Her Team Competes at 2022 USATE

Aliya, Indira, Rose, and Simone decided to play on an all-girls team sponsored by the HerMoveNext Foundation with a fitting team name: “Her Team.” ... They discuss their ups, their downs, and the fun they had throughout this incredible experience.

By Aliya Saldanha-Suri - NYC Lab Middle School for Collaborative Studies
BY Indira Raparthi - THE SPENCE SCHOOL
BY SIMONE MORDEN - STUYVESANT HIGH SCHOOL
HER LEAGUE MEMBERS & HER NEWS COLUMNISTS

Her Team 2022 USATE left to right: Aliya, Indira, Rose, and Simone

US Amateur Team East (USATE), a six-round annual 3-day chess event in New Jersey, is a four [or five] member team (four active players with one optional alternate) tournament where team participants play on 4 boards in rating order (highest to lowest) against an opposing team in rating order as well. Players receive points based on their team’s ability to win more individual points than the opposing team members per round; for each round that a team accumulates more points than their opponents, the team is awarded one point, so 6 points is the highest possible total. Aliya, Indira, Rose, and Simone decided to play on an all-girls team sponsored by HerMoveNext Foundation Inc with a fitting team name: “Her Team.” In this article, you will see a different perspective of each team member over the course of the 3-day tournament. They discuss their ups, their downs, and the fun they had throughout this incredible experience.

Day 1 (Aliya)

“Come in!” Simone said excitedly over the intercom system outside of her and Rose’s house. The door clicked open and my dad and I walked in.

“Hi!” Rose, Simone, and I exclaimed when we saw each other. It had been around three months since we had last seen each other since I lived in Maryland. I had woken up at seven and barely gotten enough sleep, but I felt so energized and ready for the fun that was about to come. Rose and Simone’s sister, Estelle, was still asleep, but I also greeted the rest of their family, including the cat that I got to see for the first time.

We got into the car at around 11:30 am, and the first round was scheduled to start at 1:00 pm. Since the ride was around an hour from Manhattan to New Jersey, we would make it just barely in time to find our pairings and get settled for the first time. In the car, I asked Rose and Simone’s dad as many questions as I could about the tournament, and he explained the format to me.

Simone requested to be DJ, and that was the moment that I was introduced to Imagine Dragons. There would be much more of their music to come.

Throughout the ride, we practiced chess puzzles and listened to Simone’s excessive playing of Imagine Dragons and songs that she thought would hype us up, including “What Makes You Beautiful,” which doesn’t exactly qualify in that category. We finally arrived at the hotel at 12:40 pm. Since Indira was staying at the hotel, Simone texted her that we had arrived and we walked into the hotel.

Because of COVID, this was our first big tournament in years, so all of us were swept back to the times when we would go to big tournaments together, and we were immediately excited for the games to come. About 10 minutes later, we found Indira and her family, and we set off to look for the pairings. Our first round was against a team whose team average was 1695, which was many points above our average, 1415.

We found our tournament room at around 12:50, and the rounds were scheduled to start at 1:00. After we had gotten settled and ready for our rounds, it was 12:58, and all of us went to the bathroom, running there and back in exactly two minutes. The bathroom had automatic sinks, and we giggled as Rose struggled to get one of the taps to turn on, which ended in me having to run my hands under the water again so that Rose could wash the soap off.

We played a team that was playing for Chess in the Schools, and my opponent was rated 1567. That was much higher than I had played against in years. It was going to be a long game.

As soon as the tournament director told us we could start, I started the clock and the game began.

I started with e4, and my opponent played an opening called the Pirc Defense. As we progressed into the game, each of us took longer and longer to make our moves, and the position was getting very interesting. Since each game was two hours, with a chance of an extra 30 minutes, we had all the time in the world to spend on our games.

During the intense quiet of the games, I suddenly heard a sound. It was Rose’s opponent, who had just said “adjust” to a piece he had already picked up and moved another piece.

