in a tournament but I’ve seen John Bartholomew play with and against it on his excellent YouTube channel so I wasn’t totally unfamiliar with it. I understood the e4 line better than any of the other white systems and as much as I hated being down a pawn it was an excellent practical decision to keep the initiative and try to bust Josiah up the middle of the board instead of meekly defending my weak queen side pawns. If I had gone on the defensive I would have been giving the superior player a no-risk position where he could try to outplay me. My moves seemed logical at the time and even though I spent over a minute a move after the opening I took only 20 minutes for the game (Josiah took 30 minutes for his moves). My longest think was when I spent four minutes deciding to trade knights on move 12. I spend two minutes deciding on 17. Bd3. I chose that move because I was worried about Rf5 but perhaps if I’d spent more time there I would have seen the strength of f4.

  Josiah and I spent an hour going over this game afterwards which was longer than the game itself lasted. We found 17.Bf1 for me and 11…Ne5 and 14…Qg7 for Josiah in our post-mortem. There were a lot of tricks that we both sidestepped. I thought it was a well-played game at the time and Mr. Fritz didn’t find much to quibble with when I got home.

  Despite the title of this blog post (which I couldn't resist using) I believe this was one of the best games I’ve played in years and despite its shortish nature one of the more intense games I ever played. I didn’t back down, stayed on the attack, and made no serious errors. The only thing I didn’t do was win the game which Josiah had quite a lot to do with. I would have liked to played on in the roughly equal endgame to see how I matched up against a top flight player like Josiah but in the larger context of my goals for the tournament a win wouldn't have helped nearly as much as a loss would have hurt my chances so if taking the draw was a wimpy move, call me wimpy! The draw meant that if I wanted to win a cash prize I needed to get at least a win and draw in my last two games and I’d have to go 2-0 to have any chance of winning the tournament (Dan Voje and two other players were perfect at at 2-0) but at least I still had chances which I wouldn't have had if I'd lost. The Jorenbys left for lunch and I ate an apple and took a nap on a recliner in the church’s kiddie room to rest up for the second half of the tournament.

2015 Jackson Open - The Econo-NOT-Lodge

  I headed to Minnesota last Friday to play in Sam Smith’s Jackson Open Super Reserve. This was the fourth year in a row I’ve played in this tournament which is only open to non-experts. I don’t drive 240 miles to Jackson for a chess tournament every year because I have a better chance of winning a top prize with no experts around. I come to Jackson every year because I get to hang out with Sam, Jodene Kruse, Riaz Khan and the rest of the crowd I only get to see once or twice a year and because I feel welcomed. And the fact that I have a better chance of winning a top prize because there are no experts around doesn’t hurt either!

  In my previous three attempts to win the Jackson Open and get my name inscribed on the Flores Cup I’ve won five games, lost three games, and had two draws. Every year the pattern was similar – I’d play lower ranked players in the first two rounds to be among the leaders and then lose to one of the top seeds in round three. In my first two Jackson attempts I was so exhausted after my third round game I withdrew from the tournament and took a nap before heading home. I broke that string last year when I played in the fourth and final round after losing to a top seed in round three.

  Last year at Jackson I had only one goal - to play in all four rounds of the tournament. I had slightly more ambitious goals this year:

1. Play all four rounds It's good have an attainable goal and keeping it in mind would help remind me to conserve my energy for the long haul.
2. Be aggressive against the stronger players Last year I had cramped positions in my games against Sam and top seed Dan Voje. This year I wanted to make sure I had active positions.
3. Take at least one minute on each move after my opening knowledge was exhausted I wanted to avoid playing in the too fast fashion that led to a blunder that cost me second place last year.
4. Win a cash prize I’ve never won a cash prize at Jackson which requires finishing in the top three. Winning three out of four games has historically been good enough for a top three finish.
5. Win the tournament and get my name on the Flores Cup A long term goal but well within my capabilities any year with good form and the right breaks.

On the left is $2.64 Casey's gas in Marshalltown, Iowa - home to a Republican Governor that accused his opponent of plotting to raise the gasoline tax during his last election and then raising the tax himself months after his reelection. One the right is $2.59 gasoline at a Casey's in Jackson, Minnesota - a state that elected profession wrestler Jesse 'The Body' Ventura as Governor and Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken as Senator. Is it any wonder that Donald Trump is so popular with Republicans?

