Mechanics Institute Chess Room Newsletter #284

   Nimzovich became then for me more or less the author of the only book which could help me get away from these Euwe books, which, I admit, are very good for the ordinary club player. But once you've reached a certain strength you get the impression that everything that Euwe writes is a lie.

Bent Larsen ( in Nimzowitsch: A Reappraisal p.25)

1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News
2) People Open by Michael Aigner
3) US Championship
4) Upcoming Events

1) Mechanics' Institute Club News

NM Paul Galegos defeated Victor Ossipov to grab the lead in the Winter Tuesday Night Marathon with two rounds to go. Trailing Gallegos score of 5.5 from 6 are Ossipov, Drake Wang and Louiza Livschitz with 5 points.

Kerry Lawless passes on two more MI simuls from the 1950s. Several readers sent along information on MI simuls which will appear in the next Newsletter.

Svetozar Gligoric April 1952 (+24, =9, -4) (Schmitt lost, Bagby drew, Gross drew, Currie drew, Linklater won, Mathews drew, Woolfe won) SACRAMENTO CHESS NEWS Vol 3 No 4 (May 2, 1952):

Gligoric,S - Woolfe,L [D16]
MI Simul - April 1952

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.a4 Nd5 6.e4 Nxc3 7.bxc3 b5 8.e5 e6 9.Ng5 h6 10.Ne4 Bb7 11.Qg4 Nd7 12.Ba3 Nb6 13.Nd6+ Bxd6 14.Qxg7 Bxa3 15.Qxh8+ Bf8 16.a5 Na4 17.Bxc4 Qxa5 18.0–0 Qxc3 19.Be2 Qd2 20.Bf3 Nc3 21.Qh7 Qxd4 22.Bh5 Qf4 23.g3 Qf5 24.Qxf5 exf5 25.e6 Be7 26.exf7+ Kf8 27.Rfe1 Nd5 28.Re6 a6 29.Rxh6 b4 30.Rh8+ Kg7 31.Rxa8 Bxa8 32.Rxa6 b3 33.Bd1 b2 34.Bc2 Bb7 35.Ra5 Kxf7 36.Bxf5 Nc3 0–1

Mechanics' institute Exhibition OLAF ULVESTAD TACKLES 21 PLAYERS
San Francisco, March 21, Olaf Ulvested of Seattle, Washington, took on 21 chess players in a simultaneous exhibition at the Mechanics' Institute. He won 17, lost 3 (to Curtis Wilson, J. R. Moore, and Allan Bourke), and drew 1 (with Lowell Tullis)
PRECITA VALLEY CHESS HERALD Vol 4 No 3, March 1959

2) People Open by Michael Aigner

The People's Tournament was rated by USCF today (2/21). Thanks to the guys from East Bay Chess Club (David, Andy and Vinay) for saving the event on short notice! Also thanks to Jamie Sawhill and Richard Koepcke for directing the 1800+ sections on President's Day weekend.

The turnout was a very respectable 111 players. A total of 51 came for the B and Reserve sections on February 11-12 while 60 participated in the Open and A sections on February 18-20. A few dedicated players even spent both weekends at the chess board!

February 11-12 results: (under 1800)
http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200602126001
February 18-20 results: (over 1800)
http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200602206011

Section winners:
Open = Michael Aigner, 5.0/6
U2200 = Uri Andrews, 4.5/6
Class A = Daichi Siegrist, 5.5/6
Class B = Ian Jones, 4.5/5
Reserve = Rahul Desirazu, Tejas Mulye, Vishal Dasari and Michael Shaw, all at 4.0/5
U1400 = Austin Lloyd, 3.5/5

I took a bunch of photos during the second weekend and will post them on the CalChess photo albums when I have a chance.

