Chess Room Newsletter #393

~IM Josh Friedel - referring to the time control of G/90 plus 30 seconds per move.

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1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News
2) Gregory Kaidanov wins Arnold Eikrem Memorial
3) US Championship Online Qualifier
4) Here and There
5) Edmonton Internationl

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Five rounds into the Spring Tuesday Night IM John Grefe and Expert Victor Ossipov are tied for first with 4.5 from 5. The two seniors will face strong opposition in the last three rounds as among those on 4 points are NMs Sam Shankland ( 2344), Daniel Naroditsky (2320) and Andy Lee (2281). 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 Qa5 8.Nxc6 [8.0-0 Qb4 9.Bb3] 8...bxc6 9.0-0 Qb4 10.Qd3 [10.Bb3 Nxe4 11.a3 Nxc3 12.Qf3] 10...Ng4 11.Bd4 Qd6 12.e5 Nxe5 13.Bxe5 Qxd3 14.cxd3 Bxe5 15.Rfe1 f6 16.Rac1 Rb8 17.Re2 e6 18.Bb3 Ba6 19.Bc4 Bc8 20.g3 Ke7 21.Bb3 Rb4 22.Ne4 Rd4 23.f4 Bc7 24.Rc3 Ba5 25.Re3 Bb6 26.Kg2 Ba6 27.Rf3 Rb8 28.Bc4 Bc8 29.Bb3 d5 30.Nf2 Kd6 31.Ng4 Rb4 32.Nxf6 Bd4 33.Nxh7 Bxc3 34.bxc3 R4b6 35.Nf8 c5 36.Re3 d4 37.cxd4 cxd4 38.Re4 Bb7 39.Nxg6 Bxe4+ 40.dxe4 Rxb3 41.axb3 Rxb3 42.h4 a5 43.Ne5 a4 44.h5 a3 45.h6 a2 46.h7 Rb8 47.Nc4+ Kc7 0-1 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.f4 Qc7 7.Be2 e6 8.0-0 Nc6 9.Kh1 Be7 10.g4 Nxd4 11.Qxd4 d5 12.exd5 Bc5 13.Qe5 Bd6 14.Qg5 0-0 15.Qh4 Nxd5 16.Bd3 f5 17.Nxd5 exd5 18.Be3 Bc5 19.Bxc5 Qxc5 20.Rae1 d4 21.Re5 Qc6+ 22.Kg1 Qg6 23.h3 Bd7 24.Kh2 Rae8 25.gxf5 Qf6 26.Qxf6 Rxf6 27.Rxe8+ Bxe8 28.Re1 Bc6 29.Re7 Kf8 30.Rc7 Rf7 31.Rc8+ Ke7 32.Kg3 Kd7 33.Rh8 h6 34.Bc4 Re7 35.Be6+ Kc7 36.Rc8+ Kd6 37.Rd8+ Kc5 38.Kg4 Be4 39.Rc8+ Kb6 40.Rc4 Rc7 41.Rb4+ Kc5 42.Rc4+ Kb6 43.Rxd4 Bxc2 44.Kh5 Re7 45.Rd7 Rxd7 46.Bxd7 Kc7 47.Be6 1-0 Class A player Martin Marshall was the surprise winner of the 2008 Walter Lovegrove Senior Open held April 5th and 6th. Marshall scored 3.5 from 4 followed by IM Walter Shipman and NM Keith Vickers at 3.

Orinda high school student Sam Shankland followed his great success at the US Championship Qualifier by tying for second in the New York April Open with a score of 3-1 including a win over IM Jay Bonin. His only loss was to tournament winner GM Mark Paragua of the Philippines.

MI Chess Director IM John Donaldson, whose victory over WIM Mokriak in the Stillwater Winter FIDE Open was featured in the March 29 chess column in the Boston Globe ( written by Harold Dondis and Patrick Wolff) recently received his FIDE Arbiter title.

Congratulations to NMs Daniel Naroditsky, Gregory Young and Nicholas Nip who qualified for the 2008 US Chess Federation All America Team for kids. Another MI member, Adam Goldberg, was noted as a rapidly improving player to watch as he went up over 300 rating points in the last year.

Chess Historian and MI member Calvin Olsen of Vallejo, whose The Chess Kings Volume One has received excellent reviews, was a guest of IM John Watson's on his program Chess Talk at ICC Chess .FM . You can go to http://webcast.chessclub.com/preview/Watson/04_01_08/Watson_preview.html to hear part of it without being an ICC member.

Mike Goodall, a member of the Mechanics's Institute for over 40 years, will be directing the 3rd Annual Frank Doyle Open this weekend in Santa Rosa. Lookup below under upcoming tournaments for complete details.

