By now you’ve read about the exploits of Team USA at the World Senior Teams in Prague in March. They didn’t lose a match, even against other all-GM teams, and made it look easy. But there’s a lot more to this tournament than the race to first place. Two other US teams entered: USA Too, and USA 4 Brothers; I held down fourth board for USA Too. In a field of 55 teams, we faced a mix of national teams, national women’s teams, and club teams.
Leonid Sokolin and Mikhail Koganov, friends since attending Brooklyn Polytechnic, had already played on a US Amateur Team East team together. They set out to recruit a team for Seniors, and sent e-mail to lists of senior players that they got from US Chess. I signed on right away, though we were complete strangers; I was followed shortly by Igor Yeliseyev and Konstantin Dolgitser. We all played in the Liberty Bell Open in Philadelphia in January, just to get to know each other.
We voted on a team name. Igor supervised the design and production of a team t-shirt. We decided to have two designs – for a nine round tournament, two t-shirts are better than one. We voted on the designs. We traded travel tips and other suggestions. Just before going to Prague, Igor fell ill, so we went without an alternate player.
Left to right: Bruce Leverett, Mikhail Koganov, Konstantin Dolgitser, Leonid Sokolin | Photo by Vladimír Jagr; by permission of WSTCC 2020
This year, the tournament was not at a resort, but in Prague, a major metropolis. Our hotel was at a good site for the tournament, about two miles from the major tourist area, the "Old Town", and playing conditions were excellent. We settled on a daily routine: a walk to the Old Town after breakfast; lunch, and then getting together in Lenya Sokolin’s room to look at our opponents’ games; a little rest; and then the round was at three. A long walk every day gets strenuous, and each of us would sometimes opt out, but it helps to clear the head, especially if you’re wound up from the previous day’s game.
Lenya Sokolin, an IM, could compete with any of the first boards. He started with a streak of four wins, including this one against GM Kevin Arkell of England:
In round 1 we met Latvia Women. On paper this was supposed to be an easy match, but neither Kostya nor Mischa could get enough winning chances, and for a long time it seemed as if even Lenya would only draw, but finally we won 3-1. Ultimately, Latvia did well among the national women’s teams, finishing ahead of England and two Germanys.
We played on DGT boards and sets, electronically connected to a central system, to enable moves to be posted "in real time". After finishing my game, I didn’t have to linger in the tournament hall to watch other games, but could go retrieve my laptop, visit the tournament website, and keep up with my teammates’ games or other games.
In round 2 we faced SK Sokol Vyšehrad. This was a Czech club team, but as with team events here in the United States, I don’t know if it’s a real club or just five guys who know each other. This was supposed to be another easy match, but Kostya and I managed to avoid converting beautiful winning positions. Mischa’s opponent lost by forfeit when his cell phone decided to tell him its battery was low. At this event, you were not allowed to bring your cell phone or even your wrist watch into the playing hall. These rules are to make it harder to cheat with electronics. Of course, it’s not rational for us over-the-hill amateur players to cheat, but rationality is left behind when someone catches that bug, as FIDE knows all too well.
We were now due for a tough match. For our after-lunch opening preparation, Lenya had secured the (remote) services of former world champion Alex Khalifman, who had worked with him before. This was something new for me and perhaps the others. Nowadays, anyone with any ambition in chess looks for a teacher or coach, but in my generation, most of us were on our own. Before going to Prague, we each wrote up a "chess résumé" for Alex, including a summary of our opening repertoire, and it was evident from the start of the session that he had read these carefully. We worked with Alex for this match (against England), and for our fifth-round match (Russia Women). If you look at the cross table, you may be skeptical, because Kostya and I each only got a half point from those two rounds, and Mischa only got two draws. I admit that, in my case, decades of neglect of my opening repertoire wasn’t fixed in a couple of short sessions. But we agreed that, as Kostya put it, working with Alex was a high point of the tournament.
In round 3 we faced England, one of the all-GM teams. Lenya won against Arkell. Mischa was prepped with a sharp variation to play against Neil McDonald’s Dutch. He missed the most aggressive play and got a slight disadvantage, but drew after calmly and correctly defending the middlegame and ending:
Kostya and I were both outclassed, missing several chances to stay level with our opponents (Glenn Flear and Jim Plaskett), in spite of excellent opening preparation.
In round 4 we faced a German club team, SC Groebenzell Reloaded. A feature of this match, which we won by 3½ to ½, was Mischa’s fine attacking play with the Philidor:
In round 5 we faced Russia Women. Though we outrated this team, we expected a difficult match, and we got one, on every board; all four boards were drawn. My opponent, Elena Fatalibekova, competed in the Women’s World Championship cycle in the 1970’s and 80’s. Her mother, Olga Rubtsova, was Women’s World Champion in the 1950’s. Having butchered the Open Ruy Lopez in round 3, I chose the relatively safer Philidor defense to her king’s pawn opening, but I couldn’t resist getting into trouble anyway:
Among the national women’s teams, only Russia Women and Czech Republic Women 1 finished with plus scores. Another team, Moscow, with women on boards 1 and 2, also finished well.
Although, apparently, nobody at the tournament had COVID-19 or caught it there, the pandemic was already on everyone’s minds. The Italian team and some Asian teams had cancelled before the tournament started, and several individual players, I don’t know how many, had backed out, although their teams came anyway. After the 5th round, the Czech government prohibited sporting events of more than 100 players. This was a problem for us because the 50+ and 65+ sections together totaled about 500 players. The organizers got permission to continue the event by dividing it into 5 separate rooms.
In round 6, we faced another Czech club team, SK Slavoj Litomerice. Our top two boards were agreed drawn before I even had a chance to get up and look at them! How did that happen? Only after my own game was finished could I look at the game scores on the Web and find that both Lenya and Kostya had agreed to draws in losing positions. Fortunately Mischa and I were able to clean up on our boards.
That night, at about 2:30 AM, we all heard from our families about the travel restrictions: soon nobody could fly to the US from Europe. Technically these restrictions did not apply to US citizens, but evidently most flights from Europe to the US were going to be cancelled, so it was time for us to hang it up. While Mischa stuck around for a few hours to notify the organizers, the other three of us caught an Uber to the airport and found flights to go home. We hoped that the organizers would have time to change the round 7 pairings, but they didn’t, and so the crosstable shows us losing to Lasker Schachstiftung GK by forfeit. Later that day, the Czech government further tightened the restriction on sporting events, from 100 players to 30, so our organizers had to give up after the 7th round. The two top matches for that round, USA vs. Iceland and Yamal vs. Czech Republic 1, were both tied with quick draws on all four boards. Perhaps they were acknowledging the impossibility of playing GM-level chess under the circumstances. But the remaining 7th round matches were hard-fought.
As we returned home, with the tournament abruptly cut short by the pandemic, ironically, the Candidates tournament was just beginning. Evidently those organizers and players were even more chess crazy than the Senior Teams organizers and players. As I write this, we don’t know when it will be safe to resume face-to-face chess tournaments. But we can already think about future World Senior Teams.