  I woke up at 4am as usual and after going on walks with Daisy and Baxter at 4:30 and 9:00 left for Jackson shortly after 10am. I didn’t want to get loaded up on coffee too early in the day so I stopped at the Casey’s General Store on my way out of town to fill my Chevy Spark with $2.64 a gallon gasoline (THANK YOU GOVERNOR TERRY BRANSTAD, REPRESENTATIVE MARK SMITH AND ALL OF THE OTHER LEGISLATORS WHO RAISED THE GASOLINE TAX BY ANOTHER 10 CENTS A GALLON THIS YEAR!) and got a Naked Juice Blue Machine drink which I sipped all the way to Mason City. I didn’t want to load up on a bunch of food like I did in April by wolfing down a fried egg cheeseburger and plate of rueben bites at Cylinder Iowa's famous Rack Shack like I did before going 0-5 at the Okoboji Blitz. Instead of stopping at some diner or restaurant to load up on more calories than I can burn in a month I packed a bologna sandwich along with apples, lemons, grapes, and almonds. I munched on the almonds until I got to Mason City and then stopped at a rest station and ate my bologna sandwich.

  After eating my sandwich I drove the additional 100 miles to Jackson non-stop and arrived at the EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota at 2:30. I’ve stayed at the EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota twice before and found it to be a clean, quiet, inexpensive motel. I made the reservation last week over the phone and didn’t think to ask about the price. This was a big mistake since the room for one night in 2015 cost $131! I asked if there was some sort of mistake and the owner/clerk said I could have gotten 3% off if I asked for the AAA discount when I made my reservation. I checked my credit card bill from last year and the same room at the same time of the year for the same Friday night cost $93!

Rusty refrigerators and water in place of juice at the breakfast bar - and all for $131 a night at the EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota

  I got to my room which was #23 of the EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota. I saw nothing worth an additional $38 except the racks on the refrigerator were all rusted out and the toilet barely flushed. I did notice at the complimentary breakfast the next day that there was no bowl of watermelon in the little refrigerator and that the cranberry and grapefruit juice slots in the juice dispenser had been replaced by handwritten signs that simply said ‘water’.

  I didn’t really care as much about the rusted refrigerator racks or watermelon or cranberry juice in the EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota as I cared about the extra $38 dollars I had to pay for the same room as last year. I made a mental note to make mention of the 'EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota' in my blog post as much as possible so it will get on all the Google searches and took a nap at 3. In April I didn’t take a nap before the Okoboji Blitz which (in addition to my 3,000+ calorie lunch) contributed to my Olympic ring (5 zeroes) performance.

  I woke up from a great nap at 5:30 and headed over to the playing site. In past years, the tournament was held in the Senior Center and Library with the courtyard in between the two buildings serving as a skittles area. The library is undergoing construction this summer so Sam held this year's edition at the Jackson United Methodist Church. When I got to the church, Sam was setting up and I was the first player to arrive. I liked the playing hall a lot. In prior years the top five boards would play in the library and the bottom boards would play in the Senior Center. The church hall had enough room for all the players with the top two boards having their own large quiet room with glass walls that allowed for the other players to admire their top two board-ness and view the games without disturbing them.

  Sam was excited and rightly so; the tournament had 24 players signed up which would make it the second biggest Jackson Open ever. Sam doesn’t put the tournament on to make money – he puts the tournament on because he loves chess and wants to show off his town to the chess players and vice versa. Sam showed me the entry list and it looked to be a pretty strong crowd despite the absence of three time defending champion Eric Bell due to his passing the 2000 rating mark and being no longer eligible.

  There were five players rated higher than myself and two more that were among the eight players that were arriving Saturday and taking a half point for the Friday night round. Then players started arriving for Friday night’s round one, including Riaz Khan. Riaz is a big supporter of the Jackson Open and brought two other players from Minneapolis’ Chess Castle crowd with him. Riaz asked me where I was staying and I recounted my tale of the unexpected $131 bill from the EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota. Riaz had a laughing fit and told me that he paid $150 total at the Earth Inn for three separate rooms (one for him and one each for his two traveling companions). Riaz was really enjoying my unsavvy consumerism and called me Hank Moneybags or Hank the Bank – I forget which. I was making a mental note to call the Earth Inn next year and when my facebook and chess.com friends Destiny and Josiah Jorenby showed up to register on site. I excused myself and chatted with the Jorenbys and their dad, being careful not to mention anything about lodging or the $131 I paid for a room at the EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota.