Los Angeles GM Melik Khachiyan will be running a training seminar for strong MI juniors on May 3 and participating in the 2nd Ray Schutt Memorial Blitz on May 4 at the Mechanics'.

World Under 12 Champion Daniel Naroditsky will be featured on Foster City Cafe on FCTV, Comcast-27 and AT&T-99. The episode is slated to play on Wednesday, April 16th at 7:30pm and replayed at the 5:30pm, on Friday, April 18th.

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GM Gregory Kaidanov of Lexington turned in an impressive performance in winning the top group of the Arnold J. Eikrem Memorial in Gausdal, Norway, held April 8-16.

 Place Name Fed ELO Title Score Perf 1. Kaidanov, Gregory USA 2596 gm 7.0 27312. Gopal, Geetha Naraynan IND 2562 gm 6.0 26383. Kotronias, Vasilios GRE 2611 gm 5.5 25924. Sandipan, Chanda IND 2585 gm 5.0 25555. Ikonnikov, Vyacheslav RUS 2578 gm 5.0 25546. Macieja, Bartlomiej POL 2599 gm 5.0 25547. Lie, Kjetil A NOR 2558 gm 4.5 25148. Krush, Irina USA 2479 im 3.5 24429. Hole, Øystein NOR 2387 im 2.5 236710. Moskow, Eric USA 2229 1.0 2190

Kaidanov did not get big advantages out of the opening in his games or win by flashy attacks but simply outplayed his opponents with excellent positional play and plenty of determination. The following game was a nice squeeze. 1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 c6 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 Nbd7 7.Rc1 0-0 8.Bd3 h6 9.Bh4 dxc4 10.Bxc4 b5 11.Be2 Bb7 12.0-0 Rc8 13.Qd3 a6 14.Rfd1 c5 15.dxc5 Nxc5 16.Qb1 Qe8 17.b4 Nce4 18.Nxe4 Bxe4 19.Qb2 Rxc1 20.Rxc1 Qa8 21.a3 Rc8 22.Rxc8+ Qxc8 23.Nd4 g5 24.Bg3 Nd5 25.Bf3 Bxf3 26.Nxf3 Qc4 27.h3 f6 28.Qb1 Kg7 29.Be5 Bd8 30.Bb2 Bb6 31.Nd4 Bxd4 32.Bxd4 e5 33.Bb2 Nb6 34.Qd1 Qc6 35.Qf3 Qxf3 36.gxf3 Nc4 37.Bc1 f5 38.e4 Nd6 39.exf5 Nxf5 40.Kg2 Kf6 41.Bb2 Ke6 42.Kh2 Nh4 43.Kg3 Kf5 44.Bc1 Ng6 45.Bd2 h5 46.Be3 h4+ 47.Kh2 Kf6 48.Bd2 Nf4 49.Bc3 Kf5 50.Bd2 Ke6 51.Bc3 Kd5 52.Bb2 Nd3 53.Bc3 Kc4 54.Bd2 Nf4 55.Be3 Kd3 56.Bc5 Ke2 57.Bd6 Kxf2 58.Bxe5 Kxf3 59.Bf6 Ne6 60.Be7 Ke4 61.Kg2 Nf4+ 62.Kh2 Kf5 63.Bc5 g4 64.hxg4+ Kxg4 65.Be7 Nd3 66.Bd6 Nb2 67.Kg2 Nc4 68.Bc7 Nxa3 69.Kf2 Nc2 70.Bd6 Nd4 0-1 US Womens Champion Irina Krush started well but faded at the end as did IM David Pruess who playing in the B-group still turned in a FIDE 2400 performance despite losing his last two games. Expect more from both players in the US Championship in Stillwater next month. Chess Maecenas Eric Moskow of Miami sponsored the top section at Gausdal,

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The Mechanics' Institute presently has 4 players qualified for the 2008 Frank Berry US Championship and US Womens Championship scheduled for next month in Tulsa. IMs David Pruess and Josh Friedel, NM Sam Shankland WIM Batchimeg Tuvshintugs all have their tickets for Oklahoma. IM Vinay Bhat hopes to join the club.

Playing in the US Championship Online Qualifier (5 minutes plus one second increment - double-round robin) on April 12 on very short notice he dominated the Western Conference and joined IM Enrico Sevillano in qualifying.

