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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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What do you do when you're not playing chess at the tournament? Well - you can play chess (and other games) elsewhere in Montreal.
Cafe Pi, 4127 St-Laurent (15-20 minutes walk from the Open site) - open noon-midnight. Chess, backgammon, poker. Sets, clocks ($2 rental), cards, chips available at the counter. Always lots of chessplayers there.
Lafontaine Park (Sherbrooke E. and Panet - same distance from the site) - outdoor chess when the weather is nice.
Cafe Yoy, 4526 St-Denis (10 minutes walk from Cafe Pi). For the overnight crowd, this Vietnamese restaurant is open 24 hours a day. No equipment supplied; not much activity before midnight.
Several poker clubs in the area - they come and go so often that I'm not sure which ones are still open. Otherwise - check out the Casino (electronic poker - no dealers) or the Kahnawake sites such as Plaza 138 (http://www.plaza138poker.com ).
Cafe Pi is open 7 days a week, so it will be open on the weekend evenings. Likewise- Cafe Yoy after midnight. Lafontaine Park players are sometimes there as long as light allows - but usually they are gone by 4 or 5 pm.
The few formal "chess clubs" in Montreal either do not meet on weekend evenings, or are closed for the summer.
Well, it's Friday, July 18, and the Canadian Open starts tomorrow in Montreal, Quebec, with Rd. 1 at 2:00 PM.
We'll be setting off from Toronto this morning around 10:00 AM with a car full - Mario Moran is driving, and, with me as passengers, are Uwe Hahnewald ( a blind player ! ) and Tyler Longo ( we're all from the Scarborough CC in Toronto [ and 4 other members are playing as well : Yuanling Yuan, Alex Ferreira, Michael Perez and Oscar Villalobos ]). Also, all of us in Mario's car are all in the U 2000 section ( as are 2 of the other 4 members coming - Alex and Michael ), and so we all know that we're going to end up driving 5 1/2 hrs. to another province....to play each other once again. We'll hope the pairings will be kind to us, and we won't get paired with each other too often ( there are over 50 players in our section, the second biggest one ).
Bughouse is practically non-existant in Montreal - except perhaps at scholastic tournaments. Cafe players in Montreal tend to stick to regular chess - but often adding in a money factor, time odds (how about 4 minutes to 40 seconds?) and sometimes a doubling cube. $50 to $100 changing hands in an evening is not uncommon.
Well, as I feared, it happened - the Toronto pairings problem. What do we see in Rd. 1 in the U 2000, but Tyler Longo ( who came in the car with Mario Moran ) being paired against Uwe Hahnewald ( who also came in the same car, and belongs to the same club - Uwe also happens to be a blind player ).
Then again lightning struck twice for Tyler, as in Rd. 2 he got paired against another Toronto Scarborough CC member, Michael Perez ( who had come in his own car ).
And another Toronto pairings saw Mario paired against Omar Shah of Toronto, who is intending to rejoin Scarborough CC this fall.
There are 7 Torontonians in the U 2000 section ( 6 from SCC ), along with a former Torontonian and SCC member , who now lives in Fort Erie. So I don't think the phenomenon of the Toronto pairings has finished by a long shot. I'll try to keep you posted.
My tournament so far has been not that great. I lost my first game by blundering the exchange on move 10, in an opening I have played numerous times before ( I don't seem to get it ). In the second game, I was in a slightly unfavourable position when my opponent unexplainably moved his Q to a vulnerable position, and he ended up losing an N ( though he fought on quite valiantly thereafter, trying to queen 2 connected passed P's ).
Of interest may be a slight friendly controversy I had with my 2nd round opponent. He screwed up his scoring and asked to borrow mine to straighten his out. After he finished, he informed me that I was illegally recording the time of the moves on my scoresheet and that I had to stop. I always thought you could do this, and have seen all kinds of players doing it. So I called the arbiter. Lo and behold, this arbiter for the U 2000 upheld my opponent's objection, and I had to stop recording the times. I later checked again on this ruling with the TO, Richard Berube. He advised me that it was a matter of interpretation of the arbiter, and he implied that some arbiters do allow writing the time, in their interpretation. But mine didn't, and I guess that was that. Anyone else run into this before?
Hope my game firms up a bit for the third round tomorrow. But it remains to be seen, since I may be exhausted for Rd. 3 at 6:00 pm - I'm attending the all-day CFC AGM of the " outgoing " governors - that should be fun !
I am quite pleased with the organization of this tournament - playing conditions are quite fine, and in the Open Section, there is a large MonRoi screen usually showing the top four boards. The atmosphere is more relaxed here than in Ottawa last year, with much less emphasis on security. And spectators can go around the boards ( except for the top 4 boards ), and this doesn't seem to be bothering the Open Section players.
Out of about 30 scoresheets from round 2 I have in front of me - at least half a dozen write down the times (every move or every few moves) including such players as GM Mark Bluvshtein.
If it's illegal to make any markings on your scoresheet besides the moves, it would be illegal to make some kind of mark to indicate the time control (e.g. a line at move 30). Just about everyone does that.
"12.3 The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, the offers of a draw, matters relating to a claim and other relevant data."
What is the relevant data? Control move 40!? Of course :D
Praise to the Lord - no Toronto match-ups for Rd. 3 in the U 2000 !! However in the U 2400, GTCL President Michael Barron ended up paired against Torontonian Victor Plotkin.
As to the little kerfuffle about writing the clock time on your scoresheet, I followed Egis Zeromskis advice and copied section 12.3 from the FIDE rules of chess on the CFC website:
12.3 The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, the offers of a draw, matters relating to a claim and other relevant data.
I brought it to the attention of the TD, Richard Berube, and his assistant who had been helping in the U 2000 section when the issue arose in my Rd. 2 game. They were concerned that the CFC website copy of the FIDE Laws of Chess were not updated. They checked their official French translation of the rules, used in Quebec and it also said explicitly that the " times of the clocks " could be written on the scoresheet. But the version they were using of the French rules were dated 2004. So they deferred the matter until someone could check the most recent version on the FIDE website.
So I went to the FIDE website and it gives currently the same wording for section 12.3:
12.3 The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, the offers of a draw, matters relating to a claim and other relevant data.
So it appears clear to me that the arbiter for the U 2000 section for Rd. 2 was in error in ruling that I could not write the " times of the clocks " on my scoresheet. Hopefully the TD will come to the same conclusion tomorrow after they complete their research.
I went to the outgoing Governors CFC AGM today. Disappointed in the one thing I was interested in - the 7 grassroots restructuring motions. Unfortunately the Chair, Maurice Smith, ruled the 7 motions out of order ( I strongly disagree with his ruling, and believe his reasoning was faulty, despite having conferred on it with past president, Phil Haley ).
Perhaps fortunately though, all is not lost, since then Les Bunning moved ( seconded by William Doubleday ) that the 7 motions be tabled to the Tuesday Incoming Governors AGM. So now we'll have to see what happens tomorrow to our battered and bruised " gang of 7 " grassroots restructuring motions. I'll attend again as an " observer " though I do hold a proxy vote for an Ontario governor.
I guess I have to report also, that I lost in Rd. 3 ( after missing the winning of a pawn for 2 consecutive moves, and then when I did win it, I dropped a pawn on the other side of the board and so gained zilch ). It was an interesting game though, and I learned something about trying to stop 2 connected, passed pawns ( which I couldn't stop ).
The tournament seems to continue to be quite adequately run. Still enjoying myself ( but hoping my chess improves a bit ).
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Control move 40!? Of course :D
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