The chessdoctor's thoughts from this past weekend's New York State Chess Championship

Here's some things I learned from this past weekend's 129th NYS Chess Championships in Albany, NY: 1. GM's sometimes do say hello back to you when you kindly greet them first. ( There were 6 GMs there-Nakamura, Benjamin, Ibragimov, Ivanov, Kudrin, and Yudashin. I, however, will not tell you which ones do not respond nicely or at all. Actually there were 7 GMs who played as there was a single game in the third round played by GM Ronen Har-Zvi. Strange why only one game by him in the middle of the event?) 2. Marijan actually can wear a shirt that is not black! (The confirmatory picture by Wiliam Rich in which the good Rev. was sporting a light blue buttondown is seen above.) 3. A game in the open section can actually end in about 7 moves! (Mr. Mark Clark did submit his miniature win over the current NYS High School Champion for verification. You can replay it at the following link.) http://chess.maribelajar.com/chesspublisher/viewgame.php?id=1189053285 4. I did not win one of the "honorary" upstate directorships for NYSCA. There were a grand total of 20 votes cast from the entire NYS membership. I received 7 votes and finished 7th of 8. When asked why there was such a small number of votes cast, Bill Goichberg, NYSCA president said, " It is not surprising since the delegates to the USCF are chosen in a different way than it was before when the directors were also the NYS delegates to the USCF. And also there has been no meetings of the directorship for the past three years." It kind of makes me wonder what the value of NYSCA is, if the directors and officers are not actively doing things to promote over the board chess in NYS and what value is NYSCA membership other than receiving the quarterly Empire Chess and the ability to play in a few select tournaments? 5. Never ever play tournament chess when you have other things on your mind! I had no patience this weekend for 6 hour games. I moved too quickly and often did not care how I was playing. (There were a few interesting positions though from my games and I promise to post them as quizzes in the near future.) 6. The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile can really move fast! I saw it exceeding the speed limit on the NYS Thruway on the way back home. 7. Lastly how do you break the 5 way tie for the title of New York State Chess Champion from the 5 New Yorkers who finished in third place with 4.5/6 (Nakamura, Yudasin, Bonin, Benjamin, and Rochester Chess Center's Ben Dean-Kawamura)? The top two places were shared by Ibragimov and Ivanov with 5/6 but since they are from CT and from MA they are ineligible to the title. The full cross table is at http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200709032291.0-12304570

Note that Ron Lohrman of the Rochester Chess Center won the U2000 section and was undefeated.