At the 2023 United States Ametaur Team East tournament in Parsippany, New Jersey, we had a school record 14 teams participate! Each team consisted of four starting players, with some teams deploying an alternate for several games. The teams played six rounds each with a time control of 100 minutes per person for the first 40 moves, and an additional 30 minutes per person if that threshold is reached.
Many of our younger players are accustomed to hour-long games at our Glen Rock tournaments. As a result, this “classical” format of chess was a completely new experience for them. Our two best performers from those lower-rated teams are Gillian Gao and Yuki Banno, who each finished with 2.5 points out of 6! Although this does not seem like much, any victory in a classical game should be considered an accomplishment for this age range. In addition, Yuki pulled off quite the upset in Round 2, where he was able to catch his 1200 rated opponent off-guard with the Scholar’s Mate! He said afterwards, “I was happy when I won, but it was boring because it ended so fast. I wanted to play more.” I believe that, after four more rounds, he got his wish.
I played the second round as an alternate for David Milstein’s team “Attacking Day and Knight”. But before the round started, I had to properly onboard ICA’s new junior instructors, Albert Abzalimov and Arnav Adepu. Their task: advertise our Spring and Summer camp programs by passing out flyers ... which reminds me: our in-person Spring Camp will be held April 3rd-7th at our Glen Rock and Teaneck locations, and our Summer camp will be held for 10 weeks in said locations! Click HERE to view more information for Spring Camps, or HERE to view more information for Summer Camps!
Along with some of ICA’s younger players, Albert and Arnav successfully distributed over half of our fliers, qualifying them to work as junior instructors: congratulations!
I then went to play my game in the “ballroom” against a 1695 rated opponent (for the record, I am rated around 1330). Although my last classical game was played five years ago and ended in tears, I took confidence from my positive tournament experiences this year.
After a tense opening in which both queens were traded, I calculated that the best way to create chaos was to maneuver my knight around the queenside. As a result, the knight was able to make it to the b6 square. After a tactic involving opening up a diagonal and removing a guard, I was able to win a rook for a knight. Despite this, the game was not won - that was, however, until I realized my opponent had less than a minute left, meaning I played faster to prevent her from thinking. This led to me winning a bishop, forcing my opponent to resign!
Afterwards, my team played on board nine (a massive accomplishment!) against ChessMates 1. Bryan Andrei, our highest rated player, was up against GM Leonid Udasin, who our director Diana Tulman met whilst in college! Although our team lost, just getting to board 9 at the Team East is an experience that this team will never forget.
Now, onto the Bergen Academy Teams: the B-team finished with 2/6 while the A-team finished with 3/6. But the story is not about the team’s performance, but rather, it is about two individuals who outperformed expectations and finished with remarkable results. In particular, Edward Kang, who began playing OTB chess last year and, as a result, experienced his first Team East Tournament this year, finished the tournament with 5.5/6 points! This is the best result out of any ICA player and, making Edward our player of the tournament! Edward wanted to highlight his round three match against an opponent 330 points higher rated. In this match, Edward played black.
This game was a four hour long battle which had many thrilling moments. Out of an English opening, where black opted for a dutch-style setup with 3… f5, white was quickly able to attain a pleasant position with more activity and space.
As black desperately tried to infiltrate with moves like 13… Nb4, white defended accurately with his knights and was winning throughout most of the middle game.
Later, however, white over-extended his pawn structure with 24.b5 and allowed black into his position with 24… Nac5. Eventually, black was able to win an exchange, and following some inaccurate trades by white, the game entered its final phase. An extremely imbalanced position, black had a rook for white’s bishop and two pawns in a technically winning endgame for black. Slowly, black was able to start picking off pawns and push white back, and the game ended with a silent resignation by white.
The final ICA youth team that I will discuss is “Keep it in Check”, where Andrew Cerami and Leon Shevelenko impressively finished the tournament with 4.5/6 and 4/6 points, respectively. In particular, Andrew wanted me to cover his fifth game, in which, after analysis by the stockfish chess engine, Andrew was found to have played the game with 98% accuracy!
