On the weekend of February 13-15, 14 players ventured to Parsippany, New Jersey to take part in the annual United States Amateur Team East Championship. This tournament is unique in format as it pairs teams composed of 4 players each, and the scores of each of the members determines whether the team wins, loses, or draws a particular round (for example, if you lose, but your 3 other teamates win, your team still wins the round 3-1). Players of all ages and skill levels competed. The top Harvard team, composed of Jacob Chudnovsky '01, Woody McClelland '00, Jon Wolff '01, and Charles Riordan '01 took second college with a team score of 4.5/6. There was some disappointment, as this team missed out on a chance to win the entire tournament by losing in the final round, allowing MIT to sneak ahead of us with a score of 5/6.
Many Harvard players got to play either for the first time in a tournament, or for the first time in a long time. The other Harvard-based teams (Team 2: Jason Rihel GSAS, Lu Yin '02, Raphael Maiopolous '99, Kelvin Liao '01; Team 3: Bruk Endale '01, Zong Da Chen '01, Paul Greer '01, and David Purdy '99; Team 4: Daniel Jepson '02, Chris Miller '01, and 2 floaters) performed respectably, and a good time was had by all (for the most part ;)).
My sincere thanks goes to everyone who played, most particularly to:
We look forward to going back and doing even better in 2000! Games and analysis from the event may be forthcoming.
An article about this story appeared in the 2/22/99 issue of the Harvard Crimson. The link to it will be up when they get their website back in order.