Well, sadly, I lost a ton of rating points this past weekend at the Kentucky Team Chess championship but it's a lesson in humility that isn't lost on me (and as a teacher I'm happy to have the experience to take back to my students). For example take the following position with White to move: What us White going to do? He just a few moves ago sacrificed his Bishop for two pawns to prevent a dangerous pawn storm as is now poised to fight to a draw with 1.c6! This was simple for even my opponent (Black) to see his dilemma here ... a piece to the good but drawing the game. However, it wasn't so easy for me to give up the piece for two pawns a few moves earlier. My opponent's fast play led to his yielding a draw where he should have had an easy win. This was probably my happiest moment of the event because I considered it a Marshall swindle (although perhaps not as clever or veiled as Frank's attempts).

If you're wondering why I don't have pictures it's because I neglected to bring my digital camera yet again. I'm a big dunce sometimes and it shows. I was declared the Assitant TD for this championship event so I was actually pretty busy anyway ... perhaps I should've blamed that instead of owning up to my absent-midedness.

I'm going to go ahead and form a team for next year and set aside some time for a few marathon training session to prevent a similar disaster from happening next year.

As a side note: I found out that "Miami" Fugate (the president of the Kentucky Chess Association) lost his wife this past week ... my thoughts and prayers are with him.