Chess Room Newsletter #479

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1) Mechanics Institute Chess Club News
2) Daniel Narodtsky on John Watson's Chess Talk on ICC
3) Raymond Weinstein
4) Ray Schutt Memorial Blitz

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International Master Ricardo DeGuzman continued his many years of domination of the Mechanics' monthly G/45 series by winning the 10th Annual Henry Gross Memorial with a score of 4.5 from 5 last Saturday. The former member of the Philippine Olympiad team score 4.5 from 5 including a win over master Romulo Fuentes and a last round draw with IM Andrei Florean. Sharing second at 4-1 in the 42-player field were Florean, Fuentes, NM Paul Gallegos, Class A players Michael De Cruz (who drew with Florean) and Felix Rudyak and Nicholas Silver. The latter entered the event who a provisional rating of 1068 and finished the tournament rated over 400 points higher!

The Mechanics' will hold its annual Chess Camp July 19-23 with IM John Donaldson and MI Scholastic Coordinator Anthony Corrales as the instructors. More information about the camp is at the MI Chess Club website at www.chessclub.org.

Last Wednesday night a dozen players showed up for the weekly blitz,tournament at the Mechanics'.Jorge Lopez took first place with the excellent score of 10.5 out of 11. Carlos Davila and Arthur Ismakov shared second with 9 points.

Last week's score of the game McCormick-Wilkerson had some errors in it. Thanks to NM Erik Osbun for pointing this out. Here is the corrected version.

James McCormick,James � Max Wilkerson
9th Stamer Memorial San Francisco1973

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.Nc3 cxd4 5.Nxd4 Nc6 6.e3 Be7 7.Be2 0�0 8.0�0 d6 9.b3 e5 10.Nxc6 bxc6 11.Bf3 Qb6 12.Bb2 Be6 13.Rc1 Rad8 14.Qc2 d5 15.cxd5 cxd5 16.Na4 Qb8 17.Qc7 Bd6 18.Qxb8 Bxb8 19.Rfd1 Rc8 20.Be2 Rxc1 21.Rxc1 Rc8 22.Nc5 Bf5 23.Ba6 Rd8 24.Bd3 Bc8 25.b4 Nd7 26.a4 e4 27.Be2 Ne5 28.b5 f5 29.Bd4 g5 30.a5 f4 31.b6 axb6 32.axb6 Nc6 33.Bf6 Rd6 34.Bxg5 f3 35.Ba6 Bf5 36.g3 Rg6 37.Bh4 Nb4 38.Bf1 Rxb6 39.Nb3 Be5 40.Bd8 Rb7 41.Nd4 Bxd4 42.exd4 Nc2 43.g4 e3 44.fxe3 Be4 45.Ba6 Rd7 46.Bf6 Rd6 0�1

Go to http://main.uschess.org/content/view/10135/576/ to read about IM Sam Shankland's quest to make his final GM norm in the 8th Gibtelecom Masters. Sam didn't make it but his score of 6.5 from 10, good for a performance rating of 2531, brought his FIDE rating to 2498, just under the necessary 2500 required along with three GM norms (Sam has two) for the title. Fellow Mechanics' member Vinay Bhat also had 6.5. The event ended in a nine-way tie for first at 7.5 between GMs Gustafsson (GER, 2627), Adams (ENG, 2694), Vallejo (ESP, 2705), Sandipan (IND, 2622), Kamsky(USA, 2693), Bacrot (FRA, 2713), Movsesian, (SVK, 2708), Gopal (IND, 2584) and IM Lenderman (USA, 2560). The first 4 players went into play-off, won by Michael Adams. In the semifinal he defeated Gustafsson 2-1 and in the final he beat Vallejo 1 1/2 - 1/2.

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This week (Tuesday, 9 February) joining IM John Watson on Chess Talk will be the young American prodigy and author, FM Daniel Naroditsky. Note: A 10 min free preview that can be published can be found at http://webcast.chessclub.com/preview/Watson/2010_02_09/Watson_preview.html .

Daniel Naroditsky, 14, of the Mechanics Chess Club in San Francisco, shot to fame in 2007 when he won the under-12 World Youth Championship, being only the second American to win a world youth title - and in the process, he was rewarded with a lifetime membership of ICC. Recently, Daniel has also become the world's youngest chess author in history with the release of Mastering Positional Chess for top chess publishers New in Chess.

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The year 1960 was a memorable one for American chess. The United States took first place in the Student Team Championship held In Leningrad and in the Olympiad held later in the year at Leipzig they took the silver medals. William Lombardy's sterling role in the former, where he defeated Boris Spassky, and Bobby Fischer's outstanding result at the Olympiad are fondly recalled but both were already recognized as outstanding players before the year began. 1960 was the annus mirabilis for another player who is not so well known but contributed mightily to the success of both teams and also finished third in the US Championship that year, qualifying for the Interzonal (he declined to play because of his studies). Not bad for nineteen-year-old, especially 50 years ago when young players did not have the opportunities they do today.

That player is Raymond Weinstein who was the subject of a chapter in My Seven Great Chess Prodigies by John Collins and more recently a nine-page article in the Swedish magazine Tidskrift f�r Schack (#5, 2006) by Indrek Martinson. The latter befriended Weinstein in 1961 when the Armeican team visited Stockholm on its way to the Student Team Championship in Helsinki. The article includes excerpts from several letters from Weinstein to Martinson as well as several previously unpublished photographs. The letters paint a picture of bright and likeable if intense young man and hold no clues to the tragedy that was to occur only a few years later.

Tim Krabbe writes about Weinstein's time in Amsterdam where he studied psychology ( http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess2/diary_4.htm - item 64) . This was about the time he was starting to experience the mental problems that would profoundly change his life.

Raymond Weinstein 1960

Leningrad Student Team Olympiad (US gold team medal) scored 7.5/10 on board three

Leipzig Olympiad (US silver team medal) scored 2nd 6.5/8 as second reserve

1960/61 US Championship third place with 6.5/11 behind Fischer and Lombardy.

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4th Annual Ray Schutt Memorial Blitz Tournament

A chance to remember and pay tribute to an old friend
May 2 (Sunday)

When: Sunday, May 2nd from 1 to 5 pm. The blitz tournament will be held from 2 to 4 pm. There will be a chance to reminiscence about Ray over light refreshments both before and after the event.
Where: Mechanics' Institute, 57 Post St, San Francisco (Montgomery BART)

Format: Five Double-Round Swiss or Roundrobin depending on entries.

Prizes (guaranteed):
1st $300
2nd $200
3rd $100
4th $75
5th $50
6th $25


Entry Fee: $10. Free to IMs and GMs. Enter at tournament from 1pm to 1:45. Entries close at 1:45 pm please take note. No phone entries. Come honor Ray's memory and help make this the largest and strongest blitz tournament in the history of Northern California chess!