Chess Room Newsletter #426

Yuri Shulman

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1) Mechanics Institute Chess Club News
2) Kacheishvili wins Berkeley International
3) Anna Zatonskih annotates (Dresden Olympiad 2008)
4) David Knudson seeks Republican Nomination for Governor of South Dakota
5) Mark Diesen (1957-2008)
6) Hugh Myers (1930-2008)
7) Herman Chiu (1953-2008)
8) Here and There

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IM Walter Shipman is the top seed in the Winter Tuesday Night Marathon that just started. It's still possible to enter the 8 round event with a half point bye for the first round. 55 players are presently entered.

El Cerrito GM and Mechanics' member Vinay Bhat will be playing in the Parsvnath Open in India from January 11 to 19.

MI member IM Sam Shankland scored 5 from 7 at the North American Open in Las Vegas over the holidays. His score, which included a win over IM Robert Hess and a draw with GM Jaan Ehlvest, raised his USCF rating to 2441 from 2425.

The Peoples' Open will be held over President's Day Weekend in Berkeley at its historic site the UC Berkeley Student Union. This year's event will be a four rounder (Sunday and Monday). Full details from organizer Richard Koepcke will soon be available.

The Continental Chess Association will be returning to Northern California this March with a big event in Concord. This will be the first major tournament in Contra Costa County since the 1996 US Open - incidentally held at the same hotel in Concord and also run by the CCA. See below under upcoming events for more information.

This Saturday the Mechanics will host the 9th Annual Bob Burger Open to recognize the well known Master, author and problem composer.

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Georgian GM George Kacheishvili won the 2008 Berkeley Masters held December 14th to 23rd at the Hillside School in Berkeley. This was the second strongest tournament ever held in the East Bay behind only the 1984 US Championship. The successful event, organized by IM David Pruess, saw IM norms earned by Daniel Rensch, Marc Esserman and Irina Zenyuk. The latter, who just received her WIM title, also made a WGM norm.

Top scores:

1. GM Kacheishvili (GEO, 2572) - 7½/10

2. GM Izoria (GEO, 2610) – 7

3-5. IM Friedel (USA, 2498), IM/WGM Krush (USA, 2452) and FM Rensch (USA, 2354) - 6

