1) Mechanic's Institute Chess Club News

NMs Sam Shankland, Daniel Naroditsky and Andy Lee and Expert Victor Ossipov are tied for first in the Spring Tuesday Night Marathon with 5 from 6 with two rounds to go. IM John Grefe is among those at 4.5.

Shankland,Sam - Grefe,John [B17]

Spring TNM (6) 2008

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5 Ndf6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Ne2 h6 8.Nf3 Bd6 9.0-0 Qc7 10.Ng3 Ne7 11.Qe2 b6 12.Ne5 c5 13.Bb5+ Kf8 14.Nc4 Bb7 15.Nxd6 Qxd6 16.dxc5 Qxc5 17.Bd3 h5 18.Bd2 Rd8 19.Rad1 a5 20.Ne4 Qc6 21.f3 Qc7 22.Nxf6 gxf6 23.Be4 Kg7 24.Bc3 Nd5 25.Bxd5 Rxd5 26.Rxd5 Bxd5 27.Qe3 Rh6 28.Qg5+ Rg6 29.Bxf6+ Kf8 30.Qe5 Qxe5 31.Bxe5 Rg5 32.Bf4 Rf5 33.Bc7 Bxa2 34.Ra1 1-0

Book and equipment donations to the Mechanics' are always welcome. All donations to the Mechanics' are tax deductible due to the M.I.'s 501(c) (3) nonprofit status. If you have any chess books or equipment that have been lying around unused for some time consider donating to the Mechanics'. You will not only get a tax write off but also the satisfaction of seeing things put to good use.

The Mechanics Institute will be holding two chess camps this summer. Anthony Corrales will teach the beginner/ intermediate session from July 14-18 with IM (2 GM norms) Josh Friedel is in charge of the advanced camp from July 21-25. Visit www.chessclub.org  for more information.

Youngest USCF master Nicholas Nip, now 10 years old, flew to the Big Apple over the weekend to appear on Monday morning's talk show Live with Regis and Kathy . In front of the cameras, he played a ten board simul against experienced adult players from the New York area, scoring nine wins and one draw. Afterwards, Nicholas answered a few questions from Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa, ranging from what age he learned chess (five years old) to whether the TV hosts are too old to play chess (no) to whether he has any girlfriends (no).

Thanks to Barbara DeMaro of the US Chess Trust for arranging this appearance on national TV. Although Nicholas appeared a little bit shy in front of the cameras, this was his first giant step to fulfilling a career goal of becoming a rock star.

If you go to Michael's blog at http://fpawn.blogspot.com/  you will find a video of the event.

Andrew Brown would stand out in a crowd no matter what: He's 6-foot-8 and brawny. Throw in the outsized personality, and that's one big force field of fun in the Oakland clubhouse.

Brown, a right-handed reliever who has yet to allow an earned run this season, is the A's most talkative player since Nick Swisher was traded, and Brown loves the spotlight nearly as much as Swisher did. If there's a microphone around, Brown's belting out songs. If someone else has the microphone, he's dancing, instead. And it's tough to avoid noticing the giant dancing man even if he's not the lead singer during a round of Rock Band.

"There's never a dull moment, I'll tell you that," said left-handed reliever Lenny DiNardo, who roomed with Brown this spring. "He's an interesting cat, that guy. He's not shy at all. He's on, 24 hours a day. There's no off switch - that got broken a long time ago.

"And he loves the microphone - he transforms into Barry Manilow on the Las Vegas strip."

Even when playing chess, Brown is noisy. He somehow manages to trash-talk while matching wits daily with closer Huston Street.

"Huston takes so long, you get mentally drained," Brown said. "You start shouting to the chess gods, 'Why is he taking so long?' We had a timer, but Huston doesn't follow the rules, he'd just ignore it."

"I might have been slower when we first started playing, but Andrew has abandoned the most games," Street countered. "I had his queen forked last night and he said, 'Oh, I've got to get home, my wife is pregnant.' "

Their chess-playing has attracted so much notice that one teammate - they're not sure who, but they have a guess - has begun hiding pieces, which then are discovered in odd places. The kings remain missing, so they're playing with Eric Chavez Bobbleheads. "Chavvy does have six Gold Gloves," Brown explained. "That's good enough to be king."

Brown learned to play chess from former Stanford player Jeremy Guthrie while they were teammates with the Indians' Double-A Akron club. Brown is such a fan of the game, he's thrilled that boys under-12 world champion Daniel Naroditsky of San Mateo is throwing out the first pitch Wednesday night. Brown will catch the first pitch, and he and Street are hoping to play Naroditsky before the game.

"I think he'll beat us in about two minutes, but I'm actually pretty excited," Brown said

The entire article can be found at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/22/SPFD10974I.DTL&type=printable .

5)  David Vigorito Qualifies for US Championship b y John Henderson

World Chess Live - April 20, 2008 - The United States Chess Federation and World Chess Live are pleased to announce that, after a close competition, IM David Vigorito, representing Massachusetts, has won the fourth U.S. State Champion of Champions event and will now go forward to the 2008 Frank K. Berry U.S. Chess Championship, 13-21 May, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 
 
Fifty state champions from Alaska through California to Hawaii, and from Maine through to New York and Florida battled their way through the Eastern and Western Conferences held on WCL (www.worldchesslive.com, the new sister-site of the Internet Chess Club), with the top four contesting the Finals. 
 
