In the midst of my toughest round at a blitz simultaneous at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.
Chess could be extremely popular if it was integrated into a cardiovascular routine. (Are you listening, Wii?) I had one of my best chess workouts recently at a series of blitz simuls at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, also the host of the 2009 U.S. Championship and U.S. Women's.
I played five boards at a time and had ten minutes on each board, with my opponents taking five minutes each. At first I thought that I could easily flag everyone, but despite my running and my sensible flats, I had to win most of the games on the position. In fact, I was in danger of losing on time on many boards; I literally had to run and jump in order not to lose the majority of the games. Those on the edges were the toughest. In the end, I lost two games, drew two and won 11.
The people with thumbs up in the photo below, beat or drew me, and those with thumbs down lost. For some reason, the players who lost seem to be even happier than the winners!
I recently became the chair of the 2009 U.S. Championship committee, so while in Saint Louis, I learned and helped to develop some exciting new details on the upcoming events. Keep your eyes out for more details on uschess.org and see last week's press release here.
I also picked up some CCSCSL swag (CCSCSL is a typing-twister of an acronym that American chessplayers will soon be very familiar with), and gave some lessons to one of the staff members. Check out pics below. You can see even more photos on Steve Goldberg's blog.
Photo Gallery
Me, with the first person to score a draw. Above us is installation art by American artist Diana Thater.
The third round of the simul. On the far right is the club founder, Rex Sinquefield.
Club staffers, Lauren Smith and Nick Heard
Me, giving Lauren some chess tips.
Could this be the secret to ICC dominance: A CCSCSL mousepad and a vertical mouse?