Tuesday, October 6, 2009

FIDE Thursdays Round 4 – October 1, 2009

A straw vote was taken among the players before the round on whether they would like the FIDE time control of G/120 to be utilized in future Members Only Swisses instead of the more traditional 30/90, SD/60. The vote was 6 to 3 in favor of G/120, so we will institute that change with the event beginning on January 7, 2010 (there are no further announcements in Chess Life of the event starting October 22, so that one cannot be changed). And now for the results:

Asa Hoffmann vs. Yefim Treger: ½-½
The battle of our top two players began with 1 b3. Despite castling on opposite wings, the game ended as a draw.

Sarathi Ray vs. George Berg: ½-½
This interesting Closed Sicilian went down to the wire, as George defended very well as an ending with Bishop vs. Knight, turned into Knight vs. pawns and then just pawns, ending in lone Kings just before George’s flag would have fallen.

Ed Frumkin vs. Tony Gonzales: 1-0
Our Friday night manager played an interesting King’s Indian, fighting White’s massive pawn center with tactical threats. Black didn’t move a pawn to his fourth rank until move 14 (!). After some brief fireworks, White ended up with Knight and extra pawn vs. Bishop and after putting his King on the wrong square, Black discovered that a Rook pawn can frustrate a Bishop as well as it does a Knight, so White prevailed in this battle of club-logo cap wearers.

Marc Widmaier vs. Sandra Oliver: 1-0
This one was over shortly after I saw White’s Queen at b7 with much of Black’s Queenside still home.

Serge Adelson vs. Jeff Tannenbaum: 1-0
A wild game in which Jeff resigned, overlooking a saving move (with a pawn about to promote, he could have given up Queen for Rook to prevent mate).

Tony Greco vs. Marian Waxman: ½-½
This game continued a new trend. With seven members of the Board of Governors playing in this tournament, all three intramural matchups of Board members to date have been drawn (Greco-Hoffmann in Round 1, Frumkin-Oliver in round 2, and now this one). Jeff Tannenbaum and Polly Wright have yet to be paired against fellow Board members, but there are still two rounds left). Oliver-Greco looks to be a possible Round 5 pairing.

William Dubinsky vs. Paul Rachlin: 1-0
Both sides passed up draws in a position where Black had two pawns and an attack for a Bishop, with a Rook for each side being the only major material swapped off. Paul unfortunately overlooked a cheapo in time pressure (about 1 minute left with about 6 or 7 for his opponent), leading to a sudden checkmate.

Paul Doganges vs. Fidel De Los Santos: 0-1
I didn’t get a chance to see any of this one; I think it was already over before my position settled down.

Polly Wright got a full point bye and played in the G/30 upstairs. Ed Scher took a bye this week. Lawrence Carlos, John Brendel and Jerry Monaco were too late to get byes for the week since they needed to be requested before Round 3. Hopefully all will be back next week.

Top board pairings will probably be Ray vs. Hoffmann and Treger vs. Frumkin (all 3-1)
and Berg vs. Widmaier and Scher vs. Adelson (all 2½-1½). Adelson has already played both Berg and Widmaier.

Submitted by Ed Frumkin

Click to show the crosstable

No comments: