SuperNationals in Nashville

Ten Thousand Chess Hopes

On May 11-15, 2017 Naomi played chess at the SuperNationals VI in Nashville, TN, at the vast Gaylord Opryland Resort.  See our previous trips to the Nationals and SuperNationals at that location: 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015.  There are age sections, but no gender categories.  Naomi played against best US boys.

It's a huge chess event which occurs every 4 years. This year 5,578 kids play (134 players from WA alone), grades K to 12.  Adding parents, coaches and organizers, there might be around 10,000 people involved.  It's the largest chess tournament in the world.

Before the main tournament, on May 11, Naomi played blitz in the K-9 section.  She placed 20th out of 265 participants, and Naomi's school placed second out of 35 teams in blitz.

The last blitz opponent didn't let Naomi move pieces when his time ran out, in order to make her time run out too.  Feeling distressed, Naomi haven't reported this clear violation to tournament directors.  She should have gotten 9 points, rather than 8.5.

The main tournament started on May 12 at 1pm.  Naomi played in the K-8 section -- see the results here.  There are 7 rounds overall.  Naomi has won in Round 1 against Patrick Leary from Georgia.  

Photo album: 2017-05-12 Nashville SuperNationals Opening, Round 1, 2
(don't miss Garry Kasparov's 6 minutes speech video)

(look at the crazy board numbers)

In Round 2 Naomi won against Gatlin Black from North Carolina:

On May 13, in Round 3, Naomi defeated William Wang from Illinois.

At the start of Round 3, Garry Kasparov was about to make the symbolic first move on Board 1 of section K-9.  The great Washington State player Derek Zhang was at the board, but his opponent hasn't appeared on time. Kasparov has made the first move on Board 2 instead, and then proceeded to entertain the audience:

Photo album: 2017-05-13 SuperNationals Round 3, 4, 5

Then Naomi lost Round 4 to Christopher Shen, OH, who went on to take 2nd place, and won Round 5 over Jonathan Gollapudi, MO.  That day, May 13, had three rounds!

On May 14, Naomi won Round 6 over Atticus Halley, GA, and lost Round 7 to Ricky Wang, IL, who went on to take 8th place.

Overall Naomi scored 5 points out of 7, and took 24th place out of 244, while playing against some of the strongest US boys her age.  That's not bad at all.  

Naomi's Odle Middle School chess team shared 2nd/3rd place in the overall team standings.  That's a remarkable result at the US Scholastic Chess SuperNationals!

Photo album: 2017-05-14 SuperNationals Round 6, 7, closing ceremony

Photo album: 2017-05-15 SuperNationals resort

Scholastic Chess Nationals in Nashville

Scholastic Chess Nationals in Nashville

The Whole Country Comes to the Land of Country

Тhe luxurious and humongous Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, TN frequently holds USCF scholastic chess national championships.

Every four years, all school ages come here to compete, from kindergarten to high school.  This event is known as SuperNationals.  For a few days around spring break time, the place becomes the massive focus of US scholastic chess pilgrimage. This is the most important children's chess tournament in the US.

This post compresses time but not space.  It describes all 3 of our trips to chess nationals in Nashville, TN.  They occurred in April 2009 (SuperNationals IV), 2012 (Elementary Nationals) and April 2013 (Supernationals V).

2009 SuperNationals IV (K-12)

That was our first trip to any Nashville chess championship, still vividly in memory.  Both Naomi (grade K) and Ethan (grade 5) played, and all four of us traveled.  First time we experienced an event of such grand scale (see http://www.chess.com/event/view/supernationals-iv).

Hotel

After a long and tiresome 2-leg flight we waited a long time in the airport for the pre-ordered transfer bus (a taxi would be faster and cheaper) and got to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Resort lobby pretty tired.  However, once we got the keys and went on to find our room, the amazement set in.  It’s five stadium-size areas, each a garden city under a glass roof:

Here’s a view of just one tenth of the Delta area (the upper-right corner of the red part above):

Kasparov, Shamitov, Kosteniuk, Polgar

There is a story behind the photo below of Ethan and Naomi with the best chess player in world history, Garry Kasparov.  In the morning of April 3, 2009, Garry Kasparov and the chess playing astronaut Greg Chamitoff were the keynote speakers at the opening ceremony at the Grand Ole Opry House.  Kasparov proclaimed, ironically: “As a young kid, I just hated these opening ceremonies.  The chess functioners just kept talking and talking, and all I wanted was to play chess!”.  This got him an enthusiastic round of applause from the kids audience.

Related links on Garry Kasparov: http://www.uschess.org/content/view/9317/525/ and Greg Chamitoff: http://www.uschess.org/content/view/9430/475/

Later that day, back in the hotel, hundreds of people stood in line to get Kasparov’s autograph.  He was signing his own books which people bought specially for this occasion.  We also bought his book in advance, to get an autograph: “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom”.  He made periodic breaks from signing, every 15 minutes.  As our turn in line approached, both our kids became quietly excited.  They gave Kasparov his book for signing.

“How old are you?” - he asked Naomi.  Shy silence was the obvious answer.  No self-respecting girl or woman will tell her age just like that.  Garry understood.  He said: “Is it a secret?”  Her eyes were burning with both adoration and indignation.  Ethan laughed and provided the age information (she’s 5, he’s barely 11).  This is when I pressed my camera button, and took the photo below.

Just before going to Kasparov, Naomi posed for a photo with Alexandra Kosteniuk, who was the Women's World Chess Champion at that time.  We simply kept running into chess celebrities ;-)

A couple of days later, we also met Susan Polgar (the oldest Polgár sister).  Susan has won many Women World Championships and Chess Olympiads.  She does a lot for kids chess development in the US.  She is certainly one of the most famous and important chess celebrities.  Naomi posed for a photo with Susan, and soon after that became her online chess school student.

