I looked today at the entries registered for the 2018 US Amateur Team events. I could not find the listing for entries in the USATE, but the other 3 events had a listing of the team names. I will say that in my opinion from what I saw in the advance entries list that 2018 may be the worse year for team names ever. Nothing in any of the 3 sites I visited sticks out to me as a really good to great name. I will be interested to see the eventual articles about all 4 events, as team names are added or changed at the beginning of the event. I hope the new/changed names are more inventive that what I have seen so far. I guess I will just have to wait and see. I have a few ideas for team names, but I am not the person to decide on the name of the team I am playing on. Maybe I will give one of my ideas to the industrial chess league team I usually play. Really good semi-original team names appear to be harder and harder for teams to develop. I will just have to wait and see until next weekend.
Larry S. Cohen
member of Half Past Dead [I had suggested for our all Senior team the name "No Gambit for Old Men]
The names of many teams are salacious enough to make a sailor and every chess mom who sends kids to the USATE blush. One would expect there will be many topical team names based on recent events, if you can keep up with the latest execrable word or deed done on the political scene today. Does the USATE reject a team name for its edging the line of obscenity or “decorum”?
I went to the USATE the year after Bobby Fischer had died. There were a number of team names having to do with Fischer, but the one I laughed at was, “Digging for Bobby Fischer”.
However, it didn’t even make the finals of the team name competition. There was a committee to select good team names, and then there was a yell-the-loudest vote on which of the selected ones was best. I groused that I hadn’t had a chance to yell for my favorite name, but one of my teammates pointed out, “names that are in bad taste just don’t make it past the committee.”
