Bob's Hobbies - Lexington, SC

SC Grand Prix 5

2010-02-23T21:05:00.005-05:00

I've been the TD for most of the SC Scholastic GP tournaments this year. The series of tournaments was set up by Chess Adventures out of Charlotte so I've just had to run them on Sat. We had fourteen players for the latest installment which has been about normal. With the State Scholastics coming up in a couple weeks we thought there'd be a bigger turnout. Overall the turnout has been disappointing and it doesn't look like the series will be offered next year. The strange thing is most of the players are coming from out of town, Spartanburg, Florence, Aiken, Greenville, etc... Most of the Midlands players aren't competing and most of the so called chess coaches around here are apparently choosing to keep their students away from competition.

On a positive note, the few kids from the Columbia Chess Club that are competing are dominating the series. Dan Caiello is leading the K-12 section, Ben Caiello leads the K-8 section and Chris Aluri is in second in the K-3 section only 2 points out of first.

I have a tournament this Sat and will probably help out with the Scholastic Champs next Sat. After not doing a whole lot outside the club last year I'll been busy with tournaments 5 of the last six weekends heading into March.

The rest of the year should slow down since I won't be doing anymore scholastic tournaments after April and I've stopped coaching chess. The rest of the year I'll work on my game and just running the club. Hopefully find some time to play with the trains too!

In between the Snowstorms

2010-02-12T18:56:00.014-05:00

The 36th Snowstorm Special was held in Charleston. I hadn't been to this tournament in a few years and really wanted to go this time despite the fact that I played in Asheville last week and the Columbia train meet was this weekend also. Here's how my weekend went:

Out of work at 3:00 on Friday and off to Charleston a little after 4. I get to the playing site between 6 & 6:30 so I'm in plenty of time for my first game. I get paired against Donny Gray (2129), a master from Grovetown, Ga. I figured I'd get paired up so it's not a surprise. I played the London just hoping to get a draw against my opponent who is close to 500 points higher than me. I had a nice position getting close to the time control when I just drop my Rook on the wrong rank instantly losing after about 3 hrs of play. Not the start I wanted, but if you're going to blunder, do it in a game you're probably going to lose anyway. At least that's what I told myself.

(show chess board)(hide chess board)

So, it's after 11pm and I'm heading back to Lexington. Get home at 1am take the chess stuff out of the car and put the train stuff in while I'm watching a show that's on. Go to bed around 2am.

Get up at 4:45am Sat to be at Dad's at 5:30 so we can be at the meet by 6:00 to help set up. We get everything set up in time, deal with a few cranky old farts that have nothing better to than dream up stuff to complain about and the show opens. Great turnout, over 150 people show up, all tables sold again. A lot of Postwar Lionel is here to my amazement! Unfortunately I haven't been keeping up with the trains so I can't remember what I'm looking for much less how much it should cost. We settle on buying two modern era Jersey Central Cabooses. Both look good, but one is missing a part and the paint is flaking so that one was sent back to be replaced. Some day I'll learn to just buy Postwar. The meet is scheduled to close at 2pm but as usual everyone starts packing up an hour early so by the time 2 rolls around almost everyone is packed and gone to the clean up can start. We get done a little after 3pm and head home.

4pm, back on the road to Summerville so I can make the 8pm third round of the chess tournament. Get to Summerville in plenty of time but it's probably not a good idea to play chess, at night, on under 3hrs of sleep. I'm figuring I'll be paired down since I only .5 point from my second round bye so even half asleep I think I have a shot to win this game. Naturally when I get there I've been paired up and not even an hour into the game I have a horrible position and just resign. It was just a waste of time and I won't even post the game. Of course, since I finished early I'll pass on getting some sleep and just hang out in the bar with some buddies until 11:30.

I manage to get some sleep and plan to win both games on Sunday and salvage something out of this tournament. The fourth round is 9am and I'm paired with a club member that's relatively new but is a good player. I managed to win the game and bounce back from the Sat sleepwalk.

(show chess board)(hide chess board)

The final round I'm paired down again but have black and my opponent plays the Colle. I couldn't get anything out of the opening and it was looking really drawish when he missed what looked like a saving move in a R pawn endgame and I forced a passed pawn through. I managed to win both games Sunday but my performance wasn't good enough to raise my rating and for the first time in a year I lost points (8). I'll be looking to bounce back at the next tournament.

(show chess board)(hide chess board)

Land of the Sky (or was it the Snowstorm??!)

2010-02-02T07:50:00.018-05:00

My break from chess during football season is over and I made the trek up to the frozen North for the Land of the Sky tournament. This is the biggest tournament I go to each year and it looked like they might get 300 players until Mother Nature dumped a foot of snow on Asheville. The 2.5 hr drive took 7 hours, 4 hrs for the last 15 miles! The last 10 miles or so seemed like a Twilight Zone episode as it was dark, snow covered with abandoned vehicles everywhere and not another occupied car in sight. It actually wasn't that bad though and we were in good spirits when we got to the hotel around midnight. Attendance was down with "only" 161 players but it seemed only the strong ones braved the weather regardless of class and every round was a battle from top to bottom. This tournament and hotel are the best one I go to each year. Here's a picture from the highway when we started to move again and one from the hotel room.

I was paired up in the first round with a 1900 player from GA I'm at 1670 right now. He had white, kept the initiative against my still sloppy Nimzo-Indian and slowly ground me down. I felt I played as well as I could, just got beat by a better player. I'm trying a new game viewer, hopefully it'll work right.

(show chess board)(hide chess board)

The second round I was paired down a little with a 1600 kid I've played a couple times before. I actually enjoy playing him because he always gives me a good fight, doesn't have any annoying habits and just plays calmly the whole game. I spent several minutes trying to decide if I wanted to play d4 and play the London that I haven't played in almost a year or e4 and play the Sicilian like we have in the past. I finally decided on 1. e4 and got the expected 1. c5 from him. Then I took several more minutes on whether to play my usual Grand Prix Attack or try the Morra Gambit that I recently looked at briefly. I really don't like the Morra since it seems Black can equalize pretty easily but it looks really fun to play so naturally after suffering a first round loss in my first game in three months and needing a confidence boost I played the Gambit having never played it OTB before. As expected after 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 he played Nf6 and I went "Crap!", the declined line is the last chapter of the book I got and I haven't got that far yet! So as Fritz would say, now I was on my own. I was able to apply the ideas behind the opening, gave him a cramped position and he finally cracked. After two rounds I was 1-1. Not bad after a 3 month layoff and two games with no time trouble that usually plagues me after I take breaks.

(show chess board)(hide chess board)

Round three I was paired up with an 1850 player from NC that I always see at the tournaments but we only played once, in the last round, at this tournament in 2008. That game was a snoozer as we were both tired, hadn't had a good tournament and didn't have much fight left. It wound up an uneventful draw. This game I decided a draw would be fine for me and when it turned into a Bogo-Indian, he made a slight inaccuracy in the opening, let me equalize and it was just a dry game that ended in a draw. One and half points after 3 rounds and being paired up twice, I'm feeling pretty good about Saturday and looking forward to Sunday.

(show chess board)(hide chess board)

Round 4 I was paired up with another 1850 but I had never played him. I went with 1. e4 to play for a win and we blasted through the opening in a matter of minutes. It was a Caro-Cann and even though I had never faced it OTB I didn't have any problem getting a nice position out of the opening. Then, whoever had played the first three games and blasted through the opening in this one left and sent some moron in to finish the tournament! I lost focus going into the middle game and couldn't decide on attacking the middle or the queenside and basically did neither and threw away the advantage. Then my problem with pawn play came back he just efficiently dismantled me. I figured the loss would pair me down in the final round so I should be able to bounce back and end on a positive.

(show chess board)(hide chess board)

In the final round I was paired down with a 1600 kid from GA who had a bad cold and kept coughing through the whole game. Normally this doesn't bother me since I never get sick but after living with Monk the past several months I had trouble blocking him out. I ahd Black and played the Sicilian as usual but he went into a closed which I rarely see. I was really happy with the position I had out of the opening but again lost focus, my pawns wandered around again giving me a horrible Bishop and I had a completely losing position. I could see ways he could go wrong so I decided to put up maximum defence I could and try for the draw. It worked and I was able to draw despite being two pawns down in a Q+p's endgame. Whew! I finished with 2 points and played at my level. After a three month break I was satisfied with the result but bothered with the loss of focus on Sunday. I also need to improve my pawn play if I expect to get to Class A.

