Gens Una Sumus!
Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club Newsletter #673
June 27, 2014
Among a great many other things that chess teaches you is to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good. It trains you to think before grabbing, and to think just as objectively when you’re in trouble. When you’re making a film you have to make most of your decisions on the run, and there is a tendency to always shoot from the hip. It takes more discipline than you might imagine to think, even for thirty seconds, in the noisy, confusing, high-pressure atmosphere of a film set, but a few seconds’ thought can often prevent a serious mistake being made about something that looks good at first glance. With respect to films, chess is more useful preventing you from making mistakes than giving you ideas. Ideas come spontaneously and the discipline required to evaluate and put them to use tends to be the real work.
—Stanley Kubrick, in a September 1968 interview
with Eric Nordern for Playboy magazine
1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News
International Master Elliott Winslow and FIDE Master Andy Lee grabbed the lead in the Summer Tuesday Night Marathon at 4½ points after five rounds by defeating NM Natalya Tsodikova and FIDE Master Frank Thornally respectively. Top seed Hayk Manvelyan is joined in a tie for third at 4 points with NM Keith Vickers and Experts Hans Niemann, Ashik Uzzaman and Steven Krasnov.
From round 5 of the SummerTNM Tuesday Night Marathon:
 |  |
| White to move (Tsodikova–Winslow after 24...Ne5) | White to move (Tsodikova–Winslow after 56...Re1+) |
 |  |
| Black to move (Tsodikova–Winslow after 58 Kc4) | White to move (Steger–Rosenstein after 18...Nf6) |
 |  |
| White to move (Steger–Rosenstein after 25...Nh7) | White to move (Cohee–Maser after 20...Ne4) |
 | |
| White to move (Nyangar–Morgan after 20...Ng6) | For the solutions, see the game scores (when available) for round 5. |
Congratulations to 18-year-old Daniel Naroditsky, who had the best result of his career in taking second in the Teplice Open held June 14–22. Daniel scored 7½ from 9 for a 2701 FIDE performance, behind only Hrant Melkumyan of Armenia. Daniel continues to get stronger and is now rated 2577 FIDE, =11th in the US with Larry Christiansen. We expect him to be over 2600 by the end of the summer, and competing for the US Olympiad team in 2016.
Expert Jerome Sun moved closer to the National Master title with his victory in the 14th William Addison G/45 held June 21. The South Bay teenager scored 5–0 to raise his rating from 2142 to 2171, good for $240. Hans Niemann was second in the 56-player event at 4½, followed by Chinguun Bayaraa (a win over a NM and a 2150 and up to 1891 at age 8), Enkhmaa Nyangar and Jayson Shi on 4.
The 51st Stamer Memorial held June 7 and 8 ended in a three-way tie for first among National Masters Romy Fuentes and Paul Gallegos plus Expert Jerome Sun. The three winners, who scored 5–1 and took home $283.33 apiece, reached their scores by different routes. Gallegos won his first four games, including wins over Sun in round three and Fuentes in round four, before taking half-point byes the last two rounds. Fuentes beat IM Elliott Winslow in a long hard game in the last round, while Sun won quickly over fellow Expert Uyanga Byambaa.
IM Winslow, Ganesh Viswanath and Arunesh Saras tied for third at 4½–1½, taking home $141.66 for =3rd, 1st under 2000 and first under 1800.
The big rating gainers in the 47-player field were Christopher Woojin Yoo, going from 1287 to 1459 (172 points), and Lorraine Eastham from 1038 to 1205 (167 points).
2) US Junior Closed, by Mike Wilmering
Ten of the top young chess players in the United States will compete in the 2014 U.S. Junior Closed Championship June 19-29 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (CCSCSL).
But there’s more than just the title on the line. The winner also will receive the $3,000 top prize and, more importantly, an automatic invitation to the 2015 U.S. Championship.
The nine-round, round-robin tournament will feature one newly anointed grandmaster and another rising star who is just one norm away from achieving the coveted GM title. But eight other worthy competitors are prepared to fight for the crown. GM Kayden Troff, 16, finally surpassed the 2500 FIDE rating necessary to earn his grandmaster title at the Chicago Open in May. For good measure, Troff turned in an impressive performance to solidify the title at the recently-concluded Saint Louis Invitational at the CCSCSL. He enters the tournament as the highest-rated player.
IM Sam Sevian, 13, earned his second GM norm at the Saint Louis Invitational. Sevian won’t turn 14 until December and is on pace to break the record as the youngest grandmaster in U.S. history.
Meet the field (USCF Ratings from May supplement)
GM Kayden Troff (2573): West Jordan, Utah
IM Sam Sevian (2545): Southbridge, Mass.
IM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy (2521): New York City
IM Luke Harmon-Vellotti (2515): Boise, Idaho
IM Jeffrey Xiong (2513): Coppell, Tex.
FM Michael Bodek (2486): New Rochelle, N.Y.
FM Arthur Shen (2458): Edison, N.J.
NM Joshua Colas (2426): White Plains, N.Y.
FM Justus Williams (2366): New York City
NM Matt Larson (2215): Saint Louis
Each round of the 2014 U.S. Junior Closed Championship will feature live commentary with GM Ben Finegold and FM Aviv Friedman. For more information about the tournament and the players, visit www.uschesschamps.com.
3) Here and There
Grandmaster Varuzhan Akobian is planning on holding an advanced workshop at the Berkeley Chess Club this Saturday (June 28) from 10 am–4 pm, for players rated 1800–2250. He will be showing his games from the recent US Championship, where he finished second. The fee for the workshop is $75 per student if there are 8 students, with a price reduction to $65 or$70 if more attend. Contact Varuzhan at [email protected] for more information.
18-year-old Foster City Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky is the new Chess Life endgame columnist.
Gata Kamsky won the National Open held July 13-15 in Las Vegas with a 5-1 score. The top Bay Area finisher was six-time US Champion Walter Browne who finished on 3.5. NMs Hayk Manvelyan and Vignesh Panchanatham both scored fifty percent against strong fields with the former losing to Kamsky in round two and the latter to Grandmaster Alex Lenderman, also in round two.
Gabriel Kahane’s latest album The Ambassador was reviewed (June 6, 2014) in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/arts/music/new-music-from-jose-james-gabriel-kahane-and-jimmy-cobb.html.
Those who played chess in the Bay Area in the 1990s will remember Gabriel was a very active and promising young player who was rated over 2100 in his mid-teens. He was featured in Eric Schiller’s Whiz Kids Teach Chess.
For more on Gabriel’s music career go to http://gabrielkahane.bandcamp.com/.
4) Crosstable for 1918 Brooklyn Chess Club Championship
The late Jeremy Gaige was a pioneer when it came to preserving chess history and his monumental multi-volume work on tournament crosstables is of the highest standard. More recently Gino Di Felice has updated this in a twelve-volume (and still growing) series published by McFarland. Now add Eduardo Bauzá Mercere to this list of important archivists.
1918 – 26 Jan to 11 May
Brooklyn Chess Club (match)
New York
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0Black, Roy Turnbull 0 1 0 1 0 1 = 1 = 1 6Schroeder, Alfred 1 0 1 0 1 0 = 0 = 0 4
Source: American Chess Bulletin , issue 7-8/1918, p. 147.
1918 - June–August
Brooklyn Chess Club (match)
New York
1 2 3 4 5 6 7Borochow, Harry 1 0 = 0 1 = 1 4McCudden, John Lester 0 1 = 1 0 = 0 3
Source: Brooklyn Eagle, 20 JUN 1918, p. 2; Brooklyn Standard Union, 25 AUG 1918, p. 4.
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