“You can’t do that,” Rose told her opponent. “You picked it up.” The team captain of her opponent nodded his agreement, and Rose’s opponent sighed angrily and undid his move.

The games continued. After about two hours of uninterrupted concentration, Indira’s game finished. She had lost.

My game went on for two more hours, finally ending at 3:45 pm. I had gotten a draw, which to me was a great achievement after not playing someone that highly rated in years. The game had been very tense, and I was really proud of how I’d done.

Rose came out after around 15 more minutes with a win, and Simone a couple of minutes later.

“How’d you do?” Rose and I questioned, both of us eager for an answer after waiting for so long. Simone looked a bit confused.

“I got a draw… is that good?” she asked skeptically

“Simone, you drew a 2000!” Rose and Simone’s dad said. Simone’s jaw dropped as a smile formed on her face. That meant we had tied a team who was rated many points above us, which caused joyful cheers. Our tournament was off to a great start.

We had not eaten lunch, so we decided to get fries and chicken fingers from the people who were selling food in the tournament area. Since I was a vegetarian, I just got fries and ate half a bagel and some fruits and vegetables.

We were laughing and chatting during our meal, Rose telling me about how her opponent had said “yes!” when he thought he had protected Rose’s attack but she won anyway, and eventually finding out that we were eating what we thought was lunch at 4:30 pm. This was when I discovered Simone’s extreme love of ketchup, as she was picking up double the amount of ketchup than fry for each of her fries and quickly consumed five ketchup packets.

Indira came down from her hotel room to see us after we had finished our “lunch,” and off we went, searching for people we knew. We found Coach Angel, and it was nice to see him after so many months. Indira, Simone, and Rose also found some people they knew from chess tournaments in NYC, but since I hadn’t lived there for about 5 years, I didn’t really know any of them so I stood back.

After a while, we got tired, so we decided to find a hallway in the middle of nowhere and play bughouse. Rose and I were a team, and Simone and Indira were a team, which is how it would be for the whole 3 days. While we were playing bughouse, Simone and Indira started fighting over whether to play Taylor Swift songs or Imagine Dragons songs, which also lasted the whole weekend.

For round two, we had gone down boards. This annoyed us because we had tied against a team that was much better than us, so we had expected to at least stay in the same room!

Three of our opponents were much younger than us, and one, Rose’s opponent, was about our age. We were in one of the smaller rooms, and the other teams in the room were chatting long after the games had started, which was very distracting.

Halfway into our games, Indira had an attack against her opponent. He figured out a way to defend the attack, and a couple of minutes later my and Indira’s opponents were jumping up and down between two chairs and wandering around as if they weren’t supposed to be focusing on their games.

I was the last one left in the tournament room after Indira had lost and Rose and Simone had drawn. Just as Simone came in to check how I was doing, I checked my opponent on e1 with my queen. He moved his king to h2, and I moved my queen to e5 to check the king again, and he protected the check by blocking with his f-pawn. Suddenly, I saw a move that I thought would win me at least a queen for a rook. I triumphantly captured the f4 pawn with my rook.

Take that, I thought as he looked at the board, his face emotionless. Simone ran out of the room, most likely to tell the others that I was going to win material.

Just when I started to get bored of my opponent’s stalling, he played a move. Qe6. I looked at the board for a few seconds. No way. He had found a way to defend my seemingly undefendable attack! I thought for another minute or two, seeing if there was any way I could still win material, but there wasn’t. Resigned, I traded my queen with his.

My game ended in a draw, their knight and bishop against my rook and two pawns. I didn’t see any way that I could win the game, so I offered a draw. I came out last; by that time it was around 9:30, and Indira had already gone up to her hotel room since it was late. We were all tired, and when I told Rose, Simone, and their dad that I’d gotten a draw they all seemed defeated, which at the time confused me. I hadn’t understood the way that the tournament was scored, so it never occurred to me that our opponents got the point for that round and we didn’t.

Simone played Imagine Dragons in the car again, and when we got home, Rose and Simone’s family and mine were waiting for us. They had cookies and macarons for us and congratulated us on our first day of the tournament. I said hello to Estelle, and avoided her hug, which had become a running joke over the years. We all laughed as we recalled moments about our opponents and our experiences in-between the rounds.

I left their house at around 10:30, exhausted but still elated, and ate two cookies on the cab ride home because we had not eaten dinner. I went to sleep that night and felt on top of the world after my first day of Amateurs.

Day 2 (Indira)

“Wake up!”

What a nice start to my day: the beautiful melody of my mother telling me to wake up. I woke up, started to slowly open my eyes, and got into the normal mental state of an awake person. I walked to the bathroom to put on my contacts and wash my face. It was always nice to wake up later and get more rest.

The round was at 11:00am EST and the time was 8:30. The fluffy white hotel beds were comfortable but sometimes a little suspicious because of how many sheets were there. As soon as I finished using the bathroom I tried to go downstairs to get a couch for the team. Of course, my mother with her motherly instincts decided that I need a good breakfast for my round. I ate breakfast and rushed downstairs hoping that there were still couches. There weren’t, instead I found a table meant for dining and had condiments on it.

Simone, Rose, and Aliya arrived and put their stuff down on the table. We had roughly 20 minutes between our next round and started playing puzzle battles against each other. When our pairings were put up it said that we were playing a lower team of an average of 950, for some time we were a little overconfident but then realized that they could be underrated. I arrived at my board along with my team and there were kids a year or a few years younger than me waiting for us. They started explaining how their tournament was going so far as we sat there and pretended to listen.

Our game started, my overconfidence took over me for the first 40 moves but I quickly got back and slowly crushed her.

My mom offered to bring Simone, Rose, and Aliya upstairs. We went upstairs and saw my brother sitting on the chair.

“Hola BROder,” I said annoyingly.

“What do you want…. Why are you guys here?” he answered, clearly annoyed.

“Mama said we could come here, mi hermano,” I say.

“I wanted to sleep.”

“Sleep in the hallway,” I said and I started laughing. He left to sleep in the car as we invaded the room.

We started playing songs and relaxing to get ready for the next round.

We went back downstairs about 30 minutes before the round and played some bughouse.

10 minutes before the round our pairings were up and we were playing a team with a 2000 USCF average rating. We checked how active a player they were. Me and Aliya’s opponents were pretty active.

We went into the ballroom and found our seats, and quickly figured out that Aliya’s opponent was far more active than the rest of ours. I felt bad for Aliya because she was playing someone who was very active and the rest of our opponents did not play as much.

My opponent and I had a quick interaction before the costume and name contest winners were announced.

“What's your name?” I asked.

He took my notation sheet and wrote his name and filled out the rating box in bold numbers and underlined it: “1820.” I don’t get intimidated easily but he was trying hard so I acted kind of surprised because I felt bad to not be intimidated.

“How old are you?”

“I’m 12,” I said, though it was a lie it was close enough.

“I’m 72,” he said laughing. “I’m 6 times your age.” I laughed awkwardly.

“What's your rating?”

“I’m not sure.”

“How can you not be sure? What do you even mean by that?” he said, kind of aggressively.

“I think I’m around 1300,” I said as my teammates watched this odd interaction.

I started my game and was playing carefully and taking my time.

“Good game,” I hear Simone and her opponent say. I glanced at Simone and gave her a puzzled look and she moved her thumb sideways. She drew? I thought, Against a 2300? I was happy and wanted to laugh at Simone for drawing the game in a few moves but gave her a laughing look.

The game went on for another hour. Halfway through, I turned to see Aliya shake hands with her opponent. She had lost, though it was a tough and difficult game for our dear favorite valiant warrior and simply extraordinary, or dare I say incredible, friend and human being Aliya, and the sheer passion in her eyes was enough to fuel my motivation to win. (Aliya totally didn’t write this part.) On move 37, I looked very carefully and I was considering a tactic. For a few minutes I looked at it, then I played it. Wait… I won a rook! I thought in my head. Simone and Aliya came with smiling faces to check on my game.

