It was the largest chess tournament ever in Nashville, TN at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center. Several thousand of us were there from all over the country to compete in the US National Chess Championship, or SuperNationals.
This is what one of the rooms looked like:
I was in 5th grade playing for the Springs Ranch Elementary School chess team. We had only been on the scene for a year, but we were stacked. In fact, we placed 11th in Blitz:
We also made some news with one of our teammates having the longest game in the tournament. These were “Game in 3”, meaning each player gets 3 hours on their clock, for a total possible game time of 6 hours. We were all well trained to use this time, which is really difficult for young kids.
One of my proudest moments was in Round 5, a critical “trophy game” (if you win you’ll secure a trophy). We were equally matched, both of us had a strong position on the board, and it was shaping up to be a draw. I knew a draw wouldn’t be enough, so I took about 45 minutes on my next move. Just searching for something. There wasn’t anything. I took a break, walked around the table and analyzed the board over my opponent’s shoulder. I sat back down and looked around. My coach and others were watching (through binoculars near the front), so they couldn’t see the board to gauge how I was doing. What they did see about 3 minutes later was me pulling my hat over my face and shaking my head. They left and went back to the waiting area.
What actually happened at the board was magic! I saw that if I could sacrifice my knight, I would have a forced checkmate in 4 moves (forced means there is nothing that can be done to stop it). But, it would require placing my knight on a square that made absolutely no sense. In these tournaments, if you touch a piece you have to move that piece, called touch-move. So I acted like I saw something and picked up my knight. Then put it back down quickly, looked at the kid with an “Oh Fuck” face. And he sort of grinned. I reluctantly put my knight on that nonsensical square, pulled my hat down and did my best acting with a head shake, looking down at my feet. Again, it’s hard to take your time, especially when it seems obvious that you have a free knight. He took that piece so fast and hit the clock to start my time again. Now it was my turn to grin! “Check, check, check, … “ (no need to say “mate”).
My team didn’t believe me that I had won. But here’s the proof!
