In February, a Pittsburgh Chess Club based team played in the US Amateur Team East in Parsippany, New Jersey. The players were Alex Shabalov, Erick Zhao, Jason Liu, and Benjamin Lin. Zachary Thompson was planning to play, but had to cancel at the last minute. The team’s name was “New Year, New Missed-takes”.
This team tournament was (as always) huge: 254 teams, 1071 players. It’s six rounds, and two teams finished tied for first with 5 1/2. Those two teams were ICN and “CKQ – Rafa21”. New Year finished with 5, in a tie for 3rd through 16th places. Crosstables can be found at this link: USATE 2022 | New Jersey (njscf.org).
There is an unusual restriction on eligibility — a team’s average rating must be less than 2200. Five points is a good score for a team with only two players rated higher than class A. Benjamin had an outstanding score of 5 (4 wins and 2 draws), while Jason came in for some intense suffering. The team was the top Pennsylvania team.