This is an excerpt from a longer memoir called "An American Gambit," which details three weeks of my life in August 1974 when I traveled from Nebraska to East Coast to play in the U.S. Open Chess Championship in NYC. I wasn't a master yet, and during the winter and spring my rating had dipped slightly below the "Expert" (these days called "Candidate Master") status I had reached with my 4th place finish at the US Junior Open the previous summer, giving me some hopes of winning a "Class Prize" for players rated 1800-1999.

During the event, I was staying with a friend who had recently completed his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Nebraska and landed a job in the Princeton area. He lived in the Old Bridge/East Brunswick area, so I planned on commuting by bus to the Port Authority Terminal in NYC. From there, it was a bit over a mile to the tournament site at the Statler Hilton. The day before the event started, my friend Larry showed me how to get there. We caught a bus at a convenience store a couple of miles from his apartment, rode it to the PAT, where (good fortune!) I happily retrieved the backpack and sleeping bag the Greyhound had driven off with the previous day (an earlier episode of this tale), visited the tournament site (where I checked in), and then caught a Mets game at Shea Stadium. As I say at the beginning of this memoir, "This is pretty much exactly what happened. Some of it you could check. As for the rest—well, you'll have to take it on trust, I guess."

Statler Hilton Hotel, Manhattan
Demolished 2021-2

The first day of the tournament dawned, but I didn't need to rush off to NYC. The Open played one round a day, starting at 7 pm, with adjournment at midnight. I very much hoped to avoid that, since the adjournments would be played off at 10 am the next morning and would require a quick turnaround since I didn't have the money to check into a hotel overnight. Larry was off to work already, so I ate a late breakfast and packed my clock, a pocket chess set, my knife, writing utensils, and a Big Chief tablet in my rucksack. After a moment's thought, I wadded up my maroon windbreaker (emblazoned with my NRA rifle patches and my Boy Scout 50 mile hiking and canoeing patches) and stuffed it in the top. I only brought a few dollar bills plus one ten-dollar traveler's check since that would cover my round-trip bus ticket and a "supper" of two McDonald's burgers and a carton of milk for a couple of days. The only other things in my wallet were my ID and draft card.

I made the hike to the store, bought my ticket, and caught the bus with no difficulties. I walked down to the Hilton and checked my pairing. The tournament was a 12-round Swiss System, meaning that every round they matched the top half versus the bottom half of each score group. No one is ever eliminated; you just keep playing opponents at or near your current score. Since this was Round 1, everyone sat at 0-0.

Begin Chess Interlude the First

As expected, I was in the top half of tournament ratings and got to play a much lower rated player, an older local man with a vaguely European accent. I decided to play my normal game and opened with the Queen's pawn. He countered with the King's Indian Defense, to which I replied with an early pawn to f3, the Saemisch Variation. we followed standard "book" play in the Saemisch Byrne line for about ten moves, but he did not respond accurately to my aggressive pawn thrust h4-h5, instead allowing me to open a line for my Rook to threaten his King and leaving me with a strong attack. I relaxed. Easy, now just run him over. Without much thought, I slid my Bishop to d3, imagining that I could now take a couple of moves to reposition my Knight for a sacrificial jump to f5, opening lines for my Bishop on d3 and my other Rook. He thought for a few minutes, shrugged, and put own Knight on h5, blocking my Rook's line and inhibiting my own Knight's prospects. I played the Knight out as planned, but he immediately slid his Rook over to its own open file, preparing to support his Knight's return from the flank. I impulsively pushed my Pawn up to attack the Knight anyway, and it settled in the newly-created hole on f4.

I shouldn't have done that. My attack and my advantage had completely vanished after my three thoughtless moves. It was equal. I went back to work and grimly tried to generate winning chances. I tripled my Queen and both Rooks on my open file, but he countered by triple defending along his second rank. What now? Get rid of my bad Bishop? I returned that Bishop I had optimistically placed on d3 earlier in the opening back to its home square and then brought it out the other way to exchange for his Bishop. I tried multiple ideas to generate threats, but he simply moved his Rooks back and forth. He seemed content play for a draw, daring me to try something, so I finally did, maneuvering my pieces to support my backward Pawn forward from f3 to f4. He just traded, and I still had a backward Pawn, just on e4 now rather than f3. Still got nothing. I continued to probe his position, looking for an entry. We were both playing quickly now because it was after 11 pm and neither of us really wanted to adjourn. Finally, he gave me just a tiny sliver of hope by moving his K away from the action. I hopped my Knight into the hole on f6 and tried to remain impassive. Deep breaths . . . deep breaths. He should move his own Knight into the hole on e5, keeping a likely draw, but he forced the issue, trading Knights and giving me a passed Pawn. He moved his Queen over to block it, probably thinking his King and Queen could surround it, but I firmly pushed up my backward Pawn from e4 to e5. He grimaced and thought for a few minutes, but he had no choice other than taking it. He now had two passed Pawns himself, but my two were much closer to becoming Queens than his. He couldn't even trade Queens since the King could not catch the more distant Pawn. I pushed my newly-passed Pawn and kept it up. He pushed his own Pawns in response for a few moves, then threatened a check with his Queen, hoping for a draw by perpetual check. Unfortunately for him, my Pawn metamorphized to a Queen and permitted only a single check. Rather than make the spite check, he resigned and we avoided adjournment.

