|
"There is, however, another side of acquiring chess experience which cannot be measured in ordinary units, and that is contact with stronger chessplayers, their living words, opinions and assessments."
Nikolai Krogius
1) Ricky Grijalva wins big in Las Vegas 2) Russell Wong leads Spring TNM 3) Jacob Lopez wins Berkeley Friday Night Marathon 4) Batsaikhan Tserendorj wins Wednesday Night Blitz 5) American GMs Abroad 6) Almira Skripchenko to visit Bay Area 7) Qualification for US Olympiad Team and Championship 8) Elliott Winslow Annotates 9) A New Discovery in Flohr-Fine, Hastings 1935, by John Grefe 10) Here and There 11) Chess Camps 12) Upcoming Events 1) Ricky Grijalva wins big in Las VegasR. Smith writes about another case of chessplayer makes good as pokerplayer. Former MI member Ricky Grijalva who had some good results in various chess tournaments a few years back finished 4th at the recently completed WPT tournament at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. This was the biggest money poker tournament ever (over 8 million dollars). Grijalva won $457,000. The entree fee to the event was $25,000, but Ricky got in by winning a satellite tournament. SM David Pruess, who went to high school with Ricky in Oakland adds: The tournament was 5 days. After 4 days Ricky had reached the final table along with 5 other players. A few of our mutual friends flew out there to watch the last day, which will be aired on television in a couple months. Ricky spends a lot of time in Vegas nowadays. 2) Russell Wong leads Spring TNMNM Russell Wong leads the Spring Tuesday Night Marathon with one round to go after drawing FM Frank Thornally in the eighth round. Wong has 6.5 and is trailed by a large group at 6 which includes Thornally, NM Egle Morkunaite and Experts Alex Setzepfandt, Larry Snyder, Peter Grey and Ariel Mazzarelli. The final round round will be played next Tuesday evening starting at 6:30 pm The Summer Marathon begins on June 1st. 3) Jacob Lopez wins Berkeley Friday Night MarathonHere are the final standings of the Berkeley Chess Club's marathon tournament courtesy of David Goldfarb ( goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu ) who is the new contact for the BCC while long time stalwart Alan Glascoe takes a well-served break. The Berkeley Chess Club meets Friday nights for rated chess at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Avenue, in Berkeley. Youth chess starts at 6:30pm and children must be picked up by 8:00. Adults must register by 7:45 and play at 8:00.
7 points (out of 8) Jacob Lopez (1971) 1st place Withdrew: Andy Lee (2241), David Karapetian (2029), Francisco Anchondo (1931), Elizabeth Shaughnessy (1500), Tony Cole (1407), Reggie Reynolds (Unr) 4) Batsaikhan Tserendorj wins Wednesday Night BlitzMongolian Master Batsaikhan Tserendorj of Ulan Bator easily won the latest edition of the weekly MI Wednesday Night Blitz, scoring 19-1 in the 11-player round robin. Yefim Bukh was second followed by David Ray and Igor Traub. 5) American GMs AbroadAmerican players have been turning in some excellent results overseas. Hikaru Nakamura won the Decameron Resort and Casino in the Dominican Republic in late April with 8 from 10 which coupled with other results should put him around 2600 FIDE. Former Candidate Jaan Ehlvest and German GM Thomas Luther shared second with 7.5. Among those tied for fourth was IM Eugene Perelshteyn who looks to have made a GM norm. I believe this is the final norm for the former Sanford scholar. Well-done Eugene. America's top-rated player, GM Alex Onischuk, scored an undefeated 5.5 from 8 to help his team, Norilsk Nikel, take second place in the recently concluded Russian Team Championship in Sochi. 6) Almira Skripchenko to visit Bay AreaThe 2004 Chess Olympiad is scheduled to be played in Spain this fall and it's not clear yet whether the US Chess Federation will be able to field representative teams due to financial pressures. That hasn't stopped a controversy from developing regarding the selection process for the US Women's Team. What follows is not addressed to that specific situation nor the US Men's team selection, but to point out the overall need to improve the process and some of the factors that need to be weighed. Some countries in Europe, for example England, have a selection committee that choses which players participate. The United States has normally used a rating formula to choose its teams, though there have been some exceptions such as in 1984 when the American Chess Foundation formed a committee to select the men's team. The formula for the US teams has been tweaked repeatedly the past decade. There have been different criteria for how quickly newcomers can become eligible to participate on the team, what sort of activity is required and what ratings (FIDE/USCF) are used to do the computations and how much each is weighted. Not so many years ago, American USCF ratings were adjusted to reflect changes in their FIDE rating. That has not been the case the past few years, partly because not too long ago FIDE was slow in issuing individual rating cards and also because the USCF lacked the man power to do the job. Today FIDE is quite efficient in getting the necessary information out, but USCF employees may have more than enough to keep them busy. Currently, as things stand, an American player could win the World Championship and not have it affect his or her USCF rating. It's also true that some very fast time controls (Game/30 for example) are rated at full K on the USCF system the same as a game played at 40/2; 20/1 followed by G/30. A minimum number of games have to be played in order to meet the activity requirement for the Championship and Olympiad, but there doesn't seem to be any minimum requirement for the opposition. It seems a GM could play the necessary games versus 1900 rated players and that would be sufficient. A fundamental question is whether the men's and women's US Champions should be seeded. Not