The four who battled their way through the Blitz Conference qualifiers to the Finals Weekend were: Western Conference: IM Vinay Bhat (Northern California) and IM Enrico Sevillano (Southern California). Eastern Conference: IM David Vigorito (Massachusetts) and IM-elect Ray Robson (Florida). 
 
In the semifinals, both Vigoreto and Sevillano scored convincing 2-0 wins, respectively, against Robson and Bhat to set-up the final match-up of Southern California versus Massachusetts. And in that final, it was David Vigorito, 36, from Andover, MA, who snatched the final U.S. Chess Championship qualifying spot by taking the title 1.5-0.5. 
 
“It’s [The U.S. State Champion of Champions event] tough and demanding, yet at the same time innovative by being played online,” commented David Vigorito after winning the title. “It was nice to be able to go to Tulsa having won through -- and doubly so by representing my home-state of Massachusetts.” 
 
This unique event demonstrates that online chess and over-the-board chess can indeed 
be a perfect mix - even for one of the world’s most famous national championships. 
First, each player in the tournament had to prove themselves OTB by winning (or 
scoring highly in) their relevant state championship to be invited, then they had to play 
online on WCL (both in an all-play-all Blitz for the conference qualifiers, and then 
the G\60 knockout finals, with independent proctors officiating at each venue to ensure fairness throughout), with the winner going forward to the U.S. Chess Championship. 

6) Here and There

Two Columbia journalism graduate students have put together an interactive Web site looking at the history of chess in New York City. It has interviews with a number of prominent city players, including Hikaru Nakamura, Maurice Ashley and Joshua Waitzkin. There are also interviews with children and chess teachers, and a timeline of events with some archival photographs. A good deal of the historical material is about Bobby Fischer who grew up in Brooklyn. The students, Radha Vij and Jennie Cohen, are not chess players but became immersed in the culture as they worked on the project.

http://web.jrn.columbia.edu/newmedia/2008/masters/chess/

NM Robert Haines, who coached IM David Pruess for many years before moving from the Bay Area to Albuquerque several years ago,  had a great success as his kids swept the New Mexico Scholastic championships this year, They placed first and second in the K-6, tied for first in the K-9,  tied for first in the K-12 open, and took clear first in the K-12 Booster. John Flores also won the Denker playoff.

16-year-old Alisa Melekhina of Philadelphia is turning in an outstanding performance in the 10th North American FIDE Invitational in Chicago.

Standings after five rounds
1-3: WFM Melekhina, FM Pasalic and IM Young-4/5
4: FM Shankar-3/5

5: IM Amanov- 2/5
6:FM Stamnov
7-9: WFM Yuan, FM Chow and FM Monokroussos-1.5
10:IM Vishnuvardhan-1

John Blackstone writes:

McKee is from San Francisco and Hubbell is from Los
Angeles. This is a correspondence  game. I do not know when it
started - probably in 1900 as the tour is called 20th Century.


McKee,John D - Hubbell,SC [C67]
20th Century Tour USA, 1901


1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 Be7 6.Qe2
Nd6 7.Bxc6 dxc6 8.dxe5 Nf5 9.Rd1 Bd7 10.e6 fxe6 11.Ne5
Bd6 12.Qh5+ g6 13.Nxg6 Ng7 14.Qh6 Nf5 15.Qh3 Rg8
16.Qxh7 Rg7 17.Qh5 Qf6 18.Ne5+ Ke7 19.Ng4 Qg6 20.Qxg6
Rxg6 21.h3 Rag8 22.Nc3 e5 23.Ne2 e4 24.Bf4 Nh4
25.Bxd6+ cxd6 26.Nf4 Rg5 27.Ne3 Rf8 28.Ne2 Bxh3 29.Ng3
Bf5 30.Nexf5+ Nxf5 31.Nxe4 Rg4 32.Re1 Kd7 33.Rad1 Rg6
34.c4 Nh4 35.Ng3 c5 36.Re4 Nf5 37.Rf4 Ne3 38.fxe3 Rxf4
39.exf4 Rxg3 40.Kf2 Rg8 41.Re1 b5 42.cxb5 d5 43.Kf3 d4
44.b3 Rb8 45.g4 Rxb5 46.f5 Rb4 47.Re4 a5 48.f6 Rb6
49.g5 Re6 50.Rxe6 Kxe6 51.Ke4 1-0

Source: Brooklyn Daily Eagle 1901.10.13 p.32

International Arbiter Mike Goodall, who organized and directed the 41-player Frank Doyle Open in Santa Rosa this past weekend supplies the following results:

1. NM Richard Koepcke 3.5-.5 $250

2. Expert Armin Rappaport 3 $175

Reserve

1-5. Tom Boyd, Michael Lin, Owen Overton, Cezar Tamandong and David Trestor 3-1

Booster

1. Maral Bat-Amgalan 4-0

2-4. Stephen Lupton, John Wyatt and Glenn Young

NM Radu Roua won the 2nd Clark Harmon Memorial this weekend in Portland with 4.5 from 5. Tying for second at 4 were IM John Donaldson, FM Nick Raptis and Experts Michael Morris and Steven Breckenridge.