Photos

2009_04_02 Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Opry Mills Mall

2009_04_03 Opening Ceremony and Kasparov Signing

2009_04_04 Hotel and Naomi

2009_04_05 Opry Mills Mall, Hotel, Nashville Downtown

2009_04_06 Nashville Downtown  -- with a full-size 100 year old copy of the Parthenon, which is quite handy, because the original is in ruins again, in the course of its endless reconstruction.

Nashville’s showily seedy old town oozes country music:

Results

Naomi (rating 786) got 5 points out of 7 and a shared 25th place trophy in the K section.

Ethan (rating 1410) got 4.5 points out of 7.  He played well, but grade 5 competition was strong.

2012 Elementary Nationals 

Only Naomi played in the 2012 Elementary Nationals, because Ethan was in grade 8 already.

Naomi traveled to Nashville with her mom and took 10th place in her K-3 category!  This is her best personal placement result in all 3 trips to Nashville.

Photos

2012_05_11 Nashville chess - day 1

2012_05_12 Nashville chess - day 2

2012_05_13 Nashville chess - day 3

2012_05_14 Nashville chess - day 4

2013 SuperNationals V

2013 is the year of the SuperNationals’ (K-12) fifth edition.  This year, 5335 schoolchildren traveled to Nashville to play in SuperNationals V, making it the largest rated chess tournament in history - see http://uschess.org/tournaments/2013/snv/. 

Both Ethan and Naomi traveled to Nashville, accompanied by their mom.  During the tournament they spent great time in that amazing hotel with fellow chess parents and their kids.  It’s a small world, where friends from Pennsylvania and Arizona are closer than next door neighbors.

Photos

2013_04_05 Nashville SuperNationals V (arrival)

2013_04_06 Nashville SuperNationals V (hotel, tournament)

2013_04_07 Nashville SuperNationals V (thanks to fellow chess parents for award ceremony photos!)

2013_04_08 Nashville SuperNationals V (departure, flight)

Results

Naomi got 5 points out of 7.  She lost only to 2 players with much higher ratings.  Good job!

http://www.alchess.com/chess/13/snv/?page=STANDINGS&xsection=k5

Overall there were 1565 teams from all 50 states.  Naomi’s Spiritridge Elementary team won the 2nd place team trophy in the K-5 Open championship.  They missed 1st place by only a half point.  Spiritridge also won the 2nd place team trophy in the K-6 Blitz Championship.

All of Ethan’s opponents (except one) had ratings significantly higher than his own rating.  Despite these overwhelming odds, Ethan managed to wrestle 4.5 points out of 7 and placed 25th in the K-9 Championship.  Very good job!

http://www.alchess.com/chess/13/snv/?page=STANDINGS&xsection=k9

Celebrity Apprentices

Kids Photos with Best Chess Players

Best in the US

In this March 13, 2012 photo from the recent Marathon Sprint post, Naomi poses with the strongest US chess player Hikaru Nakamura who visited Chess4Life:




This brings to mind that the kids have already posed for a few photos with important chess world celebrities, from Garry Kasparov to Susan Polgar.

Best in the World History

There is a story behind the photo below of Ethan and Naomi with the best chess player in the world history, Garry Kasparov.  In April 2009 we traveled to the Scholastic Chess Super-Nationals in Nashville, TN.  This is the most important children chess tournament in the US.  Every 4 years, all the best US kids, teams and coaches come to play chess and compete in the humongous Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center.  This place probably deserves a separate post.

In the morning of April 3, 2009, Garry Kasparov and the chess playing astronaut Gregory Chamitoff were the keynote speakers at the opening ceremony at the Grand Ole Opry House.  Kasparov proclaimed, ironically: “As a young kid, I just hated these opening ceremonies.  The chess functioners just kept talking and talking, and all I wanted was to play chess!”.  This got him an enthusiastic round of applause from the kids audience.

Later that day, back in the hotel, hundreds of people stood in line to get Kasparov’s autograph.  He was signing his own books which people bought specially for this occasion.  We also bought his book in advance, to get an autograph: “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom”.  He made periodic breaks from signing, every 15 minutes.  As our turn in line has approached, both our kids became quietly excited.  They gave Kasparov his book for signing.

“How old are you?” - he asked Naomi.  Shy silence was the obvious answer.  No self-respecting girl or woman will tell her age just like that.  Garry understood.  He said: “Is it a secret?”  Her eyes were burning with both adoration and indignation.  Ethan laughed and provided the age information (she’s 5, he’s barely 11).  This is when I pressed my camera button, and took the first photo:




Then Kasparov proceeded to signing the book, and the kids posed for the second photo:

Best in the World among Women

Just before going to Kasparov, Naomi posed for a photo with Alexandra Kosteniuk, who was the Women's World Chess Champion at that time:

Three Best Sisters in the World History among Women

A couple of days later, at the same tournament in Nashville, we also met Susan Polgar (the oldest Polgár sister).  Susan has won many Women World Championships and Olympiads.  She does a lot for kids chess development in the US.  She is certainly one of the most famous and important chess celebrities.

Naomi posed for a photo with Susan, and soon after that became her online chess school student:






And in the spring of 2010, as I was taking Ethan’s photo, Sofia Polgar (the middle Polgár sister) just happened to be in the background:




However, the truly best female player in the world history is Judit Polgár (the youngest Polgár sister), with whom we still don’t have a photo!

So how do we take a photo with this elusive Judit?  Maybe she'll visit us at the World Youth Chess Championships in Maribor, Slovenia this November?  It's just across the border, only 3 hour from her home in Budapest.

+  = ?