Monday, September 28, 2009

Monday U1600 - Two Tie for First

Chaklader and Rawlins came through with big last round wins to split first prize, each taking home $104.50. Congrats!

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Wednesday U2000 - Two Still Pefect

Lamb and Rahman lead the pack with perfect scores. They'll face each other Wednesday the 30th, and the winner will most likely win the tourney.

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FIDE Thursdays Round 3

Holding at 21 players, the Treger-Ray battle on Board 1 literally went down to the last minute for Yefim and ended up in a drawn Queen and Pawns ending (next time, use a delay clock !!). Marc Widmaier played the thematic e6 pawn sacrifice to inflict an ugly position on top-ranked Asa Hoffmann, but somehow Asa escaped, consolidated and won. Berg-Frumkin slipped into a drawn Rook ending as Black squandered a promising middle game attack. Sandra Oliver’s From Gambit didn’t pan out, as after a Queen exchange she was down a piece for virtually no compensation to John Brendel, who duly delivered checkmate. Marian Waxman repeated the opening error of two weeks prior from Rachlin-Frumkin against Ed Scher and Ed pocketed the exchange, weathered a counterattack and simplified into a relatively easy win. The all Tony game of Gonzales-Greco was a very nice win by the former (after the loss or sacrifice of a pawn, Gonzales won an exchange and cut off Greco’s king with the extra Rook). Jeff Tannenbaum beat Paul Doganges, Serge Adelson beat Fidel De Los Santos and Jerry Monaco beat Polly Wright quickly enough for Polly to enter the G/30 with a bye and Jerry to play a filler game. Lawrence Carlos, William Dubinsky and Paul Rachlin took byes. So far only Ed Scher has a bye next week, so the top pairings appear to be Hoffmann-Treger and Ray-Berg, the first three with 2½-½ scores and the last as top-ranked 2-1.

Submitted by Ed Frumkin

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Monday, September 21, 2009

Grandmaster Challenge, September 19th

GM Alex Lenderman took sole 1st, with 5 out of 6 points. Second through fourth places were taken by GM Rohde, GM Babev, and IM Lapshun.

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Justin plus Justus equals 8 points!

We had a large turnout for the Saturday G/60, with one expected result, IM Sarkar going 4-0, and one unexpected result, Justus Williams going 4-0!

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FIDE Thursdays, Round 2

The number of players swelled from 17 to 21 with the addition of Marc Widmaier (our 6th FIDE-rated player), William Dubinsky, Tony Gonzales and Fidel De Los Santos. In the battles among the 1-0 scorers, Treger fended off Brendel’s Sicilian Wing Gambit and Ray won a King and Pawn ending from Waxman in which both sides had doubled c pawns. Frumkin and Oliver ended as a mutually embarrassing draw. Hoffmann narrowly edged Dubinsky in a Knight and Pawn ending, Berg accepted Paul Doganges’ Blackmar Gambit and successfully retained the extra material while Widmaier beat Serge Adelson. Carlos beat De Los Santos, reversing an upset from two Thursday events ago, Scher beat Monaco and Polly Wright won an exchange from Paul Rachlin before giving it back and drawing. Tony Greco, Jeff Tannenbaum and Tony Gonzales took byes, so we had nine games this week. Top board for Round 3 should be Treger-Ray (Ray does have a prior win from Treger—I’m sure somebody was going to ask) and it will be interesting to see what the computer does with the five player 1½ group. I apologize for less opening and middlegame information than usual, but Sandra and I preferred to play skittles upstairs after our relatively short game. The prize fund will be raised now that we have exceeded 20 players and we could still use some more with FIDE ratings. With three place prizes, an under 2000 prize and only 5 players rated 2000 or higher, anybody could win this thing, even a late entrant.

Reported by Ed Frumkin

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Wednesday U2000

Three players tied for the lead after round two in the Wednesday U2000. It's still not too late to join the tournament, with byes in rounds one and two.

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Friday, September 11, 2009

17 Starters at the September 10-October 15 FIDE Thursdays

We are happy to see some new participants in this Thursday slow event (G/120 to be rateable by FIDE), including 12 seeking FIDE ratings. The five with FIDE ratings already are regulars Yefim Treger, George Berg, Ed Frumkin and Marian Waxman, joined by G/30 regular Asa Hoffmann. In addition to longstanding Thursday regulars Ed Scher, Jeff Tannenbaum, Jerry Monaco and Sandra Oliver, we were joined by occasional Sarathi Ray and Lawrence Carlos, returning former regular (newly retired) Tony Greco, new member but familiar face John Brendel, Wednesday regulars Serge Adelson and Paul Rachlin, and G/30 convert (we hope) Polly Wright. We may have set a new record with seven of the fifteen members of the Marshall Board of Governors playing in the same event (this is the most I remember in my 4 years and change on the Board).