(show chess board)(hide chess board)

In the end this turned out to be the most fun I've had at a tournament in the 10 years I've been playing passing the Carolina's Challenge in 2007. I did gain 1, ONE stinking point, so my streak is still intact at seven straight tournaments gaining points. The last time I lost points was at this tournament last year.

Until next week.....

Rebuilding the Website

2010-01-19T22:15:00.005-05:00

I'm finally getting around to rebuilding the website.

The boat section is in limbo. I'm not sure if that part will be brought back right now. I'll probably get the wild hair to bring back past glories and put it up at some time though.

The Chess Section will be built and updated. If you really want to see what's going on in chess around here check out the Columbia Chess site. I maintain that site too and if the first round of the first tournament this year is any predictor this should be our biggest year yet. The first round was not only our largest first round of any year (24) it's already our largest first tournament of the year (27) and we gained three members pushing total club membership to an all time high of 84.

I'm working on rebuilding the Halliday Junction section. We found a lot more pictures from New Jersey so I'll have to scan them in and post them. We also found some very early pictures of the SC layout that will be uploaded soon. I'm still doing the occasional YouTube videos so be sure to check those out. I plan to have a few new videos featuring the Lionel Conventional Classics, GG1's and another one that should just be really cool.

Until next week......

Conventional Classics Part II

2010-01-11T22:51:00.004-05:00

The last of the Conventional Classics we ordered back in July of 2008 have arrived! All looks good?! The passenger cars are all painted this time and both engines were still running when I got done playing with them. So far much better than the GG1 set and Engine. Except for having tires on a train these look like winners! The 2338 Milwaukee Road looks really good. The black and orange look to be close to the right shades. I haven't put it next to our original 2338 yet but I like the way it looks. The 2328, I don't have an engine to compare it to but the silver on the engine and cars looks really good. The red stripe on the cars looks good. The red chassis on the engine may be a little dark but probably just nit pickin. Naturally they have the piece of crap electronic e unit but the horn and bell are good, even if they're nothing like the original.

Overall I'm happy with them so far.

A YouTube video will be coming soon of all four Conventional Classics running.

Another year over, and a new one just begun

2010-01-04T20:23:00.003-05:00

I'm going to try and get back to regular updates this year. Last year pretty much sucked so I only went to two out of town chess tournaments, no out of town train meets and I can't remember the last train I bought.

I just found out the last three items we ordered in July 2008 from the first run of Conventional Classics is finally shipping. After the GG1 disappointment and the Madison Car paint problems I'm holding my breath on these. At least they were cheap enough that it's not big a deal unless they catch fire or something. Which unfortunately has happened to some people.

Since in 2008, 09 or whatever year they're trying to make these, they can't build them as good as they did 60 years ago we dusted off some REAL classics and gave them a run around the layout.

On the chess front I probably shouldn't complain too much. I didn't get to play as much as I wanted but I did push my rating to the highest it's ever been. The Columbia Club is booming, 81 members at this time with 24-30 playing each week.

There's a lot of tournaments coming up so I should be active again very soon. Planning to play in Land of the Sky in Asheville at the end of the month and the Snowstorm Classic in Charleston the beginning of Feb.

And of course

Roll Tide!!

The Junction goes West

2009-06-16T17:42:00.005-04:00

We've switched over not only to Diesel engines but Western Passenger trains as well. Here's four of them firing up and moving out. The order of appearance is the Prewar 752 set restored with sounds, a modern Western Pacific pulling Postwar Aluminum Streamliners, the 1950 Anniversary Set and the SP Daylight (had to have at least one steam!)

Conventional Classics - Not so much

2009-05-18T22:35:00.005-04:00

When Lionel announced their Conventional Classics series last year I was excited as anyone. I was very pleased when the 2340 showed up, looked and ran well. Unfortunately when the 2332 Madison set arrived it proved to just be more Chinese crap. The first set we received had one car that wasn't completely painted on the roof which was really noticeable even in bad light and the roller pick up was stripped out of the engine so it promptly fell off. Had it not been for poor paint job on the car we'd have probably just fixed the engine. Set two arrived. Again the roof of a car wasn't completely painted but at least this one looked ok in bad light and I was going to live with it until one of the motors in the engine quit working after a few laps around the Junction. Thankfully I was dealing with Trainz so making the exchanges them wasn't a hassle. This time they just swapped out the car and engine so naturally I now have a set with two cars of the same name, but at least they're painted.

I've read online that these engines have an overheating problem?! The observation is a nice addition and the lighted drumhead would be cool if the lighting matched anything else in the set. It amazes me that Lionel can't equal the quality of the stuff they made in the 40's & 50's when it's basically the same stuff that was supposedly improved?!

I still have the Burlington set and Milwaukee Road geep on order and I'll go ahead and get them since this stuff is cheap enough and probably good enough to run on the layout. After this, I'll stick with Postwar.

Western Pacific arrives at the Junction

2009-05-11T22:28:00.005-04:00

With the Daylight and M10000 already in service at the junction Western Pacific has now arrived in the form of Lionel 18192 F3, a remake of the 2355. This a good looking engine with Command Control and all the sounds. There's even a couple engineers in the cab.

With this arrival we've switched all our passenger service over to western lines now. I found out today I'm the new Vice President of the Palmetto Chapter of the TCA. It looks like I'll be playing with trains more for the time being!

Lee Hyder Memorial

2009-05-04T23:46:00.007-04:00

After a 100 point slide the past year that dropped my rating down to 1542 I was able to gain back 66 points in one tournament to go back over 1600 and into B class again. I started off in Round 1 playing a strong expert who made a mistake I was able to exploit and gain a winning position. Unfortunately I didn't know how to win it and instead of trying to find the win and risking a loss I took the draw since he was rated 500 points higher than me. He was kind enough to show me how to proceed and win the game so I got a good draw and a good lesson.

after 30. ...Rd3 31. Nf3

Round 2 was a game I should win, which I did, even though my idiot opponent decided to play it out going 101 moves and playing for more than an hour after it was hopeless. Even I know a stronger opponent up by three pawns is going to win.

The third round I played a strong A class player and the game was even all the way and I wound up with my second draw against a much higher rated opponent.

The fourth round I got to play Wayne Christensen for the first time. Since he's "only" 600 points higher than me and had the white pieces (my two draws I had the white pieces) it wasn't reasonable to expect to score this round so I tried a new defense to get some good experience with it and I did. Even though I lost I played my best so the game was a success for me as I learned from it.

The final round I got to play someone who was only 200 points higher rated than me but since I had the white pieces I decided to go for the win since. A win would get back almost all the points I've lost in the past year and confirm my feeling that even though my rating has been dropping I've been playing stronger than ever. The game was tough as I expected but I was able to get a postion I felt was winning and had my only blunder of the weekend. Luckily I was able to salvage the draw so it wasn't a complete disaster.

after 36. Rc4??

My next scheduled tournament is the LPO in Winston Salem at the end of July. I'm really looking forward to that one as my best friend is going to play in her first tournament.

And now, back to trains. I have a couple train posts I should get up in the next few days and if the election went as expected I'll be shifting my time from chess to trains.

Bip Bip Bip!

2009-03-15T09:58:00.006-04:00

I ran across this clip from the Cary Grant movie People Will Talk . They're running three trains from room to room, two steam engines freights and one Alco passenger set, and an "Incident" happens. Check it out!

Boy Scouts visit the Junction

2009-03-03T22:27:00.003-05:00

In between rounds of the chess tournament I ran back to run the layout for a Boy Scout troop. This was the largest group to see the layout at once with 15 spectators dropping by for a visit. With the exception of a "hot box" (a mysterious short that didn't show up in the test run the night before) on one of the passenger cars the layout ran flawlessly for all 40 minutes of the show. We ran the usual suspects and the M10000 made an appearance at the end of the show.

2009 SC Scholastics

2009-03-03T22:07:00.004-05:00

I helped out at the State Scholastic tournament this past weekend. Even though the High School Section had the same number as last year (29) and the Elementary had 11 more players (45) the overall turnout was down 14 players due to conflicts with Middle School students. The Middle Section had only 20 compared to 45 last year. Overall it was a really good tournament and Cola Club's Jr. members had a really strong showing led by Daniel Dodds winning the tournament and earning the invitation to the Denker Tournament of High School Champions in Indianapolis in August. Chris Labrecque took second place in the Middle School Section and Marty Anderson finished 5th. In the Elementary Section, new club member Gautham Tuppale took third place and Erik Anderson tied for 9th. Five club members gained points in this tournament.

There's supposed to be an increase in the number of scholastic tournaments next school year, possibly all the way up to 10. It looks as if scholastic chess is finally taking root in the Palmetto State.

The final crosstable is HERE.

