We have been postponing traveling for chess tournaments for as long as we could. Number one, it's very expensive with two people's airline tickets, hotel, food, taxi, and other expenses. Number two, it's very disruptive to our family because Emily would be left home without mommy or daddy. Number three, I just don't like fly in the airplanes. I wished there were high speed trains or buses for long distance traveling like it is in China. Andy's goal for this summer was to become a FM (Fide Master). We had to travel to play big tournaments to achieve that. He was 300 points away in the beginning of the summer. So we booked several big tournaments and he was very excited about that (at the same time, I was a little nervous). The first big tournament was National Open in Las Vegas. That was the first big domestic tournament we've been. Below was our experience:
Day1:
Not long ago, ATT informed me that my phone was not supported any more.
I had to buy a new phone. I have resisted against the smart phone for
as long as I could. I am sad that I have to let my dumb phone go now.
David got me a iphone se just in time for the big tournament. I
immediately downloaded the Uber app. A couple of weeks ago, Spirit
airline canceled our flight in the afternoon. We had to move it up to
the morning. To save money, we didn't buy a luggage. It worked out fine.
We bought four shirts to change and a small electric pot to cook. The
flight was uneventful except that Andy's ears hurt when the airplane
descended. After we followed the sign to the Uber garage, I used the
Uber app for the first time. The normal cost to our hotel was about $13.
But due to high demand, it quoted me $27. I accepted it because I
didn't want to wait in the heat with Andy. A Honda SUV pulled up. The
driver was a girl from middle east dressed in a yellow pants. I waved
and said hi to her and she said hi back. That was the only interaction we had during the whole trip. I wanted to ask her whether she was from
the middle east. But I sensed that she didn't want to talk. So I kept
quiet too. We checked in the hotel pretty quick. I was taken back by all
the casinos right at the hotel lobby. The views outside our big window
on 19th floor was beautiful with long range of mountain spanning across
in the back drop. There was no sign of life on the mountain though, not a
single tree or grass. We wondered why. Andy really disliked the
pictures on the wall (Monroe and Elvis). I thought he was just not like
them. But he told me later that those pictures gave him bad dreams and
he wouldn't sleep in the bed next to them. So I had to cover the
pictures with the big black trash bags. Our room has a desk but no
chair. We managed to sit on a sofa chair instead to use the computer.
Andy was hungry. We went down and bought a pizza and fried sweet
potatoes from the restaurant after passing through noise, smoke, and
coughing people. That was the only time we bought food downstairs. Andy
followed me closely. He didn't want to get lost in these maze like
casinos. After we came back to the room, I got on the internet and
ordered some grocery from the sprouts market; The temp outside was 112.
Our grocery was delivered in about one hour. I was very happy about the
ordering experience. We had the frozen dumplings for dinner. Yummy! When
I checked my email after dinner, I saw the Uber charge of $47! I
immediately checked what was going on. Obviously the middle east girl
took us for a long circular drive. I filed a dispute and got $20 dollars
back. That was not pleasant experience in Las Vegas!
Day2: The fan in the room blew right on our beds. We had to turn it off for a while until it got hot. Then we turned it back on. Andy got stuffed nose and woke up early because of it. Besides there was noises in the middle of the night from the hallway and from up. We had eggs and toast for breakfast before we went to find the tournament hall. On the way back, I requested to change to a quieter room. Our room was changed to the 23rd floor. It made a huge difference! The new room had a different view of a golf course. It has a long granite desk with a computer chair. It was very quiet. Andy took a nap since he got up early. Then we visited with Ryo in our room and down to the tournament hall while his dad was working. The first round pairing came out after Andy's chess lesson. Luckily he prepared for his opponent before we came here. His opponent who is an IM didn't play his usual line and ended up with losing. Andy was excited to have a good start! He said his previous coach M came to look at his game. I wished we had time to formally introduce ourselves and say hello to him. Andy finished at around 11pm. We hurrily came back to the hotel room and got ready for bed.
Day3: We woke up early again, probably due to the jetlag. Andy found out the pairing was out. He wasn't playing any of the players he prepared. The pairing looked strange with several GMs playing the same colors right next to each other. Andy lost to this IM because of a mistake in the middlegame. He didn't see his opponent's best reply. There were a lot 1 point players after two rounds. The pairing didn't come out until 10 minutes before the round three. I'm sure most people didn't get to prepare. Andy's opponent was a strong FM whom we knew from World Cadet in Spain (He got the 4th place in U12 section then). Andy looked up his games briefly and he was about ten minutes late. I went to see him after three hours and saw his opponent walking bouncily in the isle. Andy was in deep thinking for a long time. I thought it was not a good sign. I waited in the lobby outside for another two hours. Finally Zura came to me saying that Andy was better and his opponent was trying to get a perpetual. I was surprised. After Andy won the game later on, he told me that he got a worse opening but better middle and end games. Andy finished at midnight and we went to bed almost one oclock in the morning. Ryo won his first OTB game against a super GM who is a famous coach at ICC.