12.5/14 CofC-NorthCalif -- IM Vinay Bhat
10.5 CofC-SoCal -- IM Enrico Sevillano
9.0 CofC-Arizona -- IM Levon Altounian
8.5 CofC-SDakota -- IM Sandor Kustar
8.5 CofC-Hawaii - NM Cornelius Rubsammen

Boston IM David Vigorito almost turned in a perfect score in crushing the opposition in the East.The young talent Ray Robinson was second.

17.0/18 CofC-MA -- IM David Vigorito
13.5 CofC-Florida -- IM-elect Ray Robson
13.0 CofC-Georgia -- FM Kazim Gulamali
11.0 CofC-PA -- IM Bryan Smith
10.5 CofC-Virginia -- NM Edward Lu
10.0 CofC-NCarolina -- NM Chris Mabe
The semifinals this Saturday have Bhat facing Sevillano while Robson takes on Vigorito. The two winners face off Sunday. The format for both the semifinals and finals will be two game matches at G/60 with a 3 second increment. If that fails to produce a winner then comes 2 five minute games with a 1 second increment and finally an armageddon game with White having 5 minutes to 4 but giving draw odds.

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Fabiano Caruana continues to get stronger and stronger. He won the 81-player Merida Rapid Chess Open held in Spain April 12-13 against strong opposition.

1. GM Caruana (ITA, 2620) - 7½/9;
2-4. GM Adams (ENG, 2729), GM Granda Zuniga (PER, 2609) and IM Khamrakulov (UZB, 2548) – 7.

In Newsletter #385 we reported that GM Yury Shulman had a new book out. Co-authored with Rishi Sethi, Chess! Lessons from a Grandmaster , an oversized 203 page paperback aimed at beginning players and loaded with instructive material and many exercises received excellent reviews and has already sold out. A new, improved edition is due out soon. Go to http://shulmanchess.com for more information. We can't help remarking how rare it is to find a world class player (+2600 FIDE) who actually enjoys working with youngsters who are just beginning to play.

It is old news (February) but still worth reporting that GM Gregory Serper won the 2008 WA State Championship with a score of 8 from 9, picking up $1500. Serper led from start to finish but going into the last round of the 10 player round robin he could still have been overtaken by defending Champion NM Ignacio Perez, formerly of Cuba, who was only half a point behind. Perez lost the head to head encounter but had the consolation of receiving $1000 for second place for scoring 6.5 points. Highly rated IM Georgy Orlov and SM Slava Mikhailuk shared third at 6 for $300 apiece. Erik Anderson and Jim Roberts donated $3000 to the prize fund which helped field the strongest ever lineup in the history of the Washington State Championship which has been held annually as a round robin since the late 1920s!

It was no April Fools. The Style section of the New York Times (page 14) on April 1 reported that a Chess-in-the-Schools fundraiser at the Rainbow Room raised over one million dollars. Chess-in-the-Schools promotes chess as a way to teach students to think.

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The third Edmonton International Chess Championship will take place between July 31st-August 4th in the Edmonton Chess Club (#204, 10840 124 st. Edmonton, Alberta Canada). The tournament will be a 9 round Swiss system event with GM/IM norm opportunities. To ensure that norms are available 5 GMs will be invited to the event.

Eligibility:
All FIDE titled players and Alberta Masters (Albertans rated 2200+ CFC or FIDE) are allowed to participate. A few spots may be available to high rated FIDE untitled players from outside the province. Please notify the organizers of your intent to play by email for instructions how to do so.

Entry fees:
Free for GMs, IMs and WGMs.
Before May 1st: FMs, WIMs, WFMs, juniors 18 and under-$100.
Everyone else: $130.
Before July 1st: FMs, WIMs, WFMs, juniors 18 and under-$120.
Everyone else: $150.
After July 1st: FMs, WIMs, WFMs, juniors 18 and under-$140.
Everyone else: $170.
Full refunds are available until June 15, payments can be made in Canadian Dollars, or in US Dollars for people sending cheques outside of Canada.

Round times:
July 31st: 7:00 pm.
August 1st: 11:00 am, 7:00 pm.
August 2nd-4th: 11:00 am, 7:00 pm.

Time control:
Game 90 for the first 40 moves, plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with 30 seconds increment added to each move starting from move 1.

Anti-Draw rules:

• 1. Games may not be agreed to a draw before move 30.
• 2. Participants of games in which a draw was achieved quickly by a three-fold repetition and finished in a well known theoretical position may be asked to replay the game.

A penalty for violation of those would be a 10% reduction in any prize fund winning.

Prizes:
$1750 Canadian guaranteed ($1000 first, $500 second, $250). The prizes are expected to increase with fund-raising activities and they are expected to include some class prizes.

For more information contact Vlad Rehkson at [email protected]