M10000 - Restored & Upgraded

2009-02-24T21:37:00.011-05:00

In a previous entry I mentioned Dad's latest project . Here it is as it looks now.

In addition to a new paint job it also has a new powerplant, a F3 motor with magnetraction that allows it pull the four cars with ease, and a sound system.

The slide pick ups were replaced with roller pickups which makes it easier to pull.

White Knoll Scholastic Open

2009-02-24T21:11:00.004-05:00

I ran my first Scholastic tournament this past weekend at White Knoll High School. One of our club members is a teacher there, has started a chess club and asked if I'd help him hold his first tournament which I did. I had hoped to get maybe 20 players for it and was pleasantly surprised when we wound up with 30 and a good distribution through all three sections. The playing hall was the cafeteria that has an elevated stage where we put the top 2 boards of each section which put the top players "above the rest". Three of Cola Chess's Jr players participated all doing very well taking first in the Middle School section and tying for third and also taking first in the Elementary section. This was a warm up for the state scholastics this weekend here in Columbia. I only had to deal with one insane parent which ended ok, I was right of course! The only negative was the $376 tab that had to be picked to have a janitor sit on his ass all day while we ran the tournament. God forbid a public school support something that might encourage independent thinking. Overall for my first scholastic tournament it went better than I expected and shows there is a demand for chess in this state.

Columbia Chess Club

2009-02-04T22:30:00.008-05:00

As the club closes in on two years membership has settled in at 50-60 and we're still attracting new players. To give you and idea of the number of new faces showing up a regular member made the comment last week that "I'm standing in the club that I've been coming to for a year and I don't recognize anyone!" Attendance has been around 25 players each week with around 18 playing in the weekly tournament.

We've now held 44 rated events in the 20 months the club has been in existance. The strength of the club is increasing and the club championship which starts on the 26th should be very competitive.

The facelift I gave the website at the end of the year seems to have worked out well both in being easier for me to update and being easier to navigate. The coolest feature is broadcasting the top board live each week. A couple newer members have started helping and contributing and has made it possible for us to do more.

This should be another good year of chess in Columbia!

LOTS Recap

2009-01-26T18:17:00.005-05:00

After my first round win my second game went 30 moves to the first time control with both of using about all of our 90 minutes. It ended in a draw when I was unable to get anything out of passed pawn and went into a Bishops of opposite colored ending. The third round Sat night went 51 moves and 3.5 hours. I was fortunate to get a draw in what looks like a lost position when my opponent couldn't find the path. I had the Black Army.

Draw Agreed.

I had 2 points out of 3 which was a little disappointing but not that bad. Going into the fourth round I felt if I could win the final two games or at worst finish with a win and draw the weekend would be a success. My fourth round game was going well and I was in control from move 1 as my opponent played a sloppy opening. By move 14 I had a good advantage and felt I was winning by 17 when I went got in a hurry for absolutely no reason and instead of just grinding out the win decided blundering it away would be more exciting. After throwing away a win I decided to call it a weekend and head home to play with trains! My final score was 1-1-2

After 17. Qe8??

Land of the Sky

2009-01-24T12:46:00.004-05:00

I finally stopped my winless streak at 12 games by winning my first round game last night. My opponent played the Bird which I naturally had no preparation for so I just winged it. I was able to find the winning move after my opponent played 17. Kh1?. I almost threw it away as we were using an analog clock and I let run down farther than I intended and still had five moves left to make as the hand started raising the flag. I had 10 seconds left when I made my thirtieth move reaching the first time control. After that bit of drama it was just a matter of finishing him off which took 10 more moves.

Round 2 is at 2:15.

after 17. Kh1?

Website Facelift Coming

2009-01-18T12:29:00.005-05:00

I'll be giving the website a facelift soon. Current Layout pictures will be added and the track plan with a layout roster will be added. I'm also going to try and put a 360` view of the layout. I plan to new site up by the end of Feb.

Back to Chess

2009-01-12T19:55:00.005-05:00

After reaching a high of 1649 after the SC Open last June I was in good shape to hit my goal of 1800 by the end of 2009. After losing points in 5 of my last six tournaments I found myself falling very fast! I dropped all the way back to 1585 by the end of October and took a break. I still had my goal of 1800 by the end of this year but after the Reverse Angle this past weekend I may need to reset my goal. For the fourth straight tournament I've lost points and am now sitting at 1562, my lowest rating since August 2007. I seem to be heading towards 800 faster than 1800! The Land of the Sky is up next in Asheville. I picked up good points there last year and I expect to do better this year. This slide can't last forever!

Conventional Classics begin to arrive

2009-01-08T23:43:00.007-05:00

When Lionel announced the Conventional Classics Series last summer we couldn't pass them up! The original shipping date was March 09 but we were pleasantly surprised when the first one arrived this week in the form of the 2340 Tuscan 5 stripe GG1. This is a really good looking engine and ran well right out of the box. It's true to its Postwar Predecessor but with a few of the modern upgrades like an electronic e unit, horn and bell. This one will definately see track time at the Junction. Now I can't wait for the rest to show up!

Dad's latest project - 752 Set

2009-01-07T23:22:00.011-05:00

Dad picked this up off Ebay for a restoration project. As bad as it looks it ran when it hit the tracks! We plan to put it in service on the layout after it's put back to the brown/yellow M10000 colors.

It's rather colorful right now since the engine, one coach and the observation is green & yellow, there's a Hiawatha coach in orange & gray and one coach in the brown & yellow.

Carolina's Nationals

2008-09-12T23:10:00.005-04:00

Made it to my first NHRA drag race this weekend. Way too cool!! We got to see evening qualifying for the fuel cars which was just awesome. The ground pounding power of these things is incredible in person. Both lanes are even and most of the runs in all the classes were very close.

Really nice facility here.

Our first walk through the pits we saw John Force who was given the phone from a fan and talked to the guys friend for a minute of two. The longest lines of the day were for Ashley of course and she ran very well today.

I'll try to post some pics and video over the weekend.

Chess Update

2008-09-07T20:46:00.002-04:00

I played in two tournaments in August. The Reverse Angle 9 up in Charlotte and Ashland IV here at our local club.

I was hoping to bounce back at the RA9 after a poor showing at the LPO. The first game I had won and threw it away. The second game I was totally lost and would up getting a lucky win. I withdrew after the second round to take a look at what's wrong. For some reason I'm ignoring the simple moves and making the games more difficult. Time to take a step back.

In A4 I actually played ok but it's become clear that it's just too distracting to play and run the tournaments at the same time. I was lucky in the first game when my opponent blundered me the win. In the second round my temper got the best of me to the point I couldn't think so resigned early since I couldn't fight accurately.

The Team Tournament that's going on in the club right now will be the last club tournament I play in. After this one I'll just run the club, (which is more fun when you're not trying to brutalize a fellow club member) and go back to playing in NC tournaments or weekend SC tournaments to work on my game. This should be the balance I've been trying to get.

Reverse Angle 10 is Sept 20. I'll play in that one unless 'Bama plays Arkansas in the afternoon. There's two tournaments in Oct, the SC Champs and the NC Open. Those two I expect to play well in.

While I like the Monroi, I'm not sure it's worth the price. I'll write a review on it after the NCO.

I'll be making a few train posts soon, hopefully in the next couple days. I hope to have a cool post after next weekend!

Sometimes your the hammer, sometimes the nail -LPO

2008-08-02T10:51:00.002-04:00

After my good result at the SC Open I went up to the LPO in Winston-Salem expecting at worst to have an even score. That didn't happen as I was only able to win one out of four games. I was satisfied by the way I played but I ran myself into critical time trouble in round 1 and lost a completely won game. I put myself into time trouble again in round 3 and wound up losing a game I should have at least drawn if not won. My play on the board was ok I'm just going to have to make a conscious effort to play a little faster. I did do that in my final game and while I feel that was the worst game I played I did win it so maybe I'm trying to play too accurately right now.

This tournament wasn't a disaster since my rating only dropped from 1649 to 1621. The crosstable is here.

My next tournament is next weekend in Charlotte at the Reverse Angle 9. I should be able to bounce back there.

403 video - finally....

2008-07-15T22:48:00.004-04:00

As mentioned in a previous entry here's the video of the 0-6-0 403 switcher. Notice in the video that when it uncouples there's no uncoupler track?! It's a very smooth running engine that handles switching duties with ease. Not to mention it's pretty cool when a 1946 switcher can uncouple on command!

Be sure to check out the videos of the layout on YouTube .

June Recap - Chess

2008-07-10T09:43:00.006-04:00

As you can tell from the picture I take Chess very seriously! I'm pictured with fellow club member Daniel Dodds who I tied for second with at the SC Open in Greenville.