Day 4: I let Andy slept in for as long as he could. He got up at 9:30am. We had breakfast and did a little chess. I guessed three possible opponents based on the results from last night. We found all three's games. The pairing came out 40 minutes before the round started. Suddenly we lost the WIFI. We thought it was our computer's problems. We closed all the programs and restarted the computer. It still didn't work. I checked my phone and realized I had been using my data instead of the hotel WIFI! I called the hotel lobby and was told the WIFI was broken for the whole building. Hmmm... maybe too many chess players tried to prepare all at the same time? Luckily we found Andy's opponent's games earlier this morning. Andy did some preparation. We were a few minutes late. Then at the elevator, two of the four broke. So the only working ones was either full or going the other way and stopping on every floor. We ran to a different elevator and waited for extra ten minutes. Andy ran to the tournament hall. He was probably 15 minutes late. I saw that he sat next to Ryo (it might mean distractions from each othe). His opponent spent some time for the first several moves. So it compensated part of Andy's lost time.
I got lazy and stopped recording the rest of the tournament. Andy had a decent tournament. He was happy to win the last game. There was a best game prize for Juniors. Andy wanted to submit one of his games to win the $300 prize. I took his game to the judge. He insisted going over it with Andy. I told him Andy didn't have time. He just wanted to enter the game for the prize. But the judge just pushed it aside. Finally Andy was able to finish his game before the judge left. They went over the game together. The judge told him "I'm sorry, I submitted the winner earlier today. If I saw your game earlier, you definitely would have won the prize. Maybe next year..." I was sad that Andy missed his prize. The judge just didn't think Andy would win until he saw his game and it was too late.
Our flight home was at midnight. We decided to see Las Vegas a little with Eric Liu's family. We watched the music fountains and visited an indoor garden. The boys had fun running around after being indoor for a week.
After we got home, Andy started preparing for World Open. One night when I said Good Night to him, I saw him crying in bed. I asked why. He finally told me that he wished we had enough money so that he could go to Philadelphia International tournament which was right before World Open. David and I thought for a while. We booked the tickets to Philadelphia that was only two days away. The tickets was very expensive and the hotel was all booked. We stayed at the overflow hotel for the first three days. Andy had a strong beginning. Then he lost strength during the second half. Our hotel room didn't have refrigerator. We bought food from the China town restaurants. David and Emily joined us for World Open. We moved to an airbnb apartment. David and Emily got to tour around Philadelphia and New York. We all visited our old friends Zhu Jing and Heidi in NY before we headed back home. Ryo's dad and Louis from DCC told us Andy got his FM in the middle of Philadelphia International. We didn't know it until we confirmed with Grant at the Charlotte Norms tournament a month later.
We got an invitation to play at Charlotte GM/IM norms in late July. There was not much time to prepare. But Andy had always wanted to play that tournament. So we accepted the invitation. The flight was expensive. So I decided to drive there. It took us three days to drive there and two days to drive back. We finished listening "The Stories of the World" CDs two times! Andy stopped at every state border to take pictures. The Four Point hotel was the best hotel we've stayed. Andy had a decent tournament although he didn't get an IM norm. One of his opponents asked him for a quick draw because his opponent was tired (he traveled with his girl friend and lost in a winning position the previous round). He thought it was more important to be kind than to win. So he agreed to a draw although he prepared well for that game. His last opponent also asked for a draw because his opponent only needed a draw to get a norm. He thought it would be mean if he turned down and make his opponent lose the norm. After I found out, I had to talk with him about being fair. Anyway his FIDE rating went up to 2337 and USCF rating 2343. He had a good summer!Wi
First meal in Las Vegas
The views outside our window
The De Soto bridge across the Mississippi river (We just learned about De Soto in our American History curriculum)
Four Amadellio
As usual, we had many animal
visitors during the summer: ducks, doves, turtles, horses, rabbits,
squarrels, humming birds, and four cute Amadellios. Emily had set up a
home for blue birds. Two beautiful blue birds raised babies there. The
first family had to fight against Mocking birds and squirrels and won
the battle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N2v4ZA9Jno
The battle between the blue birds and squarrel:
Andy played a chess game and a piece of music tandem. He was able to win before he finished the music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKJw-ClWMXQ
Duet from Emily and Andy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq9a3AIk3uw 
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