The game went on. I promoted my pawn and, soon after, defeated my opponent. He looked mad, probably because of his 2300 teammate and his loss. At that point we were tied, 1.5 to 1.5. Rose looked worse. I left the ballroom with Simone and started laughing at her for drawing, despite the fact that I would have done the same, had I been in her position.

Time flew by. Everyone was waiting for Rose’s game to finish. We’d given up the hope of her winning. She was down a queen in an endgame. We watched and waited anxiously. It's over. I thought in my head, accepting her loss.

“Wait…. THAT'S A STALEMATE!” Simone shouted. I screamed and half the ballroom started looking at me, but I didn’t care because I was elated. My feeling of euphoria soon faded away as we bid our farewells for day 2 and I went to sleep. For some reason, I had a bad feeling in my gut…

Day 3 (Simone)

On the third day, I woke up at seven, which was way too early for me. Especially since I wake up for school every weekday at eight. On top of that, I went to sleep that night at midnight. I was not thrilled to be starting the last day of the tournament with only seven hours of sleep. Aliya came to our house and we scrambled into the car at 7:50, as the round started at 9:00am EST and it took 45 minutes or so to get there. We played “Brave” by Sara Bareilles and “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction because those are uplifting songs. We reached the hotel with fifteen minutes to spare, so we rushed to Indira.

“I saved you guys a couch!” she shouted.

“YES!!!” Aliya, Rose, and I yelled since it was our first time sitting on the couches.

“Oh, also, my brother got food poisoning.”

I looked at her, my mouth agape. “Excuse me, what?”

“He was undefeated as well,” Indira said.

I felt bad for Indira’s brother, but we had to rush to the bathroom and get to our board. I played board 1 against a player with a rating of 2000. He lost to a fork with my pawn attacking his bishop and knight. I kept that advantage throughout the rest of the game and was the first one to finish. I excitedly told my dad, showed him my game, and inputted the notation in my ChessNoteR. I went in and out of the playing room and saw that Indira was losing. Not soon after she came out and said she had lost. Although her opponent was only 1400, he was beating 2000s, so he was definitely underrated.

“Should we check on the others?” I asked.

“Sure,” she responded.

Last I’d checked, both games were even, but this time Rose was down a pawn. I looked at the game and my eyes widened. She’d originally been in a worse position, pieces cramped, but this time she had this crazy tactic to even things out to a queen endgame that would be a draw. I pumped my fist in the air when she found it and told Indira as we walked out. Later Rose exited the playing hall, too.

“I drew,” she told us.

“Yes!” We cried enthusiastically. She had played a 1900.

We went back to the room and I saw that Aliya was down a piece. Currently, we had 1.5 points and we needed a draw to at least tie. Aliya was playing a 1900, so it was hard, but she eventually lost.

After the games, our parents encouraged us to go outside because it was 70 degrees in the middle of February. We went outside to the small backyard next to the hotel.

“Let’s play tag,” Indira suggested.

We said sure and she started to chase us. The backyard was set up so it was one big path surrounding foliage guarding a fenced area. Since we were going in one big circle, I decided that I would eventually get tired so the best course of action was to hop in the fenced area. Aliya gave me a look that said ‘You sure?’ But I did it anyway. I saw Indira lingering around the fenced area and putting up her leg so she could jump in. In a rush, I ran over a green tarp that was secured onto the ground. At the time, I wasn’t sure why they put it there, but once I felt myself sinking into the ground, my legs losing support and my feet soaking in water, I scrambled out. I had just run into a pool.

“SIMONE!” Indira screamed as I dragged myself out. I took a moment to collect myself and acknowledge that my lower body was soaked. Entirely.

“I didn’t know there was a pool!!” I said between gasps.

