This weekend, in addition to participating in the first ever ICA tournament live stream, I had the privilege of directing my first Livingston Tournament in place of TD Stephen Lorimor, who had other matters to attend to that day. In addition, assistant TD Artem Valyaev-Kunisky could not attend, so we gave Claire Chang her directing debut!
The tournament ran without any issues: there were zero complaints from the players and zero issues which needed to be resolved, which is unfortunate as these sorts of issues are the best way to train newer TDs such as Claire. However, we made sure to get involved in a different way.
Unfortunately, one player from Section 4 withdrew from the tournament. Therefore, each round, one person would be left with a bye. That person was offered the chance to play against both TDs with time odds: that player would receive 20 minutes, and I would receive 5 minutes, while Claire, being rated in the 1800s, would receive 3 minutes. Despite some very close calls with time, us TDs remained undefeated!
Since we only had one player rated above 1000, every section was G30;d5 (30 minutes per player with a 5 second delay per move). Therefore, we had some extra time after the tournament to hold a simul, where Claire played against a few players from Sections 1 and 2, in addition to myself.
Unfortunately, with player Ali Abbassi serving as a distraction by both asking me for advice on his board and for commentary on my board, I ended up with a losing position. All the other players lost as well, with Section 2 winner Ethan Jiang coming closest to a victory.
Still, this was a great experience for both players and myself, and we look forward to possibly having Claire join us for future live streams!
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