Many thanks to those of you with kind words on my first part of this report. My only confession is that I am a far better writer than I am a chess player and that's not saying a whole lot. Also, apologies if the photos below seem strangely colored on occasion.

Since we had gotten there early, I was glad to be able to relax now. The playing hall was a little errie in a way since you could just stand there and look at the chess sets on the tables and almost feel the massive potential of the games that would start only two hours away. It was like looking at a photo snapped just as someone releases a heavy object. It hasn't started falling yet but you know the inevitability of the action.

After asking around, we located the pairings and discovered that it would be stuck on a board. We went up to Chess Control on the third floor just to check the Master List of all competitors to make sure that he was registered properly. The volunteers helping at Chess Control were wonderful and extremely friendly. Did I mention that I was very impressed with how well run this tournament was?

If you're interested in the convention center more, go here.

Here are a few more pictures from in and around the convention center.

Over the next couple of days, I learned quite a few interesting things about scholastic chess, the players and their parents and coaches.

I first saw this at the VA State Scholastic Championships and it makes perfect sense. The organizers lets teams/schools rent rooms so that the entire team can meet and gather there between rounds. The parents of the players can also have a less public and noisy place in which to interact and rest and the coaches can go over the games better. Of course this isn't all for free and if I had a school team, I'd do that too.

There was a large room set out for two or three vendors and there were quite a few books and chess paraphanelia available. I took several opportunities over the tournament to look at quite a few of the books and their utility for Joseph and myself.

Eventually, I settled on buying Neil MacDonald's version of Logical Chess since Joseph really likes Irving Chernev's book Logical Chess. The difference is that MacDonald's one is based on modern games as opposed to Chernev's which end in the 1950s. So far, Joseph seems to like this new one too.

There were lots of opening books and they reminded me of something from my fishing craze days. You go to WalMart or go through the mail order catalog or even the online store looking for the next big lure that you help you land that big bass you've been dreaming of. After a while, I started getting the hunch that these fishing lure manufacturers made and sold new ones every year just so that addicts like me could continue to delude ourselves for another season. I wonder if that same business model is being used by some publishers for those chess players (and in this case chess parents) in the hope that one new opening book will be the key to more wins. The one thing I keep hearing out there is that the biggest single factor for many mere mortal chess players (USCF 1600 on down) is tactics. That's not to say openings or endgames don't help but that unless a good foundation of tactics is laid down, the player might hit a certain plateau earlier than they need to.

What do I know? I'm just a chess dad.

As for chess parents, there were almost as many of us as there were kids. Well, maybe less since some had more than one child competing. Since a few of the nearby hotels were in on the event, families were moving around all day long. Downtown Pittsburgh is not too bad and you get to see interesting stuff at times.

You get all kinds of parents.

The Sheriff: Not too common but definitely easily recognized when seen. Typically male and does not like his kid to mix with others too much in between rounds - sometimes to the extent that he doesn't want his kid to mix with other kids from the same school. Extremely protective and stays with his child until the last second before the round starts.

Tag Team: Mom and Dad working well together to make this experience a good one for everyone. Good logistics planning like getting sub sandwiches ahead of time so that they can sit down on their seats and never have to give them up for the next two hours when its lunchtime. Lots of little things for the younger one that is on this trip but isn't old enough to understand what is going on. Look in their bags and you might find snacks, children's books and perhaps even a Nintendo DS portable game player.

Cultural Gang: Not really single parents but three or more parents of different kids that belong to the same school. These parents came from the same old country as immigrants - some of them very well educated. They behave towards each other just as if they were back in the old country and nicely chatting and asking each other what happened last round etc. I even understood some of them even though they were not speaking English.

No Choice Dad: OK, I suspect mom had something to do with this because the No Choice Dad just sits whereever he can find a quiet spot and fires up his laptop and does his regular work on this weekend. He's not even surfing. He's doing real work from the office. When the round is over, he asks the requisite 'How did it go?' but is otherwise not really interested in the game or whether the his kid won or lost. Far be it that Dad would actually want to sit down and go through the game with his child.

The Tired Mom: I saw quite a few of these around but the best examples of these moms were in the team rooms. Those were the true veterans of the chess tournaments. They might have some crocheting or even a book or two to read. A definite sign of the Tired Mom is eyes closed, slightly slumped shoulders and forward leaning head. Extremely familiarity with others of the same species can be seen through familiar body language with other Tired Moms from the same school. Primary focus when child is around is that of providing food, water and when needed, a loving hug.

Back to the tournament proper.

One interesting lesson that I took back from this tournament is that there is the effect of regional ratings. What I mean by that is that it appeared as if in some areas of high intensity competition, the ratings numbers of the competitors may be a little lower than kids from another area but their playing strength may be higher. Of course, that is only an impression and unless someone undertakes a statistical study, we'll never know for sure. Of course, it may just be superior coaching. At the VA State level, there were quite a few kids that were unrated but their playing strength may very well have been very respectable. At this nationals, there were unrated sections for different age groups as well.

Every round was the same in some ways. There was a thick crowd around each pairing bulletin board and then a slow flow of kids and parents to their boards from the pairings. That continued for a while. One parent next to me complained (rightly) that some schools took their sweet time and didn't head for the tables till the round had started for at least 5 minutes. That was possible because all the games were G/120 and a 5 minute disadvantage was no big deal when you had two hours for your moves. However, it did show disrespect for your opponents and another theory was that they wanted to mess with the opponents' heads by being late on purpose. Who knows?

The trickle would start about 20 minutes after the start of the round but then it would increase to a steady flow of exits from the tables from the half hour point on. Some would come out with a smile and others not. Parents would meet with their kids and the would restart the cycle of getting a drink, using the restroom or going back to the team room to perhaps get some rest or go through their games with the coach.

They staggered the 7 rounds through 3 days in a 2/3/2 format since these were G/120 games. Yes, there were a few games that did run more than 3 hours from what I saw.

As for those of you curious as to how Joseph did, I must admit that we went into it knowing no won games was a possibility. After all, he was in the bottom 10% ratings wise for his section. The opportunity was too good to turn down as Pittsburgh was really close compared to other locations in other years. It was an invaluable experience for us and the fact that he did get something out of it was more than enough. Imagine playing in a section where the top seeds have a rating more than twice yours.

It is always nice to run into a friendly face and we were fortunate enough to meet the Smileys. Some of you at LCC may already have played with Mark Smiley or his two kids since they discovered LCC a couple of months ago. After the tournament, we or rather Joseph had a real lot of fun with them since he had never learned Bughouse before.

Finally, one last picture from Pittsburgh.