June is the busiest month for chess in SC and this year kept that trend going. After I went up to Charlotte for RA8 on June 21 we had a Simul at Dutch Square Mall with GM Lubo Ftacnik returning for a third year. The turnout wasn't as big as last year but we didn't promote as much as last year since the local club is now established. A year ago we had 21 members, we now have over 70 after peaking at 84. Still 22 players challenged the GM with him winning 19, drawing 2 and only losing 1!

The club's most recent tournament Ashland III concluded on June 26. This was the club's largest weekly tournament to date with a total of 30 players competing and 20-24 showing up each week to play! We've put together a team tournament for Sept which should be a lot of fun! If you haven't checked out Cola Chess give it a look.

The month ended with the SC Open in Greenville. The tournament really grew from last year's 64 players to 90 this year! The Greenville Chess Club did good job running the tournament as usual and with the increased attendance they raised the prize fund to 145% of advertised! I was pretty happy about that since the $200 I won pretty much paid for the trip!

I played three tournaments in June raising my rating to my personal high of 1649 . The work I've been doing on openings and tactics seems to be paying off! This month I'll be playing in our weekly tournament which starts on July 17 and at the LPO in Winston-Salem July 25-27. I go to the LPO almost every year and usually do pretty well at it. I hope that trend continues.

Right now I'm my target of gaining 11 points a tournament going from 1601 to 1649 in the four tournaments I've played since returning to the board.

One final chess note, in a sudden act of insanity I purchased a Monroi ?! It's an electronic scoresheet that's probably overpriced. After using it in three tournaments I don't regret buying it. I may write a review on it after a few more tournaments.

Revers Angle 8

2008-06-24T15:57:00.002-04:00

I went up to Reverse Angle 8 last Saturday in Charlotte. The tournament was hosted by Queen City Chess and as usual they did a fine job running it. I was generally happy with my play. My new opening worked out well and I had good positions in both games with White. I went into what I believed was a favorable endgame only to end up with two draws. After looking at the games further the endgames weren't only favorable for me but they were completely winning! The good thing is I now know what I need to work on the most! The crosstable for the tournament is HERE.

Tuesday evening we have the Simul with GM Lubomir Ftacnik at Dutch Square Mall and this weekend is the SC Open in Greenville so it's a busy week of chess!

403 begins switching duty at the Junction

2008-06-20T21:49:00.006-04:00

The 0-6-0 403 Steam Switcher has arrived at the

Junction. This good looking engine will take over for the 1656 we were using. A cool feature of this one is the electronic coupler in the tender! You don't have to use the uncouple tracks with this switcher, just drop the train where ever you want!

You can find out how to modify your postwar switcher with and electronic coupler HERE.

I'll upload a video of this smooth running engine soon.

Back to the board, & the Blog

2008-06-18T07:29:00.008-04:00

After a three month break I've started playing chess again. My first trip back to knock the rust off had mixed results. I was crushed in my first game by a stronger player and given a win in the second by a weaker player so I really couldn't tell much about my performance.

I plan to get in a lot a play in the next 18 months to see how high I can push my level of play. Since hitting 1600 I've been bouncing over and under it. I haven't made a real attempt to improve my game in quite a while and now that the Cola Club is established I finally have time to play and work on my game. I have three tournaments this month and I'll try to post updates on my progress, or lack of!

It's been one year since we started Columbia Chess and looking back we were tickled to death to have 15 members! We now have 83!! and 16-20 players come out each week to play in the weekly tournament! We're the largest, most active club in SC. The only thing we're lacking is strength of play but that's improving quickly and we should soon be a force from top to bottom.

GM Lubo Ftacnik is returning to give a Simul again this year courtesy of Precision Tune Auto Care. His simul last year helped boost our club membership to 29 after his visit. The Simul is June 24 at Dutch Square Mall again.

The SC Open is June 27-29 in Greenville. After a poor showing last year I expect to play much better this year. I'll be playing in Reverse Angle 8 this weekend in Charlotte also.

Blog updates should be coming regularly and will have a couple train posts soon as we have a new steam switcher, I finally picked up a "Big Inch" and Dad has pretty much finished the scenery so some good shots of the long back straights should be coming soon. Be sure to check the videos on YouTube.

Sneak Peak - Next layout video

2008-05-08T23:16:00.006-04:00

Here's a sneak peak at my next YouTube video.
This is the passenger trains leaving the station. It's pretty cool as the Cavalier leaves the station and reflects off the lake. The onlooker is the only other chess player in the family!

The complete video will show the layout in FULL operation with four trains running, two passenger and two freight and the trolley making it's rounds through town. I'm trying to keep the run time to under 5 minutes and this video has proved a bit tougher to make than I expected, but it should be up in the next week.

Kid's Eye View

2008-04-20T13:22:00.002-04:00

This is a pretty cool view! Smoke blowing, side rods flashing!

Prewar 203 0-6-0

2008-04-16T22:51:00.005-04:00

Dad picked up a really nice 203 that Lionel made from 1940-1942. This is one of the really nice prewar engines. Like the 746, it didn't run on arrival either but a quick trip through the back shop and it's running like new again! Not bad for a 65+ year old toy!

2360 GG1 pulls into the Junction

2008-04-07T18:14:00.005-04:00

Dad picked up a nice 2360 Tuscan GG1 recently. This makes our third GG1, the other two being the green and black 2332's. This one ran great on arrival. The only downside is the solid stripe has faded as these tend to do.

746 Arrives at the Junction

2008-03-16T21:23:00.011-04:00

I think my internet connection is finally working right again. This is the third time I've tried to make this entry.

I decided to skip to York this April and spend the money that would have gone to hotel, food and GAS??! on, oddly enough, trains! Here's what that money brought me. A really nice original 746. Not only did the engine and tender's condition exceed my expectations but the boxes were better than expected and it even came with half a bottle of smoke fluid and the instructions! I hate missing York but this purchase makes it worth it! Maybe I've spending my money on the wrong things??!

We also picked up a couple nice O27 Streamliners.
The 2436 Mooseheart Observation and the 2432 Clifton Vistadome. These will upgrade the recently aquired 1600 set.

Scholastic State Champs

2008-03-08T21:55:00.009-05:00

I went to (and helped at) my first major scholastic tournament. It was an experience! The tournament drew 108 players, up from 82 last year and I believe it's the most since 2003.

The Cola Club had seven players compete and all did very well! Rising star Daniel Dodds (right) finished second overall and scored an upset over the top seed in the third round. Eric Cheng finished 3rd in the Elementary Section.

Two of my students did very well with Erik Anderson (9 in red) finishing in first place for third grade with 3 points and older brother Marty (11) also finished with 3 points.

I've also been working with Spring Valley High's new chess club and even though they only had two players compete (both on the right) they finished third in the team competition overall!! (four players make a team). Club president Joe Austin recovered from a first round loss to reel off four straight wins to tie for second and take home the first place trophy for his grade! We're winning this thing next year!!

I learned from this tournament and I think my students grew a lot from this experience. We accomplished our goals this year and we should improve next year. Check back in 12 months!

Full view of the Layout

2008-03-02T22:40:00.004-05:00

I finally got around to playing with a panorama program that stitches pictures together. This was first try using it and it turned out ok. I'll be posting more pics of the layout using it and I think it will work with pictures of the longer sets. I'll be posting the new pics on this PAGE.

Set 1600 from 1958

2008-03-02T00:10:00.006-05:00

Dad picked up this nice set recently. Even though it's the cheapened Alco this is a good looking set. The engine is tough to find in good shape and this one is pretty nice. It made a few rounds on layout but this one will be parked on the shelf for the most part.

The passing of Fischer

2008-03-01T10:48:00.004-05:00

By the time I discovered chess Bobby Fischer had already beaten the Russian Machine and vanished from the chess world. I didn't develop an appreciation for his impact on the game until I started playing in tournaments. The celebrity status he achieved equaled any sports figure at the time and his dominance over his peers can only be compared to Jordan, Schumacher and Kasparov.

I wasn't going to blog about Fischer's passing since he was beat to death on the Internet. Dick Cavett's eulogy was so good I felt it was worth posting for non chess players to check out.

First I'd like to share a clip from the show I've got a Secret from 1958. Dick Clark is on it with a young Bobby Fischer. The clip is HERE.

Here are the Dick Cavett's entries: Was it only a Game With an interview Dick did with Bobby in 1971. And the follow up Bobby and You

Passing by the lake

2008-02-04T23:52:00.000-05:00

Here's a clip pulling into the station and two clips leaving the station and going by the lake.