“It literally says it right there.” Indira pointed to a sign.

“And there!” Rose said

“Also here,” Aliya showed.

I sighed and got out of the caged area and sat down on the bricks. I removed my quenched shoes and socks and was thankful for the warm sun that would dry my body. I checked to see if my phone was still secure in my pocket, and yes, it was fine and dry. Phew. And that’s when Indira stole it. Indira has a history of stealing my phone, but this time my lack of shoes rendered me defenseless. She also knows my password, and I have no idea why I gave it to her.

“Oh look,” she exclaimed. “Michaela texted you,” I raised my eyebrows. Michaela, or rather Michael, is my friend and I was terrified of what she was about to do. Indira scrolled through my phone, and I heard the familiar sound of how a phone rings. Oh shoot, she’s calling him.

For the next half of our time there I chased Indira with my soggy shoes in my bare feet trying to get my phone back as she FaceTimed Michael. Finally, with the help of Rose and Aliya, I was able to get my phone back. Afterward, Aliya and Rose accidentally threw Aliya’s hair tie way up on a brick wall that it somehow stuck to and were using my soggy shoes to get them down. It did not work and we ended up fishing out my shoes from thorny bushes. My clothes and most parts of my shoes dried by the time we went inside. To get energized we ate smoothies, banana chocolate chip muffins, and donuts for our last game. Unfortunately, we weren’t in the big room for the last game, so we could not hear the ending speech. Instead, we were in the room adjacent to that and I was playing black against a 1200, so it was pretty low stakes for him and high stakes for me.

We got to our board and apparently, our opponents did not know who was the highest rated so they had to move around their players, which was against tournament rules, but apparently the TD said it was fine. We started the game and Aliya won pretty easily against a 700. So far so good. I watched Indira’s game and saw that she was worse against a 700. I crossed my fingers and hoped she pulled through. My opponent played very slowly, but I believed I was still doing better with active pieces. I went back to Indira’s board and, miraculously, she won. It was now 2-0 for the round. My opponent noticed that as I deliberately wrote a win for Indira (as team captain I was in charge of this).

He whispered to his opponent, “Don’t even bother offering a draw. We need the win.”

“I know!” She rolled her eyes and looked back at her game.

You did not want to speak during the games, but, at this tournament, captains were technically allowed to advise an opponent on whether they should take a draw or not. This was close enough, so I let it slide. I looked over at Rose's game. She pushed her pawn to g4 when she had already castled. It was out of character for her to play such aggressive moves, but I was also excited to see how it would play out.

Rose eventually won her game after attacking her opponent’s king. I continued to play games with a passed pawn. He got a little tricky at the end, bringing his knight back to take my black pawn on b2. I’d almost thought we would draw. I took a lot of time to ponder my moves. I found a move, using my black bishop to divert the queen from attacking the pawn, and he ended up resigning after he lost his bishop. I reunited with my friends, who were a little concerned about how I had played so long against my opponent.

“Here, have some pizza,” Aliya’s mom offered me. I gladly accepted. It was chicken parm pizza and, though it was cold, I longed for sustenance. I ate and Aliya's dad bought us some pins to wear as we took pictures.

“Time to go,” my friends said as we waved goodbye. I felt melancholy as we got into the car and listened to Imagine Dragons for the final time that weekend.

“We are coming up on a beautiful view,” my dad started, which had become a routine that weekend.

I got out my phone.

“3…” He said counting down.

I remembered my wins and losses. I remembered my wish that I could have played better, but also my satisfaction with my overall performance. I was undefeated. I’d beaten 2000s. I was proud.

“2…”

I remembered the chicken nuggets and fries, the ketchup Indira stole and still has, the bughouse games, and the cold pool water. The smiles and laughter. Their wins and losses. I was proud of my teammates.

“1!”

I remembered the first time in two years when I finally played with a team.

I snapped a photo.

We played for Her Move Next.

I am proud of us.

Till next year.