too long ago Joel Benjamin won the US Championship, but then didn't play on the Olympic team as he was not rated high enough. I think Larry Christiansen is the only US Champion to ever be seeded on an American team. The decision to seed the winner of 2002 championship seems to have been a direct response of the failure of Benjamin, who was in excellent form at the time, to play on the 2000 US Team. Joel won the 2000 title in a quick chess playoff. Should that count or does the winner need to win outright to be seeded? Does the fact that the US Championship is no longer an elite roundrobin, as it was in 2000, a consideration? The USCF ratings of top players have dropped quite a bit the past few years as various deflationary measures have been put into effect. Individuals who only play a few games have been beneficiaries of this development as they advance up the top of the ratings list by standing still while others fall. How should this be addressed? The current formula factors in rating lists over a two year period. Should recent results get a much heavier weighting? Currently the cutoff for the formula is often four to six months in advance of the Olympiad. It has happened in the past that a player has in effect gotten on the team for results achieved previous to the past Olympiad. I'm not sure what the ideal way is to select the US teams is, but I think it needs it needs as much as possible to be based on objective criteria that is applied consistently. I wouldn't say it should necessarily be 100 percent a rigid number crunch but in such a large country with players from a wide variety of backgrounds it is essential that the process be consistent and easily understood. 7) Qualification for US Olympiad Team and ChampionshipThe 2004 Chess Olympiad is scheduled to be played in Spain this fall and it's not clear yet whether the US Chess Federation will be able to field representative teams due to financial pressures. That hasn't stopped a controversy from developing regarding the selection process for the US Women's Team. What follows is not addressed to that specific situation nor the US Men's team selection, but to point out the overall need to improve the process and some of the factors that need to be weighed. Some countries in Europe, for example England, have a selection committee that choses which players participate. The United States has normally used a rating formula to choose its teams, though there have been some exceptions such as in 1984 when the American Chess Foundation formed a committee to select the men's team. The formula for the US teams has been tweaked repeatedly the past decade. There have been different criteria for how quickly newcomers can become eligible to participate on the team, what sort of activity is required and what ratings (FIDE/USCF) are used to do the computations and how much each is weighted. Not so many years ago, American USCF ratings were adjusted to reflect changes in their FIDE rating. That has not been the case the past few years, partly because not too long ago FIDE was slow in issuing individual rating cards and also because the USCF lacked the man power to do the job. Today FIDE is quite efficient in getting the necessary information out, but USCF employees may have more than enough to keep them busy. Currently, as things stand, an American player could win the World Championship and not have it affect his or her USCF rating. It's also true that some very fast time controls (Game/30 for example) are rated at full K on the USCF system the same as a game played at 40/2; 20/1 followed by G/30. A minimum number of games have to be played in order to meet the activity requirement for the Championship and Olympiad, but there doesn't seem to be any minimum requirement for the opposition. It seems a GM could play the necessary games versus 1900 rated players and that would be sufficient. A fundamental question is whether the men's and women's US Champions should be seeded. Not too long ago Joel Benjamin won the US Championship, but then didn't play on the Olympic team as he was not rated high enough. I think Larry Christiansen is the only US Champion to ever be seeded on an American team. The decision to seed the winner of 2002 championship seems to have been a direct response of the failure of Benjamin, who was in excellent form at the time, to play on the 2000 US Team. Joel won the 2000 title in a quick chess playoff. Should that count or does the winner need to win outright to be seeded? Does the fact that the US Championship is no longer an elite roundrobin, as it was in 2000, a consideration? The USCF ratings of top players have dropped quite a bit the past few years as various deflationary measures have been put into effect. Individuals who only play a few games have been beneficiaries of this development as they advance up the top of the ratings list by standing still while others fall. How should this be addressed? The current formula factors in rating lists over a two year period. Should recent results get a much heavier weighting? Currently the cutoff for the formula is often four to six months in advance of the Olympiad. It has happened in the past that a player has in effect gotten on the team for results achieved previous to the past Olympiad. I'm not sure what the ideal way is to select the US teams is, but I think it needs it needs as much as possible to be based on objective criteria that is applied consistently. I wouldn't say it should necessarily be 100 percent a rigid number crunch but in such a large country with players from a wide variety of backgrounds it is essential that the process be consistent and easily understood. 8) Elliott Winslow AnnotatesSome previously unpublished annotations of IM Elliott Winslow where recently unearthed and will be shared with Newsletter readers. I think they will appreciate the quality of the annotations despite the passage of time. The following game was annotated by Elliott in 1976.