Scenery winding down

2008-02-04T22:44:00.000-05:00

While I was busy playing chess all month Dad was busy installing a lake a on the layout. The lake is made from a lens for a fluorescent light fixture and it worked out incredibly well. It gives realistic reflections and you can see the ripples in the water. This is the last major section of scenery so the landscaping will be finishing up soon. Fisherman, swimmers and a building will be added soon and I'll post new pics when they're installed.

Three tournaments in Jan

2008-02-04T22:34:00.000-05:00

This may have been the longest I've gone between entries. That was a fast month! I played in three tournaments, Reverse Angle 5, Land of the Sky, and Ashland I. While none of my results were that good I did get my rating back over 1600 after dropping back to 1578. This was my first trip to Asheville and the Land of the Sky tournament. It was at a great location drew over 200 players. Ashland I was the first weekly tournament for Cola Chess at the new location. It was our second largest tournament with 26 players competing. The club is at 70 members now and this year looks to be both very competitive and very active.

Postwar Passenger Service

2008-01-01T23:15:00.000-05:00

For New Year's Dad decided to dust off a few relics and give them a spin around the Junction. From 1950 is set number 1464W, the yellow streamliners pulled by the 2023 Alcos. Also from 1950 is set number 2148WS, Madison cars pulled by a 773 Hudson. The last set is number 2270W from 1956. Aluminum streamliners pulled by a Jersey Central Fairbanks Morse.

They actually perform better than the new stuff we usually run! Of course these were made in the U.S.A?!

Last post of 2007 - 2460 arrives at the junction

2007-12-31T21:59:00.001-05:00

The last purchase for 2007 was a 2460 Gray Cab Crane car from 1946. I always liked the crane cars for some reason. While there are only four numbers of cranes there are actually 13 variations! Seven down, six to go!

That was a quick 12 months!

2007-12-17T21:17:00.000-05:00

It's been 12 months since I started the blog. That was quick year!

Let's see, F1 reached levels of stupidity I thought was only reserved for NASCAR so I quit watching halfway through the season. Thankfully justice was served and Kimi and Ferrari prevailed. I'll be back in front of the TV next year although the stupidity continues.

The CMB moved an hour further away from us which prompted us to finally sell off most of our boat equipment. That couldn't have worked out better for us! Those boats turned into a lot of trains over the summer. Needless to say we didn't even wet a boat this year. Looks like fun running at Neal's if we run at all any more.

Even though I missed the October York I went to more train meets this year than I have been going to. Unfortunately three of them were duds. At least the other three were really good. Dad used Ebay as his train meets and picked up a ton of nice trains this year over the internet. He's been making steady progress on the layout scenery also. I'll have updated pics on the website soon. I started off the year strong working on the Halliday Junction website but faded as the year progressed. I'm back working on it now and will have updated pics, video and set pictures posted soon. I'm working on the layout roster, which is bigger than I thought, and the track plan and hopefully I'll have them uploaded before the end of the year.

Chess. Wow, where to start. After the Carolinas Challenge in Nov of '06 I was pretty much ready to just become a casual player. The gas prices made running up to Charlotte every week too expensive, there's was no activity in Columbia and SC Chess looked to be sliding backwards again. A stroke of luck or just good timing the CMB moved too far away from us to go run boats with them so that hobby was shelved. My friend David and I had talked about starting a chess club for the last two years but neither of us had the time. Since the boats were done, and I was planning to start a club in '08 anyway we went ahead and started it this year. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and it couldn't have turned out better! Players started coming out in droves. The new club grew to over 60 members, and is still growing! We held 14 FOURTEEN! rated events this year. We now meet at two locations each week and in just 8 months the Columbia Chess Club went from let's see what happens to the largest, most active chess club in South Carolina. The simul in Dutch Square Mall drew over 30 players to compete against the Grandmaster. We had almost 30 people come out to IM Danny Kopec's lecture and this year's SC Champs was one of the largest ever. It's just been incredible the response. I have two young students, 8 & 10 that are rapidly getting stronger and I've recently started working with the Spring Valley High Chess Club that has big plans for next year. Too much fun!

Let's see what the next twelve months bring?!

Christmas Meet - Raleigh

2007-12-17T20:56:00.000-05:00

I wrapped up the year with the Christmas meet in Raleigh. After missing York this October and the two duds, Atlanta & Columbia I really hoped this one would be as good as it was the last time I went. Thankfully, it was! They had a really good turnout and I found a few freight cars to fill out a couple sets.

Finally picked up a 6419 Work Caboose. This car is in 3 sets we're putting together so now we only need two more!

I couldn't believe I found a 2465 Tank Car with the short Sunoco at the first meet I was looking for it.

I was equally surprised to find the 2472 Caboose. It's usally the cheaper cars that take me forever to find so I was pretty to happy to pick up these two so quick. They go with the 221 Steam Engine we recently bought. The only car left to pick up for that set is the 2411 "Big Inch" Pipe Car.

I'm going to try and get more work done on the Junction Website over the next few weeks. I hope to have the track plan and roster posted soon.

Working on the Set Page

2007-12-03T17:55:00.001-05:00

I've started working on the Set Page of the website. There's a handful of pics there now including the 1464W Anniversary Set.

I'm working on the layout roster and track plan and should have them loaded in the next couple weeks.

I'll be posting videos on You Tube soon so be sure to check there for some live action around the Junction.

1946 Steam arrives

2007-12-03T17:43:00.000-05:00

I finally picked up a 221 steam engine built in 1946. For some reason I just like this engine. It has a light and whistle but no smoke unit. It runs well and will probably see duty under the Christmas tree this year. I've wanted one for quite a while and happened to run across this one at the right time.

Not quite the caliber of the last steam engine we bought but pretty cool none the less.

Folloween Open - 1600 Finally!

2007-11-14T18:03:00.000-05:00

A group (9!) of us from the Cola Chess club invaded Charleston this past weekend for the Folloween Open. Pretty cool name! The club performed well with five of us posting 2 points or better but we weren't able to take the top spot in either section. My two wins were good enough to get me over 1600 (class B) for the first time (about time!) The Charleston club did a good job hosting this tournament and it looks like there may be a match between the clubs in the future. The crosstable is HERE.

I'll be taking a break from the weekend tournaments until Feb. Time to play with trains!

A quick trip around the Junction

2007-11-11T16:18:00.001-05:00

I started playing with the video camera again and here's a test run around the Junction. I plan to do quite a few updates to the website between now and Christmas so be sure to check back.

Greensboro - Trains & Chess

2007-11-11T14:41:00.001-05:00

I went up to Greensboro for the NC Open last weekend. Friday I was able to visit my uncle and get a couple pictures of some new items on his layout. He picked up a good looking Sunoco Oil Refinery last April.

This October he ran across the animated scrap yard with workers taking a F unit apart.

I took a few other pictures and I should have them uploaded on the website shortly.

The Chess tournament went ok as I played up one section and scored 1.5 out of 4.

SC Champs & Kopec

2007-10-29T19:31:00.000-04:00

We had a four day weekend of Chess here in Columbia. It started with IM Dr. Danny Kopec giving a leture to the club on Thursday evening. We had a great turnout with almost 30 people attending. Danny talked for a good two hours and was entertaining as he covered a little bit for everyone. I was fortunate enough to get to talk with him for about an hour afterwards. He's a very interesting and engaging person. I look forward to seeing him again.

The State Champs was held over the weekend and we had the largest turnout in years! The Cola Club made a strong showing with 14 members playing. Daniel Dodds won the U1400 section with a 4-1 score. His only loss was to Ebbie who finished second in the section on tie breakers. In addition to the club taking the top two spots we had six of the top eight in the U1400 section out of a total of 15 players. The new players are improving fast!

I stepped up and played in the Open Section for the first time. I was happy with the way I played in three of the four games. It was good experience for me and even though I only scored .5 point out of 4 my rating barely changed since they were so much stronger than me! Off to Greensboro for the NC Open this weekend.

More of the same....kinda

2007-10-24T20:26:00.000-04:00

We picked up another 6464-275 State of Maine.

This one is different from the other two in that it is on a blue mold. I'll have to get a pick of the four State of Maine boxcars soon.

Yes, another 3530 GM Generator Car! No, it's not like the other two. This is the short stripe version and it has the black tank underneath.

As if it isn't hard enough to decide what to buy you have to decide which of what to buy??!

The 2321 Lackawanna rolls into the Junction

2007-10-22T22:24:00.000-04:00

The 2321 Maroon Roof Lackawanna has arrived at the junction. This engine brings the number of FM's housed here to five. The set should be completed soon since we're only missing a couple cars.

