When I was living in Massachusetts, I was President of the Boylston Chess Club in Boston (now Sommerville) for a year and served on the Board of Directors for four years. I focused most of my energy on expanding the club's tournament schedule.

The most unique thing I ever did was hold three tournaments inside South Station (a very busy commuter rail/subway station) in 1999 and 2000.

For those who haven't played live tournament chess, playing in a train station was extremely unusual. Tournament chess players demand absolute quiet during play. But, of course, in a train station, that was impossible. There were constantly commuters moving through the station and announcements over the speakers.

Despite all the unusual distractions, the event was very popular with the players. The two-day, six-round, game/60 tournament got 73 players if I'm remembering correctly.

A full gallery of photos can be seen here.

The trains arrived no more than twenty feet beyond the far wall/windows.


Just beyond the barrier in the rear, was an entrance/exit to the subway.






In addition to the tournament, Jacob Rasin (one of the Boylston Chess Club's strongest players) played a simultaneous match against all comers. Due to limited space, I think he was limited to about fourteen opponents. Given that Jacob could beat about twenty opponents while playing blindfoled, he obviously didn't have much difficulty.






For the record, I wasn't the tournament director of these events. My role was in organizing the event in advance.

If older posters are experiencing deja vu, I created a similar thread in OOT back in 2005.

awesome PR work

One of my shortest tournament games ever was vs Rasin in 1990:

1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5. cd Nd5 6.Qb3 Nc3 7.Qc3 0-0
8.e3 Bg4

Here, Jacob thought for about 10 minutes, wrote down 9.Ne5, almost touched his knight, then crossed out the move on his scoresheet. I couldn't believe he almost dropped a piece, then I realized after my intended 9...Be5, he could play the cool 10.h3 with an interesting game.

He thought another 5 minutes, then played 9.Ne5. At that moment, GM Alexander Ivanov walked by, glanced at the game, and as he later mentioned, was impressed by the 9.Ne5 10.h3 idea.

So I instantly played 9... Be5 and Rasin instantly played 10.de shocking myself and Ivanov, but I quickly played 10...Qd1 mate.

That was the only time I beat him. Rasin was a great player. Dynasty, do you know why he gave up chess except for Bolyston tournaments about 15 years ago.

By the time I met him in 1997, Jacob was making a living teaching chess. He had at least a dozen students who took one-on-one lessons. Most of the students were young kids. Though, he had some adult students.

Teaching was simply making him good money whereas playing wasn't going to offer an income even for a ~2450 player.

That looks like an amazing tournament, Dynasty. It's a very creative idea. Have you thought about getting back into chess in LV?

That looks awesome, Dynasty. I'd play in that tournament in a second. Besides the extremely cool locale, I'm one that actually doesn't like the absolute silence during tournament play.

Props to you for having the sack to run such a tournament , as well as getting such a good turnout

I created a tournament in 2000 which has now survived a decade despite me being in Las Vegas.

The Boylson Chess Club just started the 10th annual Paramount. It's a ten-round, double round-robin tournament. Players are grouped by rating into six player tournaments. They play each opponent, once as white and one as black, on Monday nights over ten weeks.

The current time control is 40/2, G/50. Originally, it was 40/2, 20/1, 20/1...

A few stories about the tournament can be found on the club's blog (as well as many ther stories).
http://boylston-chess-club.blogspot.com/


The top section never drew the interest I hoped it would. but, the lower sections are always healthy competitive fun.

I don't know of any other regular otb tournament which allows class players to participate in a double round-robin format.

All-in, that reminds me of this gem that occurred in my state's scholastic closed. I was White, and my opponent was a 13 year old expert. I was 16 and about 1800ish at the time.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. Qf3?? (played instantly) cxb5 8. Resigns

Obviously the line is 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Qf3 (and it's not even that great a line). I played Qf3 instantly and instantly resigned when he took my hanging bishop. I was a bit psyched out because my record against this kid was like 0-6. Afterwards he was cool about it and we played a bullet match while the other kids finished their games.