Author: John Merlino
Date: 14:50:47 04/30/01
Since Thursday I have been at the Super Nationals tournament in Kansas City, for youngsters ages 5-18 (Kindergarten through 12th grade), demoing Chessmaster and doing other various and sundry jobs. I must say that it was a wonderful (and tiring) experience, and I thought I might share some of my experiences with you (my apologies if you read this and are bored stiff.... ;-) Perhaps you were there, or have been to one of these huge tournaments before. Almost 6,000 kids participated, and, if you include parents, relatives, coaches, tournament directors, etc., I would estimate that well over 10,000 people were in attendance. The skittles room (next to the tournament room) was a madhouse of kids running around, throwing balls and balloons, eating, and (of course) playing speed chess or getting last-minute coaching. The tournament room was still noisy (with the sounds of about a thousand people attempting to be quiet and the younger kids rhythmically kicking their chairs as they thought about their move or waited for their opponent to move) but nothing like the big room (which is also where the exhibitors and food vendors were). Josh Waitzkin was at our booth, of course, and definitely did a yeoman's workload, doing three book/program/shirt/poster signing sessions, each one about 3 hours long. He spends time with every kid, asking them how they are doing, giving quick advice, signing 2-3 items per person, taking pictures, and generally making the wait (the line was typically about an hour long) worth it. Nobody seemed to mind it. Although Josh was always quite taxed by the end (I believe he wore out 5 permanent markers), he still couldn't say "no" to just about anybody who would come up and tap him on the shoulder (even while he was eating or doing an interview or talking business) and ask for an autograph or a photo op. I have a feeling that I couldn't do it. Josh, simply, is phenomenal with the kids, and the parents love him too. Bruce Pandolfini also showed up, but since he was coaching some of his students, he didn't have time for an official signing session. Of course, that didn't stop an impromptu session of about 20 minutes to occur; once he signs something for one person, that opens the floodgates. Bruce is also wonderful with the kids (rather unlike the portrayal in the movie by Ben Kingsley). But the worst part was that, when he arrived, he discovered that he was supposed to give four lectures throughout the weekend, and he had no idea! He said that he didn't get one phone call or e-mail about any of it. He had to beg off of the afternoon lectures, but agreed to do the evening ones. The only game I got to watch was IM Irina Krush's only loss, to Richard Francisco who was rated almost 400 points below her. Josh and I, along with Josh's mother, Bonnie (also a terrific woman), watched the game. As soon as we arrived, Josh said that she was probably going to lose. Material was even, nearing the endgame, and it really came down to which pair of connected passed pawns was better. But her opponent was obviously feeling the pressure (the time control was 25/1, SD/1), and with less than 15 minutes left on his clock, he spent almost eight minutes on a move that Josh said he would have made in less than 10 seconds, and several other moves were deemed by Josh to be played only if you were making sure of the draw. When Irina resigned (she was in a mate in 3, apparently), her opponent had only 48 seconds left on his clock. Irina went 6.0 out of 7, finishing 8th. The winner was the 2nd highest rated player there, Hikaru Nakamura. If anybody is interested in the results, they are already available at www.kcchess.com/supernationals. Another big story (for the Chessmaster team, anyway) was a woman by the name of Diana Wade, and her son Jonathan. Jonathan has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and Diana has, in my estimation, spent about 40 hours every day making her son's life bearable. Jonathan is rated about 1260 and played in the tournament (in the open class!), scoring 2 out of 7, but beating a 1623 player. But, this woman is amazing. She is organizing a chess tournament in her home town of Memphis (in the middle of October of this year -- Josh will also be there), and has also organized a fund-raiser for Duchenne MD, in which the school/organization that donates the most money will get a full-day visit and class from Josh. We thought that WE were working hard demoing the product, but this woman completely put us to shame, and it was an honor to meet her. As for the Chessmaster booth, it was quite lively even when Josh wasn't there. We were selling CM8000 for the PC and CM6000 for the Mac, as well as Josh's "Attacking Chess" book, Fred Waitzkin's "Searching For Bobby Fischer", and an instructional video that was done by both Josh and Bruce. Sales were pretty