An update on my quest to play all 50.

For 4 years I had not played in any new states.  I did add a Canadian province, British Columbia by playing in the Grand Pacific Open in Victoria in 2010.  It's a tournament that I've fallen in love with and have now played in 5 years in a row. 

Finally last year I added state #27 by playing in the US Open in Middleton, Wisconsin.  I actually wasn't going play because I spent two weeks in Germany in July, then did a photography job in New Hampshire then I had a wedding to go to the weekend of the Delegates meeting.  How was I going to squeeze in the US Open?  However it was hard to pass up an opportunity to add another state, plus I had an offer to share a room.  That's something that doesn't happen too often. 

The compromise I had to make in order to get the most of the event and still make the wedding was to play the 6-day schedule, take byes for round 8 & 9 and catch a very early flight on Saturday back to New York for a 6:00 pm wedding.  I have to admit, I loved getting to play all my games at the civilized time control of 40/2, G/60.  Far easier then making the transition from cramming 6 games of game/60 in and then make the switch to the traditional time control.  It still didn't seem to help. I had my usual late tournament melt down. 

Because my roommate lives in Honolulu there was talk of me coming down to Hawaii for their Thanksgiving tournament.  Only expense would be airfare and food.  Free place to stay, Hawaii in November, what's not to like?  Chalk up #28.  The Open section would have been a nice 6 player round robin, except one player was a no show.  That totally snarled up the pairings, and I ended out having play one person twice.  He beat me the first time we played, I got payback on the 2nd go around. I actually won a little money.

As I have done for previous new states I will give more tournament details, and post the first game.  I just haven't had much chance to do so.  It's called writer's block, or perhaps in my case. Writer's distraction.  I can't seem to keep my mind on one task at hand.  I fact I wrote this post in the middle of an email I'm sending to someone in Alaska.  I'm heading up there next week, and trying to figure out if there's some way to squeeze in some tournament games.  I figured it would be nice if I updated this a little bit.

We'll see what happens.