On the left is the church hall at the Jackson United Methodist Church. On the right is my round one opponent Mark Hansen.

  Sam waited to make sure all the players had arrived and we had the final pairings at 7:10. With Josiah’s arrival I became the 7th seed in the evening session and was scheduled to have the black pieces against Mark Hansen. Mark is a short muscular guy in his 40s who moved and talked slowly like he maybe had suffered a stroke. Mark was rated 1435, 250 points below me and likely more than capable of beating me if I wasn’t on my game. Two years ago I gave up a first round draw and was still able to play the top seed for the third round but with so many higher rated players this year I had to win this game to have a chance to cash in the tournament. A must win game fit nicely with my goal to be aggressive. Mark and I shook hands and my 2015 Jackson Open was underway.

pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net

  Mark used 53 minutes and I used 60. I felt like I pushed the action for the most part and except for my soft Be7 move was fairly aggressive throughout. Mark played well but was unfocused about where to put his pieces in the beginning of the game and wasted time with h3 and f3. I spend the bulk of my time deciding to take on g2 and got it mostly right. I missed the timing and nearly got my knight trapped but in the end a pawn is a pawn and the extra pawn ended up winning the game for me.

There's no better treat than an Old Trapper beef stick from SuperAmerica (Home of $2.59 gas)!

  All the top seeds except one made it through the first round with a win and I was happy to have my first point. In my previous Jackson Opens I started as the fifth seed. The difference between being the fifth seed and the seventh seed was that instead of playing a lower rated player in the second round I’d be playing one of the top seeds. I played the top seed in the third round in my three previous trips to Jackson with a 0-3 record so I thought it might help to play the top player first thing in the morning. None of that mattered until the next day so I headed back to my $131 room at the EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota to get a good night’s sleep. I felt like I deserved a reward for my victory so I stopped at the SuperAmerica convenience store for a snack. The BrokenPawnophiles amongs my readership will remember that last year I was able to purchase two Old Trapper beef sticks for a dollar from the Jackson, Minnesota SuperAmerica convenience store and that Daisy and Baxter were soon hoping we’d all move to Minnesota. The SuperAmerica still had the Old Trapper beef sticks but at a 38% price increase of 69 cents apiece. I bought one Old Trapper Beef Stick and ate it while sitting in my $131 room at the EconoLodge in Jackson, Minnesota. The Old Trapper beef stick was as awesome as the two I had last year and I was soon fast asleep with the prospect of three long games of chess on Saturday.

2014 Jackson Open - Part 2

  The Jackson Open’s schedule of one game on Friday night and three games on Saturday is a double edged sword in terms of getting a good night’s sleep on Friday. In 2013 I played poorly on Friday night, had to struggle for a draw against Steven Heinisch, and tossed and turned all night. This year I won my first round game against Sabine Marks and I slept like a rock through massive thunderstorms and woke up Saturday at 6:30am ready for three games that could last 3 hours each.

Joel Katz with breakfast at the Jackson, MN. Econo Lodge. Make sure to get there early before the sausage and egg patties get 'handled'!

  My roommate Joel Katz and I headed to the Econo Lodge’s free continental breakfast. Along with the cold cereal, donuts, toast, and bagels there was a small refrigerator that had hard-boiled eggs, watermelon, and a platter of cheese, egg patties, and sausage patties. I asked Joel if he wanted an ‘Egg McMuffin’. Joel said yes so I got an English muffin and used the tongs to pull a sausage patty, egg patty, and a slice of cheese out of the refrigerator. I unwrapped the cheese slice (the sausage and egg patties were unwrapped), slapped everything on the muffin, and put in in the microwave.

  While Joel’s sandwich was heating up, I spooned out a bowl of watermelon to go with some toast, a hard-boiled egg, coffee, and orange juice. Joel’s sandwich finished heating and we had our breakfast while watching the morning news. A lady then came into the breakfast room with two small children. One of the children got on his tiptoes and pulled out handfuls of sausage and egg patties from the refrigerator WITH HIS BARE HANDS and piled them on his plate. The lady was filling three cups with orange juice and then noticed all the patties on her son’s plate. She told him to put some of the food back so he stacked up the patties WITH HIS BARE HANDS and put them back on the platter in the refrigerator. I was happy the watermelon was on the top shelf and that we had gotten to the breakfast room ahead of this grabby young man.