Round 1 pairings:

Greco ½ -Hoffmann ½ : Asa’s beloved Czech Benoni didn’t get him anything special; Tony had the usual big space advantage.
Treger 1-Scher 0: Ed’s Scandinavian left him down his usual pawn, and by his own admission he missed a couple of chances to stay in the game.
Tannenbaum 0- Ray 1: I must admit I didn’t get a chance to look at this one, since I was in enough difficulties in my own game.
Berg ½ -Adelson ½ : George was up a pawn or two until Black got in a neat rook offer based on a back rank mate.
Rachlin 0-Frumkin 1: My opponent declined a draw offer and then apparently miscounted the material, liquidating into a pawn down same color Bishop ending which was probably dead lost.
Waxman 1-Monaco 0: The last game to finish – Marian lost the Exchange but seemed to be holding with Knight vs. Rook when Jerry walked into a Knight fork rather than return the exchange for a probable draw.
Oliver 1-Carlos 0: The big upset of the night – by the time I saw it, Sandra had a Rook against an armada of pawns which hadn’t yet advanced very far, so she prevailed.
Brendel 1-Wright 0: This looked like a Wing Gambit in the Sicilian or something similar in which Polly put up a good fight.

The prize fund is $175-$125-$100 and $100 under 2000 based on 20 players and if we exceed 20, the prizes will be raised. We expect more players next week (Paul Doganges (1800), another Thursday regular, took a first round bye). We especially need players with FIDE ratings so that this event can fulfill its mission of enabling players without them to play at least four games against those who already have them. There are only four players rated over 2000 so far, so anybody can win it. There are six rounds in the event and two ½ point byes are permitted (byes in the last three rounds must be committed to before Round 4 (October 1)).

[posted by Ed Frumkin]

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Hoffmann cleans up

Asa Hoffmann decided to hand out lessons galore on Sunday, and take home first place. Raven Sturt, Arthur Macaspac, and Miguel Garcia took prizes for 2nd, 3rd, and U2000, with Leonid Exler winning the U1700 prize.

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A cool C-note for Barbossa

Oliver Barbossa walked home with first prize on Saturday, coming ahead of GM Rohde and IM Sarkar. David Spigel and Casey Jacobs tooks home the class prizes.

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Friday, September 4, 2009

New York Knights, Week 1 Recap

In case you haven't heard, the United States Chess League (USCL) kicked off it's opening week, with the New York Knights, playing on site at the Marshall Chess Club, against the New Jersey Knockouts.

Board One: GM Giorgi Kacheishvili (NY) vs GM Joel Benjamin (NJ) 1/2-1/2
Giorgi and Joel went into a Qc2 Nimzo, where white sac'd a pawn for pressure. Black quickly gave back the pawn to complete development, shortly won the pawn back with a slightly better position. But with time pressure looming, Giorgi and Joel agreed to a draw.

Board Two: IM Dean Ippolito (NJ) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) 1-0
Dean had Pascal under tremendous pressure throughout this game, but it looked to those of us kibitzing on ICC that Black finally had the draw in sight. Pascal must have disagreed, as in time pressure he swapped his remaining bishop and knight for all white's pawns, leaving white with only two knights. One problem - Black had one pawn left and his king in the corner. Dean quickly trapped Pascal in a mating net.

Board Three: NM Matthew Herman (NY) vs NM Victor Shen (NJ) 0-1
According to NM Evan Rosenberg, Matthew looked "totally comfortable, both position wise, and lounged on the plush crimson Marshall seat". It seemed to me that Matt's position was for choice in the Kan Sicilian, but when I looked at the game 45 minutes later, the black pieces were swarming all over the place. Victor wrapped things up with a nice exchange sac, forcing resignation.

Board Four: NM Arthur Shen (NJ) vs NM Yaacov Norowitz (NY) 0-1
This was a rating mismatch, as Yaacov is currently rated 2378, while Arthur lists at 2112. Yaacov has been on a rampage lately, and his rating increase beat the USCL cut-off, giving the Knights a big edge on the lower boards. The game developed into a Nf6 Caro-Kan, where black recaptured on f6 with a pawn. Black's pawn structure looks terrible, he's completely behind in development, so what happens? Black wins, of course. Times like this I wonder if I'll ever understand chess.

Alas, a 2½ - 1½ loss for our Knights. Week two's opponents are the Seattle Sluggers, with a late 9pm start. Feel free to drop by the Marshall, or if you can't, watch online via the Internet Chess Club.

And of course, visit the Knight's blog at http://newyorkknights.blogspot.com, and the USCL website at http://www.uschessleague.com.

Six Degrees of Separation is one thing...

...but a six way tie for first is ridiculous! Nevertheless, it happened in the Members Only tournament which just concluded. George Berg and Jason Margiotta held both Yefim Treger and Brian Hulse to draws on boards one and two, while Ed Frumkin and Marc Widmaier won on boards 3 and 4, creating the logjam atop the leader board.

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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Wednesday U2000 Results

Yuta Kakutani reeled off four straight wins and emerged victorious with a final score of 4.5 out of 5. Jonathan Hidalgo and Kenneth Collins split 2nd and 3rd place with 4 points apiece.

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Monday Under 1600

Guy Rawlings is leading the field with a perfect 3.0 score. Alex Genadinik and Ean Fonseca are hot on his heels with 2.5.

Monday players, please remember the Marshall Chess Club is closed this Monday, Labor Day, 7 September. Round 4 is Monday, 14 September.

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August Grand Prix, 29 & 30 August

The favourites came through in the August GP, as the highest seeds, IM Laphsun, IM Sarkar, and FM Sorkin split all three prizes with 3.5 out of 4, taking home $141.67 each.

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Member's Only - Four way tie for first

First place is completely up for grabs as Yefim Treger, Brian Hulse, George Berg, and Jason Margiotta are tied with 3 points going into the last round.

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