lively (about 350 copies of the program and about 300 books/videos). We also gave away (as either "door prizes" or as donations) about 60 copies of the program. We also had the "Chessmaster Challenge", which will probably be of most interest to people on this board. The challenge is simple; you play against the Chessmaster personality, and it is on the 1/sec per move time control (yes, pondering is still on ;-). In this time control, the human cannot lose on time, which means you have as long as you want to make your moves. If you draw (or win, of course), you win a free copy of the program. In three previous tournaments, only one person had accomplished it! It was a coach who said his rating was about 2200 USCF, and it took him 8 tries (he kept pounding on one "weakness" that he saw). This time, as always, lots of kids came by thinking they would have no problem getting a draw, and all of them went away humbled (most of them making all of their moves in just a couple of minutes). Then a coach or two would come by, and make it interesting for about 20 moves or so, but would almost always resign before move 40. Then, out of the blue, one younger man (probably late 20's to early 30's) was about 15 moves into his game and there was a sizeable crowd already gathered (about 20 people). Someone noticed that I was part of the Chessmaster booth and told me that he was GM Julio Becerra, former Cuban National Champion, now teaching students throughout the Charlotte, NC area along with his girlfriend/wife (I heard it explained both ways). Either way, this was going to be interesting. For the record, GM Becerra's standard USCF rating is 2578, his USCF quick rating is 2591, and his FIDE rating is 2538. Chessmaster was on a Pentium III-600, using the default Chessmaster settings. Sadly, I was unable to save any of the interesting games because the kids that were waiting to play next pressed CTRL+N / ENTER faster than I could reach the keyboard through the crowd. I would have loved to have posted them here, but you'll just have to take my word for it. ;-) To make a long story short (because I unfortunately cannot accurately describe any of the games), he resigned in 45 moves, down two pawns, after spending about 12 minutes making his moves. After a couple of other kids played and quickly lost, we let him try again, and the crowd had grown to about 40-50 people. I think this time he was going to take us seriously.... It was a brutal game and VERY exciting. At the end, CM (as Black, same as the first game) had a pawn on c2, supported by a queen. But CM's king was trapped in the a7-a8-b8 corner, protected only by a pawn on b7 and a knight on a6. CM had a queen, two rooks and five pawns. GM Becerra had a queen, rook, bishop, knight and four pawns (in other words, he traded rook and pawn for bishop and knight). After trapping CM's King in the corner, I was pretty sure he had the draw, and I knew that was what he was playing for, but I wasn't sure if CM (thanks to the pondering) would find some way to promote the c-pawn (or lose the game!). As it turns out, he did get the draw by 3-fold, after 83 moves. He had spent about 25 minutes, and CM showed 58 seconds on its clock. We gave him the free copy, and he immediately handed it to one of his students. I thanked him profusely, telling him what an honor it was that he would even take the time to play our program (and play it seriously!). I don't think his English was very good, because all he responded was "very strong, very strong, very strong....". I couldn't help feeling very good about this. ;-) That was definitely the highlight, although another interesting challenge came through that evening. Two players (father and son, who both spoke Russian, although the son, in his late 20's also spoke perfect "American" English) asked if they could play together for the challenge. I agreed, and they sat down and started playing. I very much wished that I could have understood they said (the father only spoke Russian, apparently), because they were VERY animated in their discussions. They ended up resigning after a little more than 60 moves, and they had used a little less than 20 minutes -- material was even in the endgame, one minor piece and four pawns -- but CM had two connected pairs and the Russians' pawns were in doubled pairs. I then asked them what their ratings were, and he said "we're both a bit under 2400 USCF". So, that was pretty exciting and a nice ego boost as well. But, all in all, it was great to see the kids and parents excited about Josh, and very happy with our program, and I'm very proud to be part of it. We help tens of thousands of kids learn to play chess (or to play better chess), and that's really what it's all about. Thanks for putting up with my ramblings (as Johan says, I don't have a writing problem! ;-) jm
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