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Newsletter 424 wrote about the Dresden Olympiad where both US teams medaled and mention was made of IM Anna Zatonskih who had a fantastic performance scoring 8 from 10 to win the gold medal on board two and narrowly miss a GM norm. We would like to thank Anna and Oklahoma Chess Quarterly editor Frank Berry for making the following game available. We would also like to take this opportunity to again thank the Kasparov Chess Foundation, title sponsor for the US teams the past three Olympiads. Our match vs. Russia was the most important of the whole Olympiad! Russia was the number one seed in the Olympiad by rating and their team included the new world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk and the 2007 European Champion Tatiana Kosintseva. We won 3–1! This gave us confidence that we could compete for medals. We were so close to winning against the Chinese team in the previous round (but we drew) so in this round we tried even harder.1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6The Petroff defence is now in my opening repertoire... since I met my husband who taught me to play it.3.d4 Nxe4 4.Bd3 d5 5.Nxe5 Nd7 6.Nc3 Nxc3 7.bxc3 Nxe5 8.dxe5 Bc5We are in a well known theoretical position. Putting the bishop on c5 usually leads to sharp positions with opposite sides castling. I played 8...Be7 in a previous game vs Tatiana Kosintseva.9.Qh5 Be6 10.Rb1 Bb6 11.0–0 h6 12.Kh1Tatiana wants to play f2- f4-f5. That is why she moved her king out of the pin. This plan is common to this type of position.12...g6 13.Qe2 Qd7 14.Be314.f4 Bg4 15.Qe1 Bf5 16.Be3 0–0 (16...0–0–0).14...Bf5!? I want to exchange the most active white piece to neutralize a future attack. The problem is my king is still in the middle.15.Qf3 0–0–0 16.a4Another line goes 16.Bxf5 Qxf5 17.Qxf5+ gxf5 and I think black is slightly better here since white has more pawn islands. It is important that I can attack them in the future. White has most of her pawns on black squares but if white takes on b6 after axb6 I will have good chances to bring my rooks to the semi-open a-file and attack the a2 pawn. 16...Qxa416...Rhe817.Bxb6 cxb6 18.Ra1 Qg4 19.Qe3?!I think the Queen exchange was a better option for white 19.Qxg4 Bxg4 20.Rxa7 Kc7.19...Bxd3 20.cxd3Checking the team score I saw on boards 3 and 4 that we already had two draws. Irina on Board 1 had a completely unclear position. I think Kosintseva decided to play for an attack since she had two open files on my queen side. Russia wanted to win this match so that`s why Tatiana sac'd the a-pawn20...Kb8 21.f4White needed to stop d4. If 21.Rfb1 then 21...d4.21...Qe6 22.Ra3 Rc8 23.h3 Rhd8 24.Qd4 a6 25.g4 b5So now I have neutralized her attack. My king is safe but it is still hard for black to win. Probably, I had more aggressive options but I wanted to play the most solid moves to make sure I will not spoil anything.26.f5 Qe7 27.Raa1 g527... gxf5 28.Rxf5.28.e6 I wanted to play Qc5 and trade queens. So my opponent decided to "complicate" the game and so kept the queens on the board.28...fxe6 29.Rae1 Rc629...Qc5 30.Rxe6 Black is better but I thought 29....Rc6 was the more solid move.30.f6 Qf7=2 031.Rb1 Rf8 32.c4Otherwise I will play e5 and take the pawn on f6.32...dxc432...bxc4 33.dxc4 dxc433.dxc4 bxc4 34.Rb4 e5 35.Qxe5+ Qc7 36.Qc3 Rf7 to block the pawn on f6. 37.Rbb1 Rd6 38.Qe5 Rd3 39.Qe8+ Ka7 0-1I had won my game! I looked around to see that Irina was up a rook on board one! I thought that the Russian Alexandra Kosteniuk had only tiny hopes for a perpetual check but she had no chance to win and equalize the match overall. So we won the match vs. ranked number one Russia! Soon IM Krush did win so the final score was 3–1. We were so happy!

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Is there a governor who is a real chess player? Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a casual chess player , but not the serious kind who is a member of the USCF and plays in and organizes tournaments. So the answer is no at present but the situation may soon change. The Associated Press reported in late December that South Dakota State Senator Dave Knudson will run for governor.

Better known to chess players as the organizer of many Governor's Cup tournaments along with his wife De, the current South Dakota Senate majority leader said he has been considering running forgovernor for a long time because he is interested in public policy.

"I feel like South Dakota has got a lot of serious problems. We need to confront those problems head-on and look for solutions," Knudson said. "I see myself as a problem-solving kind of person."

Knudson, 58, is a lawyer who served two temporary terms as chief of staff for South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow in 1995 and 1999. He first won a seat in the Senate in 2002 and is now serving his fourth term, which means he will be term-limited in the Senate in 2010.

He said his top priorities are making sure K-12 education is properly funded, reducing property taxes, and emphasizing economic development and the role technical education plays in development.

His wife, De Knudson, is a member of the Sioux Falls City Council.

The 2010 race for governor will be wide open because Gov. Mike Rounds is term-limited and cannot seek re-election.

Those who wish to support Dave Knudson can contact him at 2100 East Slaten Court, Sioux Falls, SD 57103.

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Former World Junior Champion Mark Diesen passed away suddenly on December 9th in Conroe, Texas. Diesen, who came from a chess playing family (his cousin Bruce was a master, his father Carl an expert and his mother was a former Wisconsin Ladies Champion) learned to play at the age of 10. He first attracted notice in the chess world when a short article with a game and photo of him appeared in Chess Life in October of 1970 (page 559) for winning the Maryland junior championship at the age of 12.

