Mechanics' Institute Chess Room Newsletter #77

1) 2002 US Masters: Eugene Martinovsky Memorial
2) Snyder and Margulis win Winter Tuesday Night Marathon
3) Osmundo Reyes tops A.J. Fink Amateur
4) Donald Byrne Memorial
5) MI Chess History: Games from 1913
6) 2001 Cramer Awards
7) Tim Krabbé Endgame Composing Competition
8) Cal Chess 
9) Upcoming Tournaments

The National Open will be held in Las Vegas from March 8-10 at the Riviera Hotel. This event is the only US Championship qualifier in the Western US with five open spots and one seeded for women up for grabs. A large contingent of players from the MI will be led by GM Alex Yermolinsky. Full details can be found at http://www.64.com/natlopen/

1) 2002 US Masters: Eugene Martinovsky Memorial

Grandmasters Gregory Kaidanov, Alexander Onischuk, Daniel Fridmans, Leonid Yudasin and Alex Wojtkiewicz tied for first in the 2002 US Masters: Eugene Martinovsky Memorial, held February 28 to March 3 at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Oak Brook, Illinois. The five winners, who were all undefeated at 5 1/2 - 1 1/2, earned $3,000 apiece for their victory over a 100 player field which included 15 GMs and 15 IMs.

GMs Gregory Serper, Dmitry Gurevich, John Fedorowicz and Anatoly Lein, IMs Nikolay Andrianov, John Donaldson, John Watson, and William Paschall plus NM Jason Dodd tied for sixth though fourteen, with Serper, Fedorowicz, Donaldson, Watson, Paschall and the top 4 1/2 on tiebreak, Stanislav Kriventsov, all earning spots in the 2003 US Championship, to be held in Seattle January 9-19. Indiana Master Jason Doss, who rebounded from an opening loss to top finishing junior William Aramil to score 2 from 3 against IMs Donaldson, Rashid Ziatdinov and Fedorowicz down the stretch, could have earned a spot if he had only paid his $75 US Championship qualifying fee in advance of round one. Ditto for the 70-year-old Lein who still has the constitution of an ox. The last day he defeated Penn State math professor IM Edward Formanek and GM Nikola Mitkov of Macedonia in long, grueling battles.

The game with Mitkov was a fitting tribute to the late Dr. Eugene Martinovsky (1931-2000) whose estate helped sponsor this event. Martinovsky, who emigrated from Yugoslavia in the mid 1960s, was one of the top players in Chicago for over three decades and was particularly noted for his tenaciousness. He would have appreciated Lein's endgame technique which allowed him to a win a Queen ending (W-Kg4, Qb6, Ps f2, f 3, and g3 versus B- Qa1, Kg7, Ps h6 and g5) where his King penetrated to f5 as if by magic from a position that looked quite drawn twenty moves before. The way Lein maneuvered his Queen from the center of the board to b6 with a series of checks with only 3 minutes left on his clock drew the admiration of 30 die-hard spectators who stuck around to watch the last game of the event finish at 10:30 on Sunday evening.

Lein was not the only veteran to shine in Chicago. NM Viktors Pupols of Bremerton, Washington, won the battle of the Latvian-Americans by defeating Chicago SM Andrew Karklins in the final round. Several times Pupols had one of the last games to finish in the round but it didn't seem to bother him. At 67 he has the energy of man half his age. Be prepared when he asks you to join him for a 12 mile hike!

Phoenix-based Andrianov, who still represents Russia on the FIDE list, won two very impressive games against 2600 FIDE GMs Alexander Goldin and Ildar Ibragimov. He also turned in a very impressive performance in tying for first in the North American Open a couple of years ago and is clearly of GM strength.

The tough luck story of the tournament goes to University of Texas at Dallas top board Yury Shulman who was among the leaders throughout the event before losing a drawish endgame to Kaidanov in round six and then letting Kriventsov escape with a draw in the final round. This was a rare setback of late for Shulman who is currently rated 2596 FIDE putting him right around number 100 in the world. The presence of players like Shulman and Onischuk in American events is a welcome shot in the arm for US chess which hasn't enjoyed an active GM in the 20-30 age group for some time.

The US Masters is the brainchild of Helen and Jim Warren who have held this event since the early 1980s. This year they decided to do something special to honor the memory of Dr. Martinovsky and they succeeded in their aim with the help of tournament directors IA Todd Barre and Tim Just plus bulletin editor NM Alan Watson. This is just the sort of event that Eugene would have wanted to play in.

