Chess Room Newsletter #588

Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club Newsletter #588
June 14, 2012

How did Anand play?

From Anand’s perspective, there was a huge amount of conservatism. He has become mentally old and this showed in his approach. Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t think he was an overwhelming favorite. I expected it to be a lot closer. I still had Anand as the favorite. I thought he had two-thirds chance and Gelfand one-third. It turned out reasonably accurate. Gelfand came pretty close to winning it, although he was written off by a large number of people. It is not that Anand should have crushed Gelfand but there was complete lack of spark in his play. Everything was safety-first. He played middle-age chess.

—Nigel Short

1) Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club News

Gregory Young dominated the 49th Stamer Memorial held June 9th to 10th with a 6-0 score. The 17-year-old reigning US Junior Champion defeated International Masters Ricardo DeGuzman and Elliott Winslow in the last two rounds to raise his USCF rating to 2470. This was Young’s first tournament since last year’s US Open.

Tieing for second in the small (39 players) but strong (9 rated over 2200 including three International Masters) was National Master Romy Fuentes on 5 followed by NM Dharim Bacus with 4.5. Among those on 4 were International Master Winslow and National Master Hayk Manvelyan.

FIDE Master Andy Lee and Experts Todd Rumph and Steven Gaffagan share the lead in the 67-player Summer Tuesday Marathon at the halfway point with 3.5 from 4. Among those on 3 points are FM Frank Thornally and NMs Russell Wong and Peter Zavadsky.

The June 6 M.I. Wednesday Night Blitz was won by IM Elliott Winslow, followed by William Gray and Tom Stevens.

IM Winslow, who has over 30 years experience teaching, is available for very reasonably priced lessons in person and online. Contact him at [email protected] for more information.

IM Daniel Naroditsky played fantastically the first seven rounds of the Golden Sands Open in Bulgaria before running out of gas at the end, in part due to difficult conditions for the event.

Daniel’s score of 5 from 9 added 7 points to his current FIDE rating of 2479, and points to his continued improvement event after event. We expect him to be a Grandmaster before the end of the summer.

The Mechanics’ Institute and Portland Chess Clubs will renew their rivalry in a friendly match on June 23 played on the Internet Chess Club starting at 1 pm. Each team will field one master, one expert, one class A, one class B, one class C and one class D.

Portland (White on boards 1, 3, 5) - San Francisco

1. FM Nick Raptis 2323 - FM Andy Lee 2292
2. Michael Janniero 2000 - Todd Rumph 2179
3. Jason Cigan 1906 - Payam Afkham-Ebrahimi 1873
4. Bob Malone 1785 - Scott Poling 1788
5. Mark Hanna 1552 - Michael Hilliard 1494
6. Harry Buerer 1286 - David R. Olson 1400

Payam Afkham-Ebrahimi is the team captain for the Mechanics’.

2) Bay Area Stars NMs Samuel Sevian and Arun Sharma make IM norms by Ankit Gupta

Metropolitan Chess, Inc. hosted an International Master norm round robin tournament from June 6th to June 10th, 2012. The tournament was sponsored by California Market Center, Fashion Business, Inc, Chess.com, MonRoi, LawyerFy, the Law Offices of Steinfl & Bruno, EventForte Inc, and Betty Bottom Showroom.

This tournament was the 19th in its series and was held in Suite C855 of the California Market Center on 110 East 9th Street, Los Angeles 90079. The tournament was organized by Ankit Gupta, FA, IO and the chief arbiter was Randy Hough, IA. The participants included IM Zhanibek Amanov (KAZ), IM Larry Remlinger (USA), IM Andranik Matikozyan (ARM), FM Victor Shen (USA), FM CJ Arvind (IND), FM Kayden Troff (USA), NM Arun Sharma (USA), NM Alexander King (USA), NM Samuel Sevian (USA) and NM Vadim Kudryavtsev (RUS).

The tournament was a 10 player round-robin (all play all), with rounds scheduled as follows - 6th: 7:00 PM, 7th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 8th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 9th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 10th: 10:00 AM & 4:00 PM.

The tournament had three IM norms achieved by FM Victor Shen, NM Arun Sharma, and NM Samuel Sevian—all three also equal tied for first. This is Shen’s 2nd IM norm, and Sharma and Sevian’s 1st.

Keep updated with events by Metropolitan Chess, Inc, by visiting www.metrochessla.com.

3) GM Square Chess Book Auction

Dear Chess Collector,

Please note that our next auction will take place this weekend, finishing on Saturday. On sale there will be many volumes of BCM, Dutch, German, Romanian and Danish chess periodicals and several rare books.Lots will be posted soon at http://www.gmsquare.com/chessauction/index.html.

Please note that results of the previous auction are available online—see PDF at http://www.gmsquare.com/chessauction/Results/auction-33-results.pdf. One can still see (for the next day or two) how bidding went in that auction.

With best regards,
Alexander Baburin

4) Here and There

The 2012 Olympiad will not start for over two months, but the organizers of the 2014 Olympiad, to be held in Tromso, Norway, already have their website up athttp://tromso2014.no/.

International Master Anthony Saidy writes:

While Philidor was a popular light-opera composer of his day, it is difficult to find his music now - though I’ve heard a composition by someone else in his large family. Through the decades various musicians were known as strong chess amateurs, like Sergei Prokofiev. The brain centers for musical and chess aptitude are thought to be adjacent. In only these two fields, and in math, are child prodigies known.

Now there is a totally new phenomenon: in his ninth decade of life, a super-grandmaster and Serbian national hero has become a composer of popular music. Svetozar Gligoric’s CD, “How I Survived the 20th Century,” is eclectic in pop styles from blues to rap and is international, partly in English. It is accompanied by a booklet in Serbo-Croatian elucidating its 17 songs, including one about Bobby Fischer.

One may be about the incident when Gliga risked his life to take out a Nazi gun-nest in WW2.

Here is ordering info from a familiar source:http://www.chessinformant.rs/svetozar-gligoric-music-cd/.