E. Winslow, (2255) - F. Thornally (2312) [C81] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 a6 I'm not even messing with 6.Bxc6. 6.Ba4 b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6 9.Qe2 Be7 10.Rd1 0-0 11.c4 bxc4 12.Bxc4 Qd7 Nowadays one sees 12...Bc5! mostly. 13.Nc3 Nxc3 14.bxc3 Na5 14...f6 is the "long variation" here, when I feel 15.exf6 Bxf6 16.Ng5 Bxg5 17.Bxg5 h6 18.Be3 Qd6 19.Bb3 Ne5 20.Rd4 c5 21.Rh4!? (Evans) is White's best. 15.Bd3 It seems like everybody (Larsen, Estrin, even Fischer!) has talked about 15.Bxa6, but nobody has ever played it. 15...c5 16.Ng5! T.N.! Ghizdavu's 16.h3 looks kind of slow to me. 16...h6 [16...g6 17.Nxh7= (17.Nxe6!±) ; 16...Bg4 17.Bxh7+ Kh8 18.f3±; 16...Bf5 17.Qc2! g6!?] 17.Nxe6 Qxe6 [17...fxe6? weakens the b1-h7 diagonal. 18.Qh5! An "influence move". 18...Nc6 19.Bf4 f5 20.exf6 Rxf6 21.Bg3 Qf7 22.Qxf7+ 22.Qe2!? 22...Kxf7 23.Rab1 Ra7 24.Rb6?! On the way home to Kansas City I stopped for a few hours in Denver, where John Watson has a Chess House. He noticed 24.c4! d4 (24...Nb4 25.cxd5 Nxd3 26.Rxd3±) 25.Be4± intending Bd5. 24...Na5?! 24...Ne5!? 25.Rxf6+ Bxf6 26.Be2 d4 27.cxd4 cxd4 28.f4 Nc6 29.Bf2. 25.Rb8 Bd6 26.Rd8 Bxg3 27.hxg3 d4 28.cxd4 Nc6 29.Rc8 cxd4 30.Be4 Ne7 31.Rc4 Nf5 32.g4 Nd6 33.Bd5+ Kg6?! 34.Rcxd4 Nb5 35.Be4+ Kg5?! 36.Rd5+ Kxg4 37.a4! Nc3 38.Bf3+ Rxf3 39.gxf3+ Kxf3 40.R1d3+ Ke4 41.R3d4+ Kf3 42.Rf5+ Ke2 43.Re5+ Kf3 44.Re3# 1-0 9) A New Discovery in Flohr-Fine, Hastings 1935 by John GrefeIM John Grefe, who tied for first in the US Championship with Lubosh Kavalek in 1973, hasn't played the past few years, but he still enjoys studying. Here he shares a discovery he made while analyzing a classic game from the past.