A couple Virginian FM sets

2007-10-05T21:20:00.000-04:00

Here's a couple sets that were assembled over the summer.

The first one is set 2251W from 1955. The 2331 Black Virginian pulls a train made up of the 6464-275 Solid Door State of Maine, 3562-50 Yellow Barrell car, 6414 Evans Auto Loader, 3359 Twin Bin Dump car and the 6417 Bay Window Caboose. This set originally retailed for $69.50.

This set is the 2519W from 1958. This is an impressive set with six cars pulled by the big blue 2331 Virginian FM. The cars are the 6434 Poultry car, 3530 GM Generator car, 6801 Flatcar with Boat, 6414 Evans Auto Loader, 6464-275 Striped Door State of Maine boxcar and the 6557 SP style smoking caboose bringing up the rear. This set originally retailed for $79.95.

Columbia Meet

2007-09-24T19:49:00.001-04:00

The Columbia meet was slightly better than the Norcross, still a dud. We did manage to pick up a 6520 Searchlight Car. This one is much nicer than the one we have. Since I won't be heading up to York next month my next meet will be the Raleigh Christmas meet. I've been up to Raleigh twice and they've both been very good meets. I hope that trend continues.

A pretty cool blast from the past! When we got rid of most of the trains years ago my uncle wound up with some of dad's custom work. Since Lionel didn't have a Camelback 25 years ago he made his own out of a 1666. The 774 visited the shop at the junction recently for some service and is now heading back north to start pulling passenger service in North Carolina.

Norcross Meet

2007-09-18T19:35:00.000-04:00

"Welcome to the place where we used to have train meets!" That was the greeting we got from a friend of ours when we arrived and it pretty much summed it up. We hadn't been over to Norcross in quite a few years but it had always been a good meet and we usually found plenty to buy. This time was different as all we wound up with was a chance to upgrade the recently purchased 3530. Using parts from both cars Dad was able to put together a full excellent one in good working condition.

Dad did win a door prize in the form of this good looking K-Line MKT TCA Convention Car.

We also picked up a bunch (10) automobiles for the layout. With the increased traffic we may have to put up the first traffic light!

The next meet is this weekend here in Columbia. I'm skipping York next month so the next meet I plan to attend will be the Christmas meet in Raleigh.

"NEW" Rolling Stock hits the Junction

2007-09-02T20:12:00.000-04:00

August was a busy month for recently retired purchasing department at the Junction. This is a 6446 numbered 546446. I ran across this car by accident and just like the way it looks. It doesn't go in any sets I'm putting together but it falls into the category "Buy what you like!"

No, you're not seeing double. This is a 6446-25. Same car, different number. The first one is from 54-55 and this one is from 55-57. They also come in Black, but I like the gray better.

Starting to put the sets together for recently aquired Virginians . This is the 6464-275 Solid Door State of Maine. We already had the Striped Door Car so this one keeps everything in balance! The Black & Blue Virginians, the underscored and no underscored 6517's, the two gray hoppers above. Like most things, trains should come in pairs.

Continuing to build on the sets what better place to take your favorite pair than out on the boat?! This is the 6801 Boat Car. There's several variations of this car and the pricey 6416 Boat Loader car. Oddly enough, this is our first Boat Car??!

The 3530 GM Generator car is one I've wanted for a long time. It's a pretty cool car with the extension searchlight that plugs into the roof and a fan that "cools" the generator inside the car.

What better way to end of the Aug purchases that with a caboose? This is the 6417-50 Lehigh Valley. Keeping with Lionel consistency the car is numbered 641751. This gets us closer to finishing off some sets.

With all the purchases made over the summer I'm going to skip York this Oct. We are heading over to Norcross, GA this Saturday for a Train Meet so maybe we'll find few of the pieces we need to finish off these sets.

Fall is here and I plan to start working on the train part of my website again. Dad's been working on the layout and most of it should be done in time for the Holidays. I should have newer pics uploaded soon. As soon as I get around to buying a new video camera I'll get the Videos Page updated.

......stay tuned

Chess and more Chess

2007-08-27T21:28:00.000-04:00

The Columbia Chess Club held the Shoney's Quick I on Aug 23. Twelve players were divided into three quads. Each Quad winner received $40.

Membership has grown to 43!

The club gets back to a regular schedule with Round 1 of Shoney's III on Thursday, Aug 30.

Two days later on Aug 25 the club hosted 35 players at the Gamecock Open V. This was the largest GO to date with 24 players in the Open section and 11 in the Scholastic. Erik Walker was able to go 4-0 and claim the $100 prize. A total of $285 was paid out in prize money. This was my first Sat tournament as TD and it went surprisingly well. I was fortunate to have a couple very experienced TD's help me run it.

GO VI is scheduled for Oct 13.

The future is coming fast!

2007-08-16T23:37:00.000-04:00

Here are two of my students, Erik 8 and Marty 10. The shirt says it all! Marty went a perfect 5-0 in the just completed Shoney's II tournament to win the Scholastic section. With this result he gained over 200 rating points! Erik is not far behind as he is able to hold his own and beat his older brother from time to time. Tonight was casual night at Columbia Chess Club and the two spent part of the evening giving a few of the adult players a hard time. These two will be double trouble in the near future!

Cabeese

2007-08-07T21:01:00.001-04:00

Or just a couple cabooses. We finally got around to upgrading our 6557 Smoking Caboose. Seems many years ago some kid dropped our original one and cracked the shell. The time seemed right to upgrade since it can be used in a set with one of the recently aquired 2331's . An underscored 6517 has also arrived at the junction. We already had the other version and decided to get this one also. If I'd have thought the boats could turn into all these trains I'd have sold them ten years ago!

151 Semaphore added to the Station

2007-07-22T22:53:00.000-04:00

Dad slightly modified a 151 Postwar Semaphore signal and added it the Station. Without the base it works really well in this setting.

I'll get some overhead shots and post them since a lot of work has been done since the old pics were uploaded.

Traffic has been picking up on the streets of the town and I'll get some shots of the cars uploaded soon.

Here's a night scene. Maybe the black GG1 with the Madison cars wasn't the best choice in this spot??!

Columbia Chess still growing

2007-07-22T19:00:00.001-04:00

The Columbia Chess Club continues to grow! Shoney's I had a total of 24 players and Shoney's II has had 22 players compete in the first two rounds. Club membership has grown to 35 and we now have a place to meet on Saturday afternoons. Cola Chess East has started playing at Woodland Park on Sat afternoons from 1-5. Directions can be found on the club website. The Gamecock Open returns on Aug 25 and will be held in West Columbia. Things are really rolling along! And I keep hearing this is the slow period??

New engines are delivered to the Junction

2007-07-09T23:01:00.001-04:00

Thanks to the sales of the boats we were able to pick up a couple nice 2331 Virginian Fairbanks Morse engines. Luckily we were able to get both from the same owner who had them in his collection for a number of years. Both are in excellent shape. These engines are great runners with quite a bit of pulling power. The one on the left is the blue and the black is on the right.

Our Big Three. 2341 Jersey Central, 2331 Black Virginian and 2331 Blue Virginian.

Irene's Diner Coming Soon!

2007-07-09T21:13:00.000-04:00

Irene's Diner arrived at the Junction and will be located near the main station. This building was made by Lionel in 2006 and is really nice with sharp lighting and detailed interior.

Rural Station takes its place on the layout

2007-07-09T20:38:00.000-04:00

This corner with the station has finally been finished. There isn't a whole lot left to do on this end and maybe this part will be done by labor day. Here's a few more pics of this end.

Time to start buying people!

Another section on the Layout almost complete

2007-07-05T22:56:00.000-04:00

This station is in a front corner on the layout. Dad made the lamp posts and they light up the station nicely. It should be in place this weekend and I'll post some pics of it on the layout.

Shoney's I concludes - Cola Chess Club growing FAST!!

2007-06-29T16:32:00.000-04:00

Shoney's I was a success! We had 17 players participate in the Adult section and 8 players in the Scholastic section. The first round had four players in the Adult section but this number grew each week until the fifth and final round had 12 players participate!

Shoney's II will begin on July 12.

We will meet on July 5 for casual play and some much needed tournament procedure training. In seven short weeks the club has grown to 29 members!! Most of these members are new to tournament/rated games. Naturally these players are eager to compete and are improving rapidly. The new club looks to become a force in SC Chess in the very near future!

Cool Train Site featuring Postwar

2007-06-19T10:36:00.000-04:00

Frank, a frequent poster on the Model Train Journal forums, has built a really nice website, LionelLines.net . Frank is totally Postwar when it comes to his trains and his site centers around the trains from that era. He began building a layout back in November and documented it's progress on the Train Journal forum. I can really appreciate the amount of time he's spent building a layout, posting progress on the forum and now building a website to show off his work. Be sure to check out his site!