The players traded queens early on, “suffocating black” according to Andrew. Although the position was equal, Andrew gained an open file by maneuvering both of his rooks onto the a-file. As a result of black’s pieces being suffocated on the eighth and seventh ranks, Andrew was able to capitalize on the open file and win black’s rook!
We had four teams with an average rating of over 2000. With a high rating, however, comes higher expectations. And several of our players rose to the expectations, with Spencer Chin, Max Schwartz, and Ethan Modi finishing the tournament with 5 points out of six! In addition, Dmitriy Volkov, Rouven Essig, and our Coach Alan Stolyarov finished with 4.5 out of 6 points. Surprisingly enough, even though nobody on our best team “Once Upon a Time” finished above 4 out of 6 (with our coach Eugene Sokolvsky leading the way with 4), the team itself finished with 5 points out six: definitely a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts! Lastly, although our coach and camp director Sean Finn was not part of a pure ICA team, I would still like to congratulate his “Garden State Passers” for finishing with 5 out of 6 points!
Max and Dmitry were excited to share their analysis of a few of their games with us: I recommend all of our younger players to keep reading!
Team East has always been Max’s favorite tournament. He played it for the first time in 2001, and since then he’s only missed one year! Chess is usually a very solo activity. Even when you're playing in a room with hundreds of other players, you are still just playing by yourself. The team tournament has a completely different feeling. Max follows his teammates' games as if he’s playing his own, and their results affect the score as much as his own. The comradery is a unique aspect of Team East. Because it's the most fun tournament, players who don't play as much anymore still come to this one. It's a great opportunity to catch up with old chess friends.
Here are 2 positions from my round 2 game (against another National Master, in this game, Max is playing as black):
When Max was calculating a few moves earlier, he saw he would reach this position and was planning to play 1...g5. His idea was that his only retreat would be 2.Ne2, and then he could win a piece with 2...cxb3 when both his Queen and Knight would be under attack. When Max actually reached this position, however, he calculated more and decided not to play his original plan, which would have actually been a mistake here!
Question: Why is 1...g5 actually a bad move?
Answer: If 1...g5, White has the powerful piece sacrifice 2.Nxd5! Qxd5 3.bxc4 where Black is in serious trouble. White has two pawns for the piece, and his pawns in the center are too strong. The computer already suggests that Black should sacrifice a piece back and try to hold on down a pawn.
His opponent just played 1.h5+ thinking that there is a forced line leading to a draw: 1...Kh6 2.Ke5 Kg5 3.h6 Kxh6 4.Kf6 where Black can't save the pawn, so the game would be a draw.
Question: What did he miss in calculating this line?
Answer: After 3.h6 Max can play the in-between move 3...f6+! and White has to move the King away from the pawn, and then Max can safely take on h6 with a winning position. There is also the more complicated trick where Max could play 3...Ne6 with the idea 4.h7 Nf8 5.h8=Q Ng6+ forking the King and new Queen. Because of these lines, it turns out his move h5 was just a losing mistake, and he resigned a few moves later!
For Dmitry, three years have gone by since his previous Team East Tournament. For many people, only in-person chess is real chess - where you feel the struggle of the game with every cell of your body. And everything returned: the smell of food in the Hilton, crying and running chess-crazed children, serious and respected grandmasters, and, most importantly, hundreds of chess amateurs for whom this event is a long-awaited holiday! Each Team East tournament is memorable for the good games. But the overall impression and memories of each tournament depend mostly upon the last game. For the last round, Dmitry got a serious opponent — FM Terry Luo. At fifteen years old, he is the number one chess player in Delaware! However, Dmitry’s favorite King’s Indian Defense promised a real fight! To see Dimitry (black’s) entire game with a complete analysis, click HERE!
And lastly, although I personally despise any sort of junk food, I would still like to thank Keri Cerami, Andrew Cerami’s mother, for making chess-themed lollipops for all of the players before the start of the third day!
Congratulations to all of our players! For the 2024 Team East, we hope to see many returning faces, several new faces, and for our young players to have improved and to take their time during the matches!
But for now, we have Quads almost every week, as well as the ICA Open (1600+) every month. The next edition of the Open will be held Saturday, March 25. Click HERE to view our upcoming tournaments!
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