  No sooner had the refrigerator door closed than the lady picked up the three cups of orange juice and one of them exploded, splashing orange juice all over herself, the counter, and the floor. Her children started laughing and she started yelling at them to be quiet. She left for a few moments and came back with the night clerk while the children were stomping in the orange juice puddles. The night clerk brought a pile of towels and started cleaning up the orange juice mess. The lady must have seen me staring at this spectacle because she engaged Joel and I in a conversation. She told us that the room she checked into last night had a leak in the roof and water was ‘pouring in the room’ so they moved her to a different room and when she woke up there were two inches of water in the bathroom and now this with the orange juice. She asked what we thought of that. I thought of taking the optimistic view and saying perhaps all that water kept her child's hands sanitary enough to avoid getting every Econo Lodge guest that made themselves a breakfast sandwich sick. Instead I took the practical view and said “It sounds to me like you’re a jinx, ma’m”. She muttered something I couldn’t quite make out, grabbed her children, and left Joel and I to finish our breakfast. I liked the Econo Lodge a lot better than this lady did – there were no leaks in my room, no standing water in the bathroom, my orange juice stayed in the cup, and the room was clean and quiet. The only suggestion I have is to have a worker in the breakfast room to make sure that the guest’s children keep their grubby hands off of the sausage and egg patties.

Sam Smith

  After breakfast, Joel and I checked out and headed the two miles to the Jackson Senior Center to join the rest of the players. Sam was waiting for any non-registered players to arrive and hadn’t finalized the pairings but when he greeted us he looked me in the eye with a grin and said “It’s you and me.” I played Sam in the 2012 Jackson Open (you can read about it here) and after getting pushed around for most of the game I found a game winning smothered mate when Sam made a rare defensive move. I was due to have the White pieces and remembered how I didn’t let Sam play his favorite Budapest Gambit defense two years ago. Sam used this defense to hold IM John Bartholomew to a draw at his 2013 Okoboji Open simultaneous exhibition and I made a mental note to not let him play it against me this year either. A little after nine Sam made the final pairings and we were still paired so I cracked open an AMP Focus Energy drink and we sat down for our game.

pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net

  Sam used 85 of his 90 minutes while I used a little over 60. I don’t mind defending cramped positions but this was ridiculous. Except for trading off Sam’s pieces, I never put a piece past my third rank until the 23th move of the game. I played far too passively in the beginning of the game and let Sam push me around far too much. Sam sacrificed a piece to push me around in 2012 but this year I let him do it for free. I was very lucky not to lose the game and even luckier to win it.

Dan Voje

  Even though my strategic play was highly suspect, I managed to avoid any overt tactical mistakes and found myself one of five players with 2-0 scores at the halfway point. The other four perfect scores were held by the top two seeds Dan Voje and Eric Bell, fellow 1600 player Mike Heinisch, and Riaz Khan who had scored a 300 point upset of the third seed Vince Wisnewski. While most of the other players went to have lunch, I ate a couple of apples, had a chat with Dan Voje and Rochester player Tom Brinkmann, and took a 30 minute nap in the courtyard between the Senior Center and Library. I woke up a few minutes before one, checked the pairings and saw that I was going to play top seed Dan Voje with the black pieces on board one. I’ve never played Dan before and couldn’t remember any of his games from the 2013 Okoboji or Jackson tournaments. As I cracked open my second AMP Focus Energy drink of the day I reminded myself to try to be more aggressive in this game than I was against Sam in the morning game.

  This was a hard loss to stomach. I didn’t think it was possible to be more cramped than my game against Sam yet I managed to have the granddaddy of all cramped positions. Even so, I had it all in my hands – an extra pawn, queens off the board, and an extra half hour on the clock – and I choked it all away with lazy thinking on my 36th move. I knew I was allowing a knight check but I was looking for Dan’s next move instead of taking the time to figure out EXACTLY where my king was going to go. Once I realized what happened I put up no resistance at all, quite unlike Dan continuing to pose me problems after his attack went wrong. Looking back at this game a week later, I’m pleased with my dogged defense in the middle part of the game but that’s all I’m pleased with since it was surrounded by yet another passive beginning and a meltdown at the end.

