Chess Room Newsletter #457

Cecil Purdy

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1) Mechanics Institute Chess Club News
2) Tanuj Vesudeva wins Pan American Under 8 Championship
3) Ray Robson makes second GM norm

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MI member Vinay Bhat will face the test of his chess career in a super strong event starting very soon. The Montreal International begins August 27 and features an all-star cast headed by French super-GM Etienne Bacrot (2728 FIDE). The average rating of the 8 seeded players is 2664 FIDE, which makes it a category 17 event. With all 12 players included it drops to a still quite strong category 15. Other Americans competing are US Olympiad team members Alex Onischuk, Yury Shulman and Varuzhan Akobian. The website for the event is at: http://www.echecsmontreal.ca/.

A wild draw on board one between Romulo Fuentes and Andy Lee leaves no perfect scores after 4 rounds of the Max Wilkerson Memorial Tuesday Night Marathon.

The 66-player Vladimir Pafnutieff Memorial G/45 held on August 8th saw a four way tie for first at 4.5-.5 between IMs Sam Shankland, Andrei Florean, Ricardo DeGuzman and NM Gregory Young.

Congratulations to MI members IM Ricardo DeGuzman, Ted Castro and Craig Yamamoto for their outstanding showing in the 1st Central California Open in Fresno last weekend. Ricardo tied for first overall, Ted took top honors in the Under 2000 section and Craig in the Under 1600 group.

Aamir Azhar won $300 for taking first in the 36-player Bernardo Smith Memorial. The event, open to players rated under 1800, was held August 22-23 at the Mechanics'.

George Sanguinetti writes:

Last week's Wednesday Night Blitz tournament had an attendance of 11 players. 1st place going to new Champion Felix Rudyak, who scored 9 out of 11 points and took a voluntary play off victory over fellow 9 point scoring and the prior week's champion, Rey Salvatierra, beating him twice on the night. Congratulations Felix!

Wednesday Night Blitz Winners for the Week of 08/05/2009 are:

1st : Felix Rudyak $ 27.50 (9 points - Playoff Winner)

2nd : Rey Salvatierra $ 16.50 (9 points)

3rd : Jules Jelinek $ 11.00 (7 1/2 points) :-)

Last week the big boys showed up and the tournament can down to a final game face off between IM Ricardo DeGuzman, playing black, who was making his first appearance in the tournament and perpetual 1st place finisher (whenever he shows up), IM Vladimir Mezentsev. Both players, up to that point on the night, had perfect scores - the game ended in a draw. Congratulations to both and thanks for playing! Please come again!

Wednesday Night Blitz Winners for the Week of 08/19/2009 are:

1st & 2nd : Vladimir Mezentsev and Ricardo DeGuzman $20 each ( 8 1/2 from 9)

3rd : Romy Fuentes and Yefim Buhk $ 5.00 each (6 points)

ALSO, once again, please let it be known that JAMES JONES HAS GRACIOUSLY MADE A CONTRIBUTION OF 5 NEW CHESS CLOCKS TO OUR WEDNESDAY NIGHT BLITZ CLUB! THANK YOU MR. JONES! Even though James asks for nothing in return for his donation, in order to show our gratitude I will give him free entry to the tournament till the end of January 2010.

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MI member Tanuj Vesudeva of Fremont won the Pan American Under 8 Championship with a 9-0 score. Well done! See the full story on Tanuj, who is zeroing in on a 2000 rating at http://main.uschess.org/content/view/9655/544/ and http://fpawn.blogspot.com/ .

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Ray Robson, who will turn 15 on October 25, made his second GM norm with a round to spare in the 23rd FIDE Invitational organized by Sevan Muradian's North American Chess Association. MI member IM Sam Shankland, who has two GM norms, was in the running for a third before a loss to Robson in round eight. Go to www.uschess.org and www.nachess.org for more information.