A list of prize winners follows. A crosstable of the event can be found at http://www.64.com/chess/usmasters/

US Masters Prize List

Additionally, $1,500 in point pool prizes were split amongst players scoring at least 4.5 points

U.S. Masters: Eugene Martinovsky Memorial Tournament is at:

http://www.64.com/chess/usmasters/

2) Snyder and Margulis win Winter Tuesday Night Marathon

San Francisco National Master Igor Margulis and Berkeley Expert Larry Snyder tied for first at 6 1/2 - 1 1/2 in the Mechanics' Institute Winter Tuesday Night Marathon held January 22 - March 5. Tying for third through sixth with a score of 6-2 were NM David Blohm and Experts Victor Ossipov, James Jones and Igor Traub. A total of 66 players competed in the 8-week long event making it one of the largest, if not the largest, TNM ever held. A complete list of prize winners will appear in the next Newsletter.

3) Osmundo Reyes tops A.J. Fink Amateur

Osmundo Reyes won the 8th Annual A.J. Fink Amateur Championship held March 1-3 at the MI with a score of 4 1/1 - 1/2 to take home the $300 first prize. Tying for second through fifth with four points in the 41-player field were Steven Krasnov, Dante Argishti, Charles Kleiman, Pierre Vachon and Lloyd Stephenson. Alex Yermolinsky and Anthony Corrales directed.

Prize Winners:

1st Overall:
Osmundo Reyes - $300

2nd and 3rd plus 1st and 2nd "B":
Steven Krasnov, Dante Argishti, Charles Kleiman, Pierre Vachon and Lloyd Stephenson -
$99 each

1st "C":
JimSimpson - $115

2nd "C":
Craig Yamamoto, John Chan and Juan Ventosa - $21.66

1st "D":
Tom Corbett - $105

2nd "D":
Bryan Bilby and Emilia Krubnik - $25

Unrated:
Jason Brinkerhoff - $70

4) Donald Byrne Memorial

The Donald Byrne Memorial, a Category IV (2327) IM norm round robin, was held at Penn State in late February. The event was won by Filipino IM Luis Chiong with a score of 7-2. Philly NM Norman Rogers and State College SM Stanislav Kriventsov tied for second at 6 1/2 to earn IM norms as did 4th place finisher Pascal Charbonneau at 6.

5) MI Chess History: Games from 1913

The noted chess book collector and data base maven Andy Ansel of Walnut Creek passes on three games from the Mechanics' past which were preserved in the pages of the American Chess Bulletin.

Stamer, A - Fink, A
San Francisco Mechanics Prize Winner, 1913

1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.0-0 d6 6.b4 Bb6 7.a4 Nxb4 8.c3 Nc6 9.cxd4 Bg4 10.Qb3 Na5 11.Bxf7+ Kf8 12.Qa2 Bxf3 13.Bxg8 Rxg8 14.gxf3 Bxd4 15.Bb2 Qg5+ 16.Kh1 Nc6 17.Qb3 Qf6 18.Qxb7 Rb8 19.Qxc6 Qxf3+ 20.Kg1 Rxb2 0-1
ACB 1913, page 252

Fink, A - Hallwegen, G
San Francisco Mechanics Prize Winner, 1913

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 h6 5.Be3 Bb4+ 6.Nc3 d6 7.0-0 Bxc3 8.bxc3 0-0 9.Rb1 Ne7 10.Nd2 Ng4 11.Qf3 Ng6 12.h3 Nf6 13.Qg3 Kh7 14.Qf3 c6 15.Bb3 Qd7 16.Qe2 Nf4 17.Bxf4 exf4 18.Nc4 b5 19.Nd2 Re8 20.Rfe1 g6 21.Qf3 Nh5 22.g4 fxg3 23.fxg3 Qxh3 24.Qxf7+ Ng7 25.Re2 Bg4 26.Re3 Re5 27.Rf1 a5 28.a3 a4 29.Ba2 Rae8 30.Qf6 Rh5 31.Kf2 Rf5+ 0-1
ACB 1913, page 252.