Mark's progress up the junior ranks was fast and he was soon the second strongest player under 21 in the United States behind only Larry Christiansen who he finished second to in the 1973 and 1975 US Junior Closed events. Diesen broke through in 1976 tying for first in arguably the strongest US Junior Closed ever held (future GMs DeFirmian and Fedorowicz tied for last place) with Michael Rohde whom he defeated. This performance earned him the right to play in the World Junior Championship which he won. Mark's second, GM Lubos Kavalek, who coached him from 1975 to 1978, wrote a worthy tribute to the new champion in Chess Life and Review in the March and April 1977 issues. It was a very big deal as Mark had become, at that time, only the second US player after William Lombardy (1957) to win the title. Mark was on the cover of the March 1977 issue of Chess Life and Review as well as June 1976 where he and his fellow Washington Plumbers (Kavalek, Bill Hook, John Meyer, Larry Gilden, Bob Eberlein, Sam Greenlaw and the late Charles Powell) celebrated their victory in the US Chess League.

Winning the World Junior was good for a lot of tournaments invitations in the late 1970s and Mark soon became a globetrotter and full-time chess player. Between 1977 and 1980 he played in The Netherlands, Spain, England, Venezuela, Poland (twice) and Yugoslavia (many times). During this time he raised his FIDE rating over 2450 (the requirement for the GM title at the time) and earned one GM norm. Everything was going right for him to earn the title but then he had an accident at the 1980 US Championship in Greenville, Pennsylvania, which forced him to drop out of the event. This was to be Mark's last major tournament. Soon he went back to school graduating from the University of Tennessee with a degree in Chemical Engineering. He married and had children and worked as a reservoir engineer for Shell Oil, Pennzoil and Noble Energy. Mark returned to tournament play when he moved to Louisiana winning state titles there in 1986, 1987 and 1988. When he relocated to Texas in the early 1990s he won the Texas State Championship and Southwestern Open titles and was also active in coaching. This was particularly true online where he found a second chess life. Searching for his games in MegaData Base 2009 you will find that the fine "positional feel" that his old coach GM Kavalek had praised back in 1977, had not deserted Mark. There are numerous wins over strong GMs from this decade in blitz and rapid tournaments.

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There is a fine tribute to the chess master, opening explorer and author Hugh Myers at the ChessBase website (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5113).

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USCF Master Herman Chiu, who was Oregon chess co-champion in 1988, passed away in Corvallis, Oregon, on October 2008. Chiu, who grew up in New Jersey, but lived all over the United States, excelled in several areas. An awarding winning journalist (he had a PhD in journalism from the University of Missouri) and researcher who wrote extensively about the early history of Chinese in Oregon and California, Chiu also won tournaments all over North America during a playing career that stretched over three decades.

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Newsletter reader Richard Reich of Madison, Wisconsin, writes:

Hi,

I found an interesting web site, archive.org, that links to all kinds of archived material. Regarding chess, they have scans of full years o f various old BCM's, Westminster Chess, Chess Chronicles, etc.I am currently watching a very old movie I found there, "Scared Stiff," where Jack Haley (the Tin Man of Oz) is in a low-budget comedy. He's a chess-columnist who gets mixed up with hoodlums.

http://www.archive.org/details/Scared_Stiff

The new FIDE rating list has just been published. Topalov would be even higher if his victory in Nanjing in December had been counted on this list.

1. Topalov 2796
2. Anand 2791
3. Ivanchuk 2779
4. Carlsen 2776
5. Morozevich 2771
6. Radjabov 2761
7. Jakovenko 2760
8. Kramnik 2759
9. Leko 2751
10. Movsesian 2751
11. Aronian 2750

You will find an excellent biography of many-time Idaho state champion Glenn Buckendorf at http://www.idahochesshistory.com/Biographies/GBuckendorf.htm

We recently received the following message and would be grateful to any reader who can supply us with more information about the Third Saturday tournaments which have received little public reporting.

Message from GM Bogdan Lalic:

Hi, my friend grandmaster Sinisa Drazic told me to send this inquiry to your federation - he is organizing two tournaments in Novi Sad from 10th to 18th of January 2009 one is IM tournament and the other one is GM tournament, both are closed tournaments 10 players round robin. His e-mail is [email protected] and [email protected]

Please could you forward this e-mail to potential players interested to play in this tournament. Regards Bogdan Lalic.