  With the 4th and final round starting just a few minutes after this disaster I was sorely tempted to take the last round off and head home early. And I would have except that my goal coming into the weekend wasn’t to go 3-0 or win the tournament or beat Dan Voje or not meltdown – my goal was to play all four games and that goal was well within reach. Thanks to my great breakfast at the Econo Lodge, my Amp Focus Energy, and the apples I’d been eating all day I didn’t feel tired at all so I went over to the Senior Center, relaxed, and waited for the last few games to finish.

Riaz Khan

  A little before 4:30, Riaz Khan came up to me and told me how he had been reading my blog and that I was way off base in my comments about the U.S. Soccer team (you can read them here). He offered his opinion that the U.S. had a very respectable World Cup and I reiterated my opinion that a country of 330 million people should consider a tie against Portugal (11 million people), a win against Ghana (24 million people), and a close loss to Belgium (11 million people) a pathetic result and not a respectable one. Riaz asked me how my game against Sam’s Budapest Defense went and I told him how I didn’t let Sam play it against me. And then Riaz told me that we were going to be playing in the last round. I checked the pairings and sure enough I was going to have White against Riaz with the winner having at least a share of 3rd place money and possibly 2nd place cash.

  Riaz is a one of those people who makes a tournament special just by his presence. He has a great sense of humor and a friendly, encouraging demeanor. He is also a tireless advocate of the Okoboji and Jackson Opens to the Minneapolis chess players. I’ve written about Riaz plenty (Here is an example) but never played against him in a tournament before. He proved to be psychologically prepared for our match up. When I pulled out my iPod to take a picture of Riaz for my blog, Riaz wheeled out his smart phone and started taking pictures of me! Then when the game started Riaz played the same Budapest Defense I tried so hard to avoid against Sam!

  Another wasted opportunity but that’s chess - one moment of inattention can throw away hours of hard work. I probably made a mistake by not cracking open a third AMP Focus Energy but I can't say it helped an awful lot late in the game against Dan. After the game, Riaz said “I knew Hank likes pawns so I just kept feeding them to him until he took one one too many.” Riaz and Dan both play at the Chess Castle in Minneapolis and they did their club proud as far as I’m concerned. They were both tough as nails over the board and great company off the board.

  After the game, I hung out with Riaz in the courtyard, played blitz with the Marks children, and waited for the final games to finish. Eric Bell beat Dan to win his third straight Jackson Open and the $300 first prize while Dan, Eddie Wasserman, and Chet Marks (the patriarch of the Marks family) shared second and third and each taking home over $100 which I could have shared if I had won either of my last two games. Dan and I helped Sam calculate the prizes and I helped Sam get the tournament rated. Then Sam, Joe, Riaz, Eddie, and I headed to the local Pizza Ranch for a quick meal. And after that I was on my way to Marshalltown 29 hours after arriving in Jackson.

Eric Bell, Chet Marks, and Dan Voje were among the prize winners. For the third straight year I didn't make that list, but there's always 2015...

  This year’s Jackson Open was everything I expected. I expected to have a great time with some great people and that’s exactly what I did. I met up with some old friends, made new ones, and as a bonus played four intense and interesting chess games. Sam did an excellent job as the tournament director. All I want when I'm playing in a chess tournament is to not have to wait around for the pairings and Sam was perfect in that regard. Sam also has everyone’s respect which is an underrated aspect of directing a tournament that helps everything run smoothly. I was pleased that I finished the four game schedule for the first time in my three trips to Jackson. All told I spent over 9 hours over the board but thanks to my AMP Focus Energy I never felt tired. I could have won all four of my games but I also could have lost all four of them so getting 2.5 out of four points was about the result I deserved. My play was consistently erratic. I was passive in the beginning of games, sharp and creative when defending in the middle games, and exceptionally poor finishing out games so I have plenty to work on before my next tournament. The AMP Focus Energy did what it was supposed to do (give me energy and keep me focused), but in addition to my chess study I’ll be on the lookout for ‘AMP Attack Energy’ and ‘AMP Closer Energy’ drinks to help me be more aggressive at the start of games and finish games better at next year’s Jackson Open.