I'll be posting some updates to my site soon as new pictures are needed with the new scenery in place and a couple new engines expected to be delivered in the next couple weeks.

SC Open

2007-06-18T19:11:00.000-04:00

The SC Open didn't go so well for me and I was a bit pissy after dropping my first two games. The actual tournament on the other hand was GREAT! The Greenville Chess Club led by Bob Jones and Mickey Lauria did a fantastic job running the tournament. The main hotel was perfect and the tournament hall was good to play in. Needless to say I was very happy with everything except the way I played. The Cola Chess Club did well with David Grimaud taking clear first in the U1800 section and Daniel Dodds tying for first in the U1400 section.

About my weekend. I had a nice position out of the opening and managed to stick my opponent with an isolated pawn. Unfortunately I went brain dead and not only made a bad move but I went ahead and followed it up with a worse one to throw the game away. The second game was a disaster as I tried to make up for the first loss by playing too quickly and carelessly and my opponent finished me off rather quickly. At this time I'm thinking I should have done myself (and Laurie!) a favor and gone to the train show in Charlotte! The third round Sat night game found me matched with someone else who was having a bad weekend. We both played conservatively and the game was a pretty quiet draw. Not the way I expected this to go at all. Sunday morning I was in a better frame of mind and more focused. The fourth round game isn't exactly a thing of beauty but I managed to win it. At least now if I can win my last game I'll have an even score for the weekend. The last game was a slow, positional marathon that took forever. I managed to grind out the win after 64 moves and around 4 hours, but I still missed a key move. Maybe after I get done sulking I'll post a few of the games but for now my attention is turning to trains and the chess club!

Ftacnik Simul & Shoney's I Rd 3

2007-06-15T08:36:00.000-04:00

Wow! What a difference five weeks makes! It's been less than two months since we first met at Shoney's and here's where we're at:

The simul given by GM Lubomir Ftacnik was a big success with Lubo taking on 28 players and playing 29 games! He went 26-1-2 in these games with Edsel Pena and Russell Thurmond scoring draws and 15 year old Daniel Dodds handing the GM his first loss in SC! There was a good crowd all night and Dutch Square let us play until well after 9:00 and finish all the games. A big thanks to David Grimaud, Precision Tune Auto Care, Dutch Square Center and GM Ftacnik for promoting chess in South Carolina!! Lubo's presence helped us get coverage by WIS TV, the State newspaper and even Susan Polgar posted three entries on her blog!

We had our largest number of players show up at Shoney's last night for round 3 as four players competed in the Scholastic section, eight players in the Adult section and another nine played casually for a total of 21 players! Club membership is at 20 right now and rising every week. Over 40 different players have come out since our first night. It looks like chess is finally active again in the Midlands!

It's up to Greenville for the SC Open this weekend and the state's most active week of chess will come to a close. If I have an internet connection I'll be blogging from the tournament.

An evening with GM Fatcnik to start Chess Week

2007-06-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

David Grimaud has generously brought GM Ftacnik back this year to help promote chess in South Carolina. Edsel Pena and his wife Marge hosted a dinner party for Lubomir and invited a handful of area chessplayers and their wives. It was the first time we've gotten together away from a tournament and it was nice to get to know each other a little better and have fun telling war stories. The wives even got into it telling some very funny "Chess Widow" stories. Of course the stories were funnier when you weren't the subject of the story! Laurie and I had a very enjoyable evening and we were able to see some friends we haven't seen in a long time. The Chess Week continues with Lubo giving a Simul at Dutch Square Mall on Tuesday evening, a Simul and Lecture at the Charleston Chess Club on Wednesday and the another Simul and Lecture at the Greenville Chess Club on Thurs. The week concludes with the SC Open in Greenville this weekend starting Friday, June 15.

Club growing - Shoney's I Continues

2007-06-08T09:36:00.000-04:00

Club membership is at 15 right now and we've had over 30 different people visit Shoney's in the past month. The majority of players are new to rated play and it looks like this area was more than ready for regular play to begin!

The Simul with GM Ftacnik will be this Tuesday, June 12 at Dutch Square Mall starting at 6:00. GM Ftacnik will be interviewed for a few minutes by Hannah Horne on WIS Tuesday during the Midday show between 12 & 12:30. Eleven players have signed up already and it looks like we should fill the 25 available seats.

In Shoney's I Daniel Dodds leads the Adult section after two rounds with 2 points. Jared Ott leads the scholastic with 2 points. Ten players competed in Round 2. Round three will be June 14 then a handful of us are off to Greenville to play in the SC Open on June 15-17.

The boats leave Lexington

2007-06-03T22:32:00.000-04:00

The official end of RC Boat racing for us. Most of the boats have been sold. One very timely and lucky person came to Lexington and left with seven of our Sightler hulls. These boats won over 50 trophies and several District Championships when that meant something more than just entering a race. We hated to get to rid of them but racing just isn't what it used to be as evidenced by our recent performance. The last four races we competed in we ran a total of 13 classes. We took home 11 trophies and two district championships. The two times we didn't trophy we finished 4th. The sad part was the boats were not even running up to our standards and we were "winning". We were winning with boats that weren't running right by our standards, where was the challenge to make them better? Strange as it seems, a 20+ year old hull design has passed RC Boating by. The Halliday era of the Sightler has come to a close. We wish the next era the success and enjoyment we had and that the successful Sightler legacy continues.

Shoney's I Begins

2007-06-02T14:00:00.001-04:00

Shoney's I is underway! We had eight players in two sections for round 1. Right now it's the new players getting in on the action as 5 of the players are Unrated and two of the others are still provisionally rated. Club membership is at 12 with 9 of the members Unrated or provisionally rated. If the veteran players would get as active as our new players we might really have something here! Round 2 will be June 7 starting at 7:00. See the Columbia Chess Club's website for more information.

Progress on the town

2007-05-30T19:23:00.000-04:00

Dad's making steady progress on the scenery. The block with the gas station, fire house and row house is just about done. The only thing left is to light them up. Construction will move closer to the station area next.

We also became a little more modern with the arrival of Command Control to the Junction. I've never been a big fan of it but after really using it for the first time it's alright. I still prefer the old fashioned way, but this does bring another enjoyable element to the layout. The engine sounds are really expanded. I also discovered that the Jersey Central Camelback is CC in addition to the newly aquired SP Daylight. Selling of the boat stuff let us clear out some room under the board and we found two more buildings we forgot we had. Now we just have to find a place for them!

Columbia Chess Club formed

2007-05-25T17:54:00.000-04:00

We've had good response to the new club in town. The first meeting had 5 Scholastic players and 8 Adults, the second had 1 Scholastic and 7 Adults and the third meeting this past Thursday evening had 5 Scholastic and 9 Adults. In all, 22 different players have visited Shoney's in the past three weeks. Next week, May 31 will be round 1 of Shoney's 1, our first rated tournament. The website should be up soon at www.columbiachess.com . We're looking forward to an active summer for chess!

Columbia Chess Club

2007-05-16T09:01:00.000-04:00

We had 7 adults and 1 scholastic player make it out to Shoney's this week. We've decided to become an USCF affiliate as the Columbia Chess Club and will begin rated games on May 31. We've moved our meeting day to Thursday nights from 7-10 because of a scheduling problem with Tuesdays. The format of the rated games is still undetermined but it will probably be 1 G75 or G90 a week as a five round tournament like Charlotte does on Wednesday nights. We may also offer rated G30 to the scholastic players. We will decide the details next week on Thurs. May 24.

David Grimaud and I went by Dutch Square Mall today and they are willing to allow us to have the GM Ftacnik simul in the mall. The tentative date is Tuesday, June 12 from 6-9. I'll post the details when it's finalized. Precision Tune Auto Care is sponsoring the simuls which will also be held in Charleston and Greenville leading up to the SC Open June 15-17.

Another section of Scenery almost done

2007-05-09T23:22:00.000-04:00

Another block of scenery is almost ready for the layout. This section will have the gas station, fire station and a house. Dad's moving right along with town area and the scenery may actually be done this year.

Good start for Chess in Columbia!

2007-05-08T23:13:00.000-04:00

The new chess location got off to a good start! We had 5 scholastic players and 8 adult players make it out to our first Tuesday evening meeting. A nice surprise this evening was Alex Guetchkov (2231) who was one of the first to arrive and last to leave. Alex was kind enough to play anyone who wanted to challenge him. Although most of us were rated 600 points or more under him Edsel Pena (2054) and Patrick Harley (1927) showed up to give him more of a fight. This was good turnout considering most of the Columbia area's regulars didn't make it out tonight. Let's see if attendance holds for next week.