3) US Championship

The last spot in the US Championship was decided last weekend when the USCF Executive Board decided to not take action on the allegation that GM Boris Kreiman had bought his last round game against IM Ricardo DeGuzman at the American Open in Los Angeles in 2005. The tournament director and several of the top participants in the event pointed to the extremely poor play by DeGuzman with the White pieces and the absence of both players from the game for prolonged periods of time as evidence the game was fixed. The Executive Board circulated the game score to a group of GMs to evaluate the play and this group was unable to come to a unanimous decision whether it was rigged. The result was that the Executive Board, lacking a consensus among the consulted GMs and without a tape of the players discussing the deal, felt it could not prove beyond a doubt that the game was not legitimate. IM-elect David Pruess would have earned the spot had the Board come to a different conclusion. Below are the two groups of 32.

GROUP A
GROUP B
 
TITLE
RTG
LAST
FIRST
 
TITLE
RTG
LAST
FIRST
1
GM
2774 NAKAMURA HIKARU   1
GM
2729 KAMSKY GATA 
2
GM
2707 IBRAGIMOV ILDAR    2
GM
2722 KAIDANOV GREGORY 
3
GM
2686 ONISCHUK ALEXANDER    3
GM
2678 GULKO BORIS 
4
GM
2662 AKOBIAN VARUZHAN    4
GM
2665 SHABALOV ALEXANDER 
5
IM
2662 FINEGOLD BENJAMIN     5
GM
2657 IVANOV ALEXANDER
6
GM
2642 GOLDIN ALEXANDER    6
GM
2643 NOVIKOV IGOR 
7
GM
2642 STRIPUNSKY ALEXANDER    7
GM
2633 CHRISTIANSEN LARRY
8
GM
2627 KUDRIN SERGEY   8
GM
2629 BECERRA JULIO 
9
GM
2624 BENJAMIN JOEL    9
GM
2623 SHULMAN YURY 
10
GM
2604 DLUGY MAX   10
IM
2614 PERELSHTEYN EUGENE 
11
GM
2600 DE FIRMIAN NICK   11
GM
2593 FISHBEIN ALEXANDER 
12
GM
2577 SERPER GREGORY    12
GM
2590 YERMOLINSKY ALEX 
13
GM
2562 GUREVICH DMITRY    13
GM
2558 FEDOROWICZ JOHN
14
IM
2548 GONZALEZ RENIER    14
GM
2555 WOJTKIEWICZ ALEKS 
15
IM
2540 KRAAI JESSE   15
GM
2535 KREIMAN BORIS 
16
IM
2525 SCHNEIDER DMITRY   16
IM 
2528 MILMAN LEV
17
IM
2513 FRIEDEL JOSHUA    17
GM
2507 BROWNE WALTER
18
IM
2486 STEIN ALAN   18
IM
2491 KRIVENTSOV STANISLAV
19
IM
2479 FLOREAN ANDREI    19
IM
2469 ZATONSKIH ANNA 
20
FM
2441 TATE, JR EMORY    20
IM
2464 IPPOLITO DEAN
21
IM 
2440 BERCYS SALVIJUS   21
FM
2458 MUHAMMAD STEPHEN
22
IM
2427 LENDERMAN ALEX   22
IM
2440 LUGO BLAS
23
IM
2424 FERNANDEZ DANIEL   23
IM
2425 GINSBURG MARK
24
FM
2420 SCHNEIDER IGOR   24
IM
2422 VIGORITO DAVID
25
WGM
2393 GOLETIANI RUSUDAN    25
IM
2399 SARKAR JUSTIN
26
WGM
2331 BAGINSKAITE CAMILLA    26
WFM
2325 ABRAHAMYAN TATEV 
27
2318 KLEIMAN JAKE   27
WIM
2271 TUVSHINTUGS BATCHIMEG
28
WFM
2238 ROSS LAURA   28
2266 LIU ELLIOTT
29
WIM
2172 EPSTEIN ESTHER    29
WFM
2162 AIRAPETIAN CHOUCHANIK 
30
WFM
2118 VICARY ELIZABETH     30
WFM
2149 ITKIS HANA 
31
2101 ZENYUK IRYNA    31
2034 WEST VANESSA
32
1663 COTTRELL KELLY    32
WCM
1872 CHRISTIANSEN NATASHA
                     