Clark,E - Hallwegen,G
San Francisco Mechanics Prize Winner, 1913

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Nf3 Nbd7 6.e3 c6 7.Rc1 dxc4 8.Bxc4 Nd5 9.Bxe7 Qxe7 10.0-0 0-0 11.Ne2 a6 12.e4 N5f6 13.e5 Nd5 14.Bd3 f5 15.Qd2 h6 16.g3 Qf7 17.Nh4 Ne7 18.Ng2 Re8 19.Nef4 Nf8 20.Ne3 g5 21.Nfg2 b5 22.Be2 Bb7 23.f4 g4 24.Rfd1 Nd7 25.Nh4 h5 26.Bf1 Nb6 27.Bg2 Rac8 28.Rc5 Red8 29.b3 Nbd5 30.Bxd5 Nxd5 31.Nxd5 Rxd5 32.Rxd5 cxd5 33.Rc1 Qd7 34.Ng2 Kf7 35.Ne1 Rc6 36.Nd3 Qc7 37.Rxc6 Qxc6 38.Nc5 Bc8 39.h3 Ke7 40.hxg4 hxg4 41.Qh2 Kd8 42.Qh4+ Kc7 43.Qe7+ Kb6 44.b4 Qc7 45.Qf8 Ka7 46.Qd6 Qb6 47.Kf2 a5 48.a3 axb4 49.axb4 Qb8 50.Qd8 Ka8 51.Qa5+ Qa7 52.Ke3 Qxa5 53.bxa5 Kb8 54.Kd3 b4 55.Kc2 Kc7 56.Kb3 Kc6 57.Kxb4 and wins. 1-0
ACB 1913, page 252.

6) 2001 Cramer Awards

2001 Cramer Awards Announced - Don Schultz writes:

Sadly, last year Chess-in-the-Schools discontinued using income from the Cramer quarter-million Dollar bequest to the American Chess Foundation. As a result, the full announcement of 2001 Cramer Awards was delayed. The exception to this was the 2001 Chess Journalist of the Year award won by Hanon Russell. Hanon was the first journalist to win the Cramer Journalist of the Year award by a voting of all journalists belonging to the Chess Journalists of America. He also was the first Cramer Chess Journalist of the Year winner for journalism on the Internet, his Internet website, Chess Café, continues to set the standard of excellence for chess Internet websites.

Now, on behalf of the Cramer Awards committee, I am happy to announce the other three 2001 Awards for Excellence in Chess Journalism:

Best Chess Column — Harold Dondis, Boston Globe

Harold Dondis' Chess column has been appearing in the Boston Globe weekly since 1964!! Recently, to save space the Globe discontinued it. There was such an uproar over this that the Globe not only brought it back but Harold's chess column now appears two times a week! When informed of the award, Harold asked that proper recognition be given to NM John Curdo and GM Patrick Wolf who do the game analysis and commentary for his column.

Best State Publication — Illinois Chess Bulletin
The Illinois Chess Bulletin, published six times a year, is the official publication of the of the Illinois Chess Association. It has won numerous Chess Journalist of America Awards and has won the Cramer Award for Best State Publication in 1994 and 1999. During 2001 three different editors shared the honor of serving as editor for this fine publication: Roy Frye, Josh Flores and Bill Brock.

Best Book — Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces by Igor Stohl (318 pages, $24.95)
Igor Stohl is a grandmaster from Slovakia and was a runner-up in the 1982 World Junior. This book is a collection of 50 grandmaster games, covering the period from Gelfand-Dreev, Tilburg 1993 to Anand-Khalifman, FIDE World Cup, Shenyang 2000. In a Chess Café review by Stephen Ham, the book is described as "Big and Beautiful." Hamm goes on to describe both the quantity and quality of Stohl's work as being "Great."

Previous winners for these categories are:

Chess Journalist of the Year
1994 — IM John Donaldson
1995 — Shelby Lyman
1996 — Burt Hochberg
1997 — Jerry Hanken
1998 — GM Yasser Seirawan
1999 — Mike Franett
2000 — GM Larry Evans
2001 — Hanon Russell 

Best Book

1996 — The Bobby Fischer I Knew by GM Arnold Denker and Larry Parr
1998 — Napier The Forgotten Chess Master by John Hilbert Alekhine's Chess Games by Leonard Skinner and Robert Verhoeven
1999 — Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy by John Watson
2000 — Soviet Chess 1917-1971 (Historical) by GM Andy Soltis
The Road to Chess Improvement (Instructional) by GM Alex Yermolinsky
Chessdon (Memoirs) by Don Schultz
2001 — Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces by Igor Stohl

Best Chess Column

1998 — David Sands (Washington Times)
1999 — GM Lubosh Kavalak (Washington Post)
2000 — GM Robert Byrne (NY Times) and GM Michael Rohde (Chess Life)
2001 — Harold Dondis (Boston Globe)