I did make it up to Reverse Angle 3 in Charlotte this past weekend. The turnout was about the same in numbers but the strength in my section was lacking. My first two games were against players rated considerably lower than me. I was lucky to escape with a draw in my first game when I ran into time trouble, exchanged down to where my opponent had to mate me with a Knight and Bishop and wound up stalemating me to let me get the draw. My final game was interesting. I felt I should have won it but my opponent played better than me and fought back to get the draw. Drew one I should have lost, Drew one I should have won. I guess it balanced out. I'll post the game in the next couple days.

New place to play chess in the Midlands

2007-05-04T09:18:00.000-04:00

After a year and half of discussing it, SC Chess Vice President David Grimaud and myself have decided to find a firm place to meet and play chess once a week. We stumbled across the Shoney's on Harbison Blvd. The manager is very friendly and welcomed us to use his back room on Tuesday nights from 7-10. He even expressed interest in learning how to play! The back room is a good playing site with doors that separate it from the dining area, it's own thermostat and a volume control for the music. This site should work out very well. We'll start off with just casual play. Just show up anytime between 7 & 10 and play, no membership required. If we get enough participation we may start having rated games or tournaments down the road. There is also a thread on the SC Chess message board. The first night we'll be meeting there is Tuesday, May 8.

Southern Pacific Daylight Service comes to the Junction

2007-04-29T22:39:00.000-04:00

The Daylight has begun mainline passenger service at the Junction. The Lionel GS2 pulling five Williams Madison style cars will now be running on track 1. The Daylight will join the N&W Cavalier (service since 2001) and the CNJ Passenger (since 2000) on regular passenger service.

This change sends the 2020 Turbine to the roundhouse and takes the Lionel Lines 2400 series out of service.

Upcoming Tournaments

2007-04-28T14:46:00.000-04:00

With York behind me my attention will turn to the upcoming tournaments I plan to play in. Next up is the Reverse Angle 3 May 5 in Charlotte. I hope to build off my good result at the previous Reverse Angle. After that I'll play in a couple weekend tournaments. The SC Open is June 15-17 in Greenville. My second place tie in the U1600 last year helped get me back on the right track after losing over 100 points in the six months leading up to this tournament. The LPO on August 10-12 in High Point, NC will be up next. I played in my first LPO in 2001 and have enjoyed the tournament ever since even though I've had mixed results.

I'm still playing on Gameknot which seems to be helping, mostly with openings. My handle there is bhalliday . Send me a challenge if you'd like to play.

Update to an earlier blog posting from my first tournament of the year. I mentioned my 3rd round opponent Dominique Myers who gave me fit despite being rated 400 points below me. He's has continued to play and improve rapidly tying for first at the National High School Championships in U1200. This performance together with other strong results, including beating a player rated 1775 last Wed night at Wendy's , has boosted his rating over 400 points since I played him to 1461 . This kid is hot right now!

Only six months until York!

2007-04-25T23:32:00.000-04:00

Another York has come and gone and the next countdown has started. No luck finding the few engines I was looking for. I had a tough time finding pieces in the condition I wanted but the prices looked to be good all over the fairgrounds. I made some progress with the sets I'm assembling. It'll be interesting to see if it's a buyers market again in October.

If you're looking to get into trains you can jump right in with this auction . This is one of the very few people that took the time to list the collection, posted quite a few pictures and while he reccommends picking the collection up he will ship it at no charge! The down side is most of it is modern era which can be tough to get rid of even at rock bottom prices.

I will be adding some more pictures to the site of some of the sets we've assembled and I'll be adding some information and the track plan on the current layout.

York Friday

2007-04-20T21:59:00.000-04:00

As expected Friday picked up with more people in the halls. Most table holders seemed to have good days selling and prices were pretty good all over. I didn't have any luck locating the engines I was hunting for in the condition I wanted but did pick up some freight cars to complete a few sets and nice gang car.

I found a nice 6511 pipe car to go in the same set as the crane car from yesterday.

Also located a 6454 Southern Pacific Boxcar

Late in the day I stumbled across this nice 50 center horn gang car with the olive rotating man. It may be too nice to be slamming into the other two on the layout......nahhh, it's a toy!!

Tomorrow is the final day so there's still chance to locate one of the engines. Since it's a short day the window of opportunity will be narrow!

York Thurs

2007-04-19T22:27:00.000-04:00

The halls are open from 12-5:30 on Th and crowds are usually lighter so you can get through the halls at least once and some of them twice if you hustle. I picked up some scenery stuff for the layout today from Scenery Express . They've expanded their setup area in the Orange Hall and bring a lot of items so their selection is really good. Their sales people are friendly and helpful and are not pushy which is why I like dealing with them. I didn't have much luck finding trains I was looking for today but I did pick up a 6460-25 red painted cab crane car with most of a box. I did get by the Black Hall to see the Flower City Tinplate Trackers modular layout. If you get a chance to see this layout check it out. It is a really nice (and very big!) modular layout. Unfortunately the organizers don't allow photos at the meet so I couldn't take any pictures. Since tomorrow is the big day with the member halls open from 9-5:30 and the dealer halls open from 9-7:00 I expect to find most of what I'm looking . After the meet we went to our usual Th night dinner place, the Hofbrauhaus for some German food. Check back for more tomorrow night!

Hanging out in York

2007-04-18T22:24:00.000-04:00

Arrived early this afternoon. With the actual meet now starting on Th the outlaw meets have really fallen off in the middle of the week. The Fire Hall was full with American Flyer but the Holodome, Best Western and Arsenal Road were all packing up by the time we got here so, as usual, no purchases today. The plus side was more time to drink beer and hang out with old friends. As usual, talk turned to when we lived in TN and the legend of Fuzz continues. Gone for almost 20 years and he still brings you to tears from laughing!

On the way to York

2007-04-17T23:30:00.000-04:00

I made up to NC to ride the rest of the way with my uncle. He's made quite a bit of progress on his layout since I was up in February. All three lines are active now and with the trains running he's having the same problem we had, it's more fun to run them than work on stuff! Next stop, the "Outlaw Meets"..

York Week!

2007-04-17T08:37:00.000-04:00

York is finally here! I'll be heading north shortly. I may blog during my trip and post updated pics of my uncle's layout and items I see at York. Check back!

RC Boat Sell off continues

2007-04-15T19:38:00.000-04:00

We are still listing RC Boat Equipment Ebay .

We have been selling off OPS 60 parts, pipes and some carburetors. Keep checking my auctions as we will be listing stuff for weeks to come. There will be more OPS 60 parts, some 90 parts, engines, radio equipment, a few boats and more! All posted items will be sold! While I will not stop any auctions, let me know what you are looking for I will sell it before it is listed.

Reverse Angle 2

2007-04-08T21:18:00.000-04:00

I went up to Charlotte for my second tournament of the year. Gary Newsom did a fine job with his new tournament series, Reverse Angle. The playing room is well lit, quiet and has plenty of space. Food is close by also which is an added plus. I really like the G90 time control.

I played well scoring 1.5 out of 3. This was one of the rare tournaments I was able to play three opponents that were rated higher than me. This allowed me to raise my rating to 1585, a new high for me. My first round game was an eventless draw when neither of us really generated any excitement in a King's Indian Samisch. The second round I had black for the second time in a row and after my opponent played e4 I decided to play the Najdorf Poisoned Pawn for the first time in an OTB game which instantly made this game much more exciting than the first round contest. I got lucky since my opponent hadn't faced this in a long time and used a lot of his clock causing some time trouble for him. This game can be seen here. My final round game was a disaster when I went brain dead and hung a Knight in the opening. My opponent was rated 200+ points higher than me and had no problem securing the point. With the exception of the final game I was pleased with the way I played should be able to continue improving. I'll be heading back to Charlotte for Reverse Angle 3 in May.

Selling off some Radio Control Boat Equipment

2007-04-03T09:14:00.000-04:00

We've started selling off some of our RC Boat equipment. We will be listing stuff over the next few months. There will be a little bit of everything, engines, engine parts, radios, servos, hulls, pipes, etc.... Most will be offered with no reserve. Current items for sale can be found here . Be sure to bookmark the link and check back as we will be listing items for the next few months.

Scenery in the town has started

2007-04-01T20:16:00.000-04:00

Scenery in the town section is underway. The center part inside the trolley line has been done. The side of the street with the gas station and fire dept will be done next and after that this area should start really taking shape.