    78946
Total rating points in section
79106    
    2467.1
Average of section
2472.1    
             
    2663
Average of top 10
2659.3
 
 
 
How the players qualified
 
1 GM Hikaru Nakamura Defending US Champion
2 WGM Rusa Goletiani * Defending US Women's Champion
3 GM Aleks Wojtkiewicz 2004 ChessCafe.com Grand Prix Winner
4 GM Alexander Ivanov Foxwoods 2005
5 GM Alexander Stripunsky Foxwoods 2005
6 GM Julio Becerra Foxwoods 2005
7 GM Yury Shulman Foxwoods 2005
8 Iryna Zenyuk * Foxwoods 2005
9 WM Esther Epstein * Foxwoods 2005
10  GM Alexander Fishbein Chicago Open 2005
11 IM Blas Lugo Chicago Open 2005
12 IM Benjamin Finegold Chicago Open 2005
13 GM Dmitry Gurevich Chicago Open 2005
14 Chouchanik Airapetian * Chicago Open 2005
15 GM Nick de Firmian National Open 2005
16 IM Renier Gonzalez National Open 2005
17 IM Stanislav Kriventsov National Open 2005
18 IM Dmitry Schneider National Open 2005
19 Kelly Cottrell * National Open 2005
20 GM Walter Browne Senior Open
21 FM Daniel Fernandez Junior Invitational Championship
22 GM John Fedorowicz World Open 2005
23 IM Josh Friedel World Open 2005
24 GM Sergey Kudrin World Open 2005
25 GM Joel Benjamin World Open 2005
26 IM Eugene Perelshteyn World Open 2005
27 WFM Laura Ross * World Open 2005
28 WCM Natasha Christiansen * World Open 2005
29 GM Larry Christiansen US Open 2005
30 Salvijus Bercys (1) US Open 2005
31 IM David Vigorito US Open 2005
32 GM Gregory Serper US Open 2005
33 Elizabeth Vicary * US Open 2005
34 WFM Hana Itkis * US Open 2005
35 GM Gregory Kaidanov Rating seed
36 GM Gata Kamsky Rating seed
37 GM Alexander Onischuk Rating seed
38 GM Boris Gulko Rating seed
39 GM Ildar Ibraigimov Rating seed
40 GM Alexander Shabalov Rating seed
41 GM Varuzhan Akobian Rating seed
42 GM Igor Novikov Rating seed
43 FM Lev Milman (2) Replacement named by AF4C
44 WGM Anna Zatonskih * Women's rating seed
45 Vanessa West (3) Replacement named by AF4C
46 WGM Camilla Baginskaite * Women's rating seed
47 WFM Tatev Abrahamyan * Women's rating seed
48 FM Igor Schneider (4) Replacement named by AF4C
49 GM Alex Yermolinsky American Open
50 GM Boris Kreiman American Open
51 GM Alexander Goldin National Congress
52 FM Emory Tate National Congress
53 IM Andrei Florean State Champion of Champions
54 IM Jesse Kraai North American Open
55 IM Stephen Muhammad North American Open
56 FM Alan Stein North American Open
57 IM Mark Ginsburg North American Open
58 WIM Batchimeg Tuvshintugs* North American Open
59 IM Dean Ippolito Qualifier Grand Prix
60 IM Alex Lenderman AF4C wildcard
61 GM Max Dlugy AF4C wildcard
62 IM Justin Sarkar Grand Prix runner-up (filled vacant spot)
63 Jake Kleiman Grand Prix runner-up (filled vacant spot)
64 Elliott Liu Scholastic Champion of Champions

(1) Greg Shahade withdrew
(2) Women's rating seed Susan Polgar withdrew
(3) Women's rating seed Irina Krush withdrew
(4) Women's rating seed Jennifer Shahade withdrew

4) Upcoming Events

Mechanics' Institute

A.J. Fink Amateur - March 4 and 5
Max Wilkerson - March 18
Imre Konig - April 15
Charles Powell - May 6

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