Best State Magazine

1994 — Illinois Chess Bulletin (Robert Renault) and Atlantic Chess (David Burris)
1995 — floridaCHESS (Don Schultz)
1996 — floridaCHESS (Don Schultz)
1997 — Chess Horizons (Joe Sparks)
1998 — Texas Knights (Selby Anderson)
1999 — Illinois Chess Bulletin (Josh Flores)
2000 — Chess Horizons (Peter Sherwood)
2001 — Illinois Chess Bulletin

Mar-Apr 2000 thru Nov-Dec 2000: Roy Frye
Jan-Feb 2001: Josh Flores
Mar-Apr 2001 thru May-Jun 2001: Bill Brock

7) Tim Krabbe 60 Endgame Composing Competition

We recently received a request to publicize an endgame composing competition honoring the 60th birthday of the noted Dutch writer Tim Krabbe who is known for his work in and out of chess (the movie The Vanishing was based on one of his novels). The MI has a long tradition of producing excellent composers with such well-known names as A.J. Fink, Bob Burger and Victor Baja enjoying a long association with the Chess Room. Maybe a new talent will step forward !?

After nearly half a century of enjoying the beauty of endgame studies and problems, and reproducing many of them in my chess publications, I felt it was time to do something in return: to organize and sponsor a composing tourney - if only because I would like to spend my 60th birthday, 13 April 2003, admiring some fine studies and problems that might otherwise not have been there.

Composers are invited to submit original compositions in two sections:

1) Endgame Studies
2) Problems - direct-mate moremovers

Prizes in both sections will be 400, 200, 100, 2 x 50 and 2 x 25 Euro.

1) Endgame studies.

Themes are free. Entries no later than 31 December 2002 to the Tournament Director, René Olthof, Achter het Schaapshoofd 7, 5211 MC 's-Hertogenbosch, NEDERLAND; e-mail: raja@newinchess.com Judges: Harold van der Heijden and Tim Krabbé.

2) Problems - direct-mate moremovers.

Themes are free. Entries no later than 31 December 2002 to the Tournament Director, Henk le Grand, Heimanslaan 5, 6705 AD Wageningen-hoog, NEDERLAND; e-mail: hlegrand@nl.packardbell.org
Judges: Ruud Beugelsdijk and Tim Krabbé.

The awards will be published on Tim Krabbé's website
http://www.timkrabbe.nl/chess/chess.html
in his weekly chess column in Algemeen Dagblad, and in EBUR and Probleemblad.

8) Cal Chess Membership

Cal Chess, the official body representing the United States Chess Federation in Northern California, is becoming increasingly more active under President Tom Dorsch and California Chess Journal Editor Frisco del Rosario and deserves support. Members receive discounts on the entry fee to many chess tournaments in Northern California as well as a subscription to the bimonthly Journal which includes annotations by the likes of GM Alex Yermolinsky. The cost of a years membership is $15 ($13 for scholastic). Contact Tom Dorsch at POB 7453, Menlo Park CA 94026. (650) 322-0955 tomdorsch@aol.com.

9) Upcoming Events

The Max Wilkerson Open Saturday, March 30, 2002
5 Round Swiss A One Day G/45 Event Rated 1/2 K
PRIZES:
$600 - total, based on 25 paid entries.
1st 200, 2nd $100, top U2200 $90, U2000 $75, U1800 $70, U1600 $65.
ENTRY FEE:
$25 for MI members, $30 for nonmembers, $5 discount to juniors
Late fee of $5 for entries received after March 26th. Make checks payable to the Mechanics' Institute.
REGISTRATION:
9AM-9:30AM ROUNDS:
10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm
For more information: (415) 421-2258 or Email us

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REGIONAL TOURNAMENTS

Mar. 23-24. 4th Annual Bay Area Ohlone Tourney.4SS, 30/90, SD/60 College Cafeteria, 43600 Mission Blvd., Fremont, CA.$$(1620 b/100 full entries). 3 sects: Open, open to all. EF $35 if received by 3/21,$40 at site. $$ 300-170-100, U2100 $$ 155, 100. Reserve, open to U1900. EF : $ 35 if received by 3/21, $40 at site. $$ 200-80-70, U1700 $165, 80.Booster, open to U1500. EF: $35 if received by 3/21, $40 at site, $$ 100-60-40. Prizes: Trophy in each sect. +Trophy for best 3 mem. Team. Special EF:Scholastic rated U1100 or new USCF mem., Collegiate/ USCF mem. attending College, $30 in adv., $35 at site. All: $3 CalChess discount. Reg.9-9:30 amRds. Sat. 10-3:30, Sun. 9:30-3. Ent/Info: Hans Poschmann, 4621 Seneca Park Ave., Fremont, CA 94538, hspwood2@attbi.com

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