Flohr - Fine [D61] 1.d4 e6 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.e3 Be7 6.Nf3 0-0 7.Qc2 c6 8.a3 Re8 9.Rd1 dxc4 10.Bxc4 Nd5 11.Bxe7 Qxe7 12.0-0 Nxc3 13.Qxc3 c5 14.d5 exd5 15.Rxd5 b6 16.Rfd1 Rf8 17.b4 cxb4 18.axb4 Nf6 19.Re5 Qc7 20.Ng5 Bb7 21.Ne6 Qc6 22.f3 Ba6 23.Rd4 Rfc8 24.Nd8 Now 24.Nxg7 Bxc4 25.Nf5 Qa4 26.Re8+ Rxe8 27.Rg4+ Kf8 28.Qxf6 Qd1+ 29.Kf2 Qc2+ 30.Kg3 Qxf5 31.Qxf5 Be6 32.Qxh7 Bxg4 33.Kxg4 a5; 24.b5 Bxb5 25.Nxg7 Bxc4 26.Nf5 Qa4 27.Re8+ Rxe8 28.Rg4+ Kf8 29.Qxf6 and after Black has run out of checks and he has no defense against Rg8+ (Kotov - page 21 in Think Like a Grandmaster) but John Grefe claims a draw with ... 29...Qd1+ 30.Kf2 Qc2+ 31.Kg3 Qxf5 32.Qxf5 Be6 33.Qxh7 Bxg4 and he looks right on. For example: 34.Kxg4 a5 35.f4 a4 36.f5 Ke7 (36...a3? 37.f6). 24...Qc7 25.Rg4 Qxd8 26.Reg5 Qd1+ 27.Kf2 Nxg4+ 28.Rxg4 g6 29.Bxf7+ Kxf7 30.Rf4+ Kg8 31.Qf6 Qd7 0-1 10) Here and ThereSome American players will be visiting the shores of Tripoli soon, but they will not be the first. That honor goes to Joan Arbil of Sausalito who played for Turkey in the counter-Olympiad in 1976. As far as we know she is the only American to have played chess in Libya. Max Burkett writes to inform us that others wanted to make the trek back then. A few decades ago there was to be the alternate "Olympiad" in Tripoli. Dirty Jim McCormick organized a team in Berkeley for the event but plans for the "all expenses paid" vacation fell through when someone ratted them out to the USCF. Threatened with a lifetime suspension from the USCF, they chickened out. For more on Max visit his website at http://people.montana.com/~mburkett MI member Dmitry Zilberstein will be shooting for his second IM norm in the 2004 Arthur Dake Memorial IM Tournament which will be held June 5-13 in McMinnville, Oregon. The CAT III event with a FIDE average rating of 2318 will have an IM norm of 6.5 The participants are:
Erenburg Sergey ISR GM 2513 Newsletter reader Larry Snyder just spotted a tournament in Stockton on May 22-23. Go to http://www.stocktonchess.com/tournaments/northcentralchess2004.pdf for more details. Those looking for a Memorial Day event bigger than the one in San Jose and who don't want to go to Chicago may wish to consider the Lena Grummete Memorial Day Classic in Los Angeles. Go to http://www.westernchess.com/mdc04/mdc04.html for more information. 11) MI Chess Camps5th Mechanics' Institute Chess Camp for Beginners and Novice Players (below 1200 USCF) This is a camp for players that want to learn how to play or who know the bare rudiments and would like to increase their understanding of the game. Instructor Anthony Corrales has a wealth of experience teaching youngsters. During this camp students will build up a solid core of knowledge. This will include learning all the basic checkmates, mastering the fundamentals of opening play, implementing middlegame plans and understanding simple endgames. Pupils will also learn how to take chess notation and to play using a chess clock.
Who: Open to youngsters 5-15 Advanced Players (1200-2200) This is not a camp for players that want to jump two rating classes in five days. You won't learn how to win against the Sicilian every time using the Grand Prix Attack. So why our camp and not others? At the MI camp you will get a look inside a GM's laboratory and get a feel for how they work on their game from the ground up. You will learn not only the importance of analyzing your own games, but also how to do it properly. You will learn to identify the critical points of the game and to understand when and why things went wrong. You will learn how to use ChessBase and Fritz efficiently as part of a daily training program as well as utilizing resources on the Internet such as TWIC and the Internet Chess Club. Today chess books are cranked out at an incredible rate. Some of them are very good, many are quite bad. We will help students learn to select that which is truly useful. On the fun side our instructors have unique experience in international competition. Expect to hear stories and anecdotes about what it's like to play against Kasparov and defend first board in a Chess Olympiad. Instructors: Grandmaster Alex Yermolinsky, International Master John Donaldson, and MI Scholastic Director Anthony Corrales.
Who: Open to all ages from 8 and up. 12) Upcoming EventsUpcoming Tournaments at the MI
Charles Powell Memorial - May 15 Mechanics' Institute Scholastic Quads 2004 Tournaments: April 17, May 8, June 19 and July 24 Open to players age 18 and under (Limited to first 80 players) Game/45 Rounds : 10:30am, 12:15pm, 2:00pm Late Registration: 9:30am - 10:15am Open: to the first eighty players Note: Quads based on rating. USCF Rated. Unrated players face each other. You must be a USCF member to play in the quads. Time Control: Game in 45 minutes Entry Fee: $20 / $30 day of tournament/ $15 for MI members Checks payable to Mechanics' Chess Club Prizes: Trophies for the winners of each quad |