SCC Team wins first place in Reno!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Don’t all of us smile inwardly when we see someone, as the saying goes, “hoist by his own petard”? One such smile-worthy event occurred at the 2009 Reno Western States Open (October 23-25). Jerry Weikel, the tournament director, is holding forth about noisy cell phones in the tournament hall. “The owner of the very next phone to ring in this room,” growls he, “will do ten pushups, right here in front of everybody.” The round starts. Silence. Minutes later, a loud ring-tone shrills. We look around: which miscreant is inviting down on his head the wrath of Weikel? Why, it is none other than a--very sheepish--Jerry himself who is fumbling and grabbing, trying in vain to stifle the betraying noise. (Yes, he did the pushups.)
And who among us does not recognize, and smile inwardly at, the feeling a high-ranking player (who will here remain anonymous) expressed by shouting out in the playing hall during a later round: “This position is the closest thing to hell I’ve ever seen!”
Not only inward smiles, but outward joy, were much in evidence as the Seattle Chess Club beat its perennial rival, San Francisco’s Mechanics Institute, to take first place overall. A surprising (because of her relatively low rating) Kerry Van Veen, unbeaten in six rounds, paced the team by burning through her opponents: she allowed only two draws in tying for first in the “C” section with just three other players. And right behind her, Robert Goodfellow (also surprising, for the same reason), provided solid support to the team’s efforts, with 4.5 of 6. Other contributors to our winning team were Curt Collyer, Josh Sinanan, Fred Kleist and Drayton Harrison.
Speaking of Curt Collyer. A funny thing happened to grandmaster Dmitry Gurevich, who was cruising smoothly along, perhaps thinking of what he would do with his share of the first-place prize, when--OOPS!--he got tripped up by Curt in round four.
IM John Donaldson has paid Jerry Weikel’s tournaments high compliments, saying that they remind him of European chess festivals. I have yet to be invited to play in any chess festival, European or not, so I don’t know what John means. However, I can say that the tournaments organized by Jerry and his family have some charming little gracious touches (such as free coffee cake for the morning rounds). These organizers devote an enormous amount of energy to their tournaments; I’m hoping that more northwest players will see fit support them.
- August Piper
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