End Chess Interlude the First

I trucked back through the warm NYC night to the Port Authority Terminal, passing various drunks and ladies of the very late afternoon, found my platform, and caught the 1 a.m. bus back to Jersey. As we drove through the night, I alternated between looking over my just-completed game on my magnetic folding set and looking out at what passed for scenery under a half moon rising in the sky above intermittent patches of fog. I had been lucky in the end, so I made notes calling out my sloppiness to leave for Larry's entertainment the following evening when he returned from work.

At what I thought was the right moment, I put my set and tablet away, put my rucksack over my shoulder, got up, and told the driver, "Drop me at Browntown, please!" He obligingly pulled over, and once again I foolishly trusted a bus driver. As I looked around in the aftermath, I found myself somewhere around the middle of nowhere. The temperature had dropped to the 60s, so I pulled out my windbreaker and put it on. There was a crossroad, all right, but despite the helpful moon, I detected no lights, no buildings, no nothing but a lot of fog, trees, and bushes. Since I knew which side of the highway Larry's apartment lay on, I chose that direction and started walking. At another crossroad, I discovered in the pale moonlight that I was on "Flood Road" (which I later learned was a road through the drainage area of the northern Jersey swamps—you know, where they bury the bodies). It was like one of those scenes from a monster movie: fog, with crickets and frogs sounding from the swampland around me. Occasionally, the fog would clear a bit and I could even see my moonshadow following me down the road. I thought I heard a dog in the distance. Gotta be a dog; no wolves in Jersey, are there? Chaising down a hoodoo, I imagine.

After a few miles, I finally saw some lights in the distance. Turned out to be a 7-11. Salvation! But when I went to the (locked) door, I encountered a cryptic sign: "Back soon." So I looked around the area and saw an entrance to "Cheesequake State Park." I knew what a cheesesteak was, but cheesequake? I spied a pay phone on the side wall of the store and tried calling Larry (ah, the days of the pay phone outside the convenience store!) to see if he had any idea where I was. For some reason, he didn't answer his phone ringing at about 3 am. I had few other options but to sit and find out when "soon" was.

Photo: State of New Jersey, Dept of Parks and Forestry http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/cheesequake.html
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36850985

After about a half hour, a VW van pulled up and disgorged a bunch of people in their teens and twenties in bellbottoms and tie-dye, including a few girls in halter tops (one of teenage me's greatest weaknesses). They checked the door and sign and then came over to where I was sitting. One, probably mid-20s judging by his long blond hair and impressive mustache, introduced himself as Mike and asked how long I'd been waiting. They sat down on the curb and commenced chatting. Mike explained that they were from a religious group staying nearby in the park and were on a snack run. We waited awhile together, chatting about this and that.

A car pulled up about another half hour later, and the driver hopped out and apologetically opened the store. My new friends picked out their purchases while I tried calling Larry again. No luck. I asked the clerk how far it was to Larry's apartment complex, and he showed me on one of the roadmaps for sale at the counter. Turned out I was more than five miles away. Great. I was gearing myself up for another hike through the swamp when Mike invited me back to their camp for a bite and promised a ride back to Larry's. I took him up on it. Once we got to their site in the camp, I saw a hodge-podge of tents and maybe a dozen more group members around a fire. They had a big kettle of stew on the fire, so I got a bowlful from another young lady with long, straight dark hair, dark eyes, and what was even then known as a 'hippie chick" vibe. She had bare feet and was wearing . . . a blue halter top dotted with yellow flowers. She introduced herself as Katie. She handed me a second bowl. "What's this one for?" I wondered. "Just pass it on," she told me with a wink and a half smile. I took it back to the campfire and started to hand it to someone, but he indicated a person across from us and said, "Nah, man, give it to her—I gotta play now!" He picked up a guitar and strummed dramatically. I obliged, sat down, and began to eat. It was mostly potatoes, carrots, and onions but was good and filling. They started singing some songs I knew from church camp or choir, so between bites I occasionally joined in.

When I finished, Mike took me aside for a short "talk." He explained who they were (which I won't get into here, but my friend Tom later showed me some of their recruiting manuals). "You really gotta go back tonight? You would really fit in here, man. We could use a guy like you. Just take it day by day. And Katie says she really likes you." I was curious how he divined that, but didn't ask. Alas for my potential future in a cult, I had a chess tournament to get back to, so as promised, Mike revved up the van and gave me a lift back to Larry's. I never saw Mike, Katie, or the Children of God again. Thus ended Day One of my NYC US Open.

END PART VI