Gens Una Sumus!
Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club Newsletter #798
September 1, 2017
Chess rewards merit; it is more fair than life. National origin, age, sex, social status don't matter. Good ideas are rewarded; bad ones punished. There are no hole cards or luck; all assets are even and in plain view. Apples and oranges act in harmony; this skill is transferable to other life pursuits.
—Viktors Pupols
1) Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club Newsletter
National Masters Josiah Stearman, Derek O’Connor and Conrado Diaz are the three remaining perfect scores after four rounds of the Peter Grey Tuesday Night Marathon. International Master Elliott Winslow is among those at 3½–½ in the 115-player field.
From round 4 of the Peter Grey Tuesday Night Marathon:
 |  |
| White to move (Stearman–Wong after 27...Nc5) | White to move (Poling–MacIntyre after 46...Rc7) |
 |  |
| White to move (Vickers–Porlares after 51...Kf6) | White to move (Torres–Snyder after 22...Ne5) |
 |  |
| Black to move (Boldi–Morgan after 22 Nh2) | White to move (Mines–Battarjee after 11...Nd7) |
| For the solutions, see the game scores for round 4. |
The weekly Wednesday Night Blitz under the direction of Jules Jelinek is back in action. Sign-up begins at 6:30 pm, with round one starting at 6:45.
Bay Area Grandmasters performed well in the 2017 U.S. Masters held in Greensboro, North Carolina, from August 23–27. Sam Shankland of Walnut Creek shared second place and Ioan-Christian Chirila of El Cerrito tied for fifth.
Final standings:
1. GM Vladimir Belous (Russia) 7/9;
2-4. GM Sam Shankland (USA), GM Yaroslav Zherebukh (USA), GM Dmitry Gordievsky (Russia) 6.5;
5-14. GM Ray Robson (USA), GM Kamil Dragun (Poland), GM Yuniesky Quesada (Cuba), GM Benjamin Glendura (Hungary), GM Niclas Huschenbeth (Germany), GM Alexander Shabalov (USA), GM Ioan-Christian Chirila (Romania), GM Awonder Liang (USA), IM Andrey Gorovets (Belarus), GM Bartlomej Macieja (Poland) 6.
Shankland and fellow Grandmasters Parimarjan Negi, Daniel Naroditsky and Vinay Bhat will compete in the Imre Konig Memorial on September 16 and 17 at the Mechanics’. The double-round robin rapid tournament will honor the late Imre Konig (1899–1992), who made San Francisco his home from the early 1950s to the early 1970s. Konig was the first International Master to live in the Bay Area and is remembered for his classic work Chess from Morphy to Botvinnik: A Century of Chess Evolution.
Tuesday Night Marathon regular Adrian Kondakov is having a good result in the Under-10 section of the World Cadet Championship in Brazil. With one round remaining Adrian’s score is 6½–3½, and he has picked up 55 FIDE rating points.
2) Jack Spence on the Fischer–Larsen Match
When matters are going well Fischer has a tendency to sprawl back in his chair with his legs crossed at the ankles, full length outside the table leg, with his hands resting on his lap, but a moment later he will be seated erect at the table with elbows resting close to the board, with one hand on his chin or ear stroking his hair back. He does not move around too often and seldom leaves the table while Larsen is studying. On the other hand, Larsen leaves the stage at almost every opportunity. Generally he hunches forward in his seat with his elbows on his knees and his face close to the pieces. Occasionally he sits immobile for minutes at a time with his chin cradled in his hand and, when matters begin to worsen, run his fingers nervously through his hair.
Until now Chief Arbiter Klein found matters running relatively smoothly, but it was only a lull before the storm. At the start of the fifth game a cameraman from a national magazine was given permission to photograph the match in progress high above the stage in the projection booth. However, he overstayed his time limit and the rustle of sounds from above forced a brief cessation of play while he packed his gear and departed. But as the ending approached Klein again had problems with the audience. After the last piece was exchanged Fischer had an outside passed pawn while Larsen had three pawns to two on the other wing. The ending became one of mathematics in a race to queen. Whispers became noticeably audible, forcing Klein to descend into the auditorium, where he gestured frantically to various spectators in an effort to eject them. They refused to move. Play halted as Fischer arose from the table in despair. Finally the worst offenders were removed, and as play resumed, Larsen was forced to journey over to stop the pawn while Fischer's king advanced to the other wing and victory.
Source: Chess, August 1971 issue
3) Carroll M. Capps Memorial Winners
This event is traditionally held the second weekend of November. The 1978 event was scheduled for the normal dates, the second week of November, but canceled at the last minute. A tournament was held in July of 1979 and another was advertised in Chess Voice to be held in November of that year. All indications are that it was held, but we have been unable to find results for this event and ask for assistance.
1971 Julio Kaplan
1972 Craig Barnes
1973 James Tarjan
1974 Walter Browne
1975 David Strauss and Paul Cornelius
1976 Jay Whitehead and Max Burkett
1977 Jeremy Silman and Cicero Braga
1978 (tournament cancelled)
1979 (July) Nick deFirmian and (November) unknown
1980 John Grefe, Jay Whitehead and Charles Powell
1981 Peter Biyiasas and John Grefe
1982 Jeremy Silman, Peter Biyiasas, Alan Pollard and Vince McCambridge
1983 Peter Biyiasa, Craig Mar and Victor Baja
1984 Charles Powell, Victor Baja and Bill Orton
1985 Nick deFirmian, Peter Biyiasas, Charles Powell and Rudolfo Hernandez
1986 Igor Ivanov and Jay Whitehead
1987 Marc Leski, John Grefe and Gustavo Darcy Lima
1988 Guillermo Rey, Bill Orton and Romulio Fuentes
1989 Vladimir Strugatsky, Charles Powell and Rudolfo Hernandez
1990 Loal Davis
1991 Walter Browne, Jay Whitehead, and Greg Kotlyar
1992 Walter Browne and Renard Anderson
1993 John Grefe, Emmanuel Perez and Adrian Keatinge-Clay
1994 Craig Mar, John Grefe and Rostislav Tsodikov
1995 Enrico Sevillano and Joe Weber
1996 Igor Ivanov and Omar Cartagena
1997 Alexander Baburin
1998 Mladen Vucic, Mark Pinto, Omar Cartagena, Ron Cusi and Jonathan Baker
1999 Russell Wong, Paul Gallegos, David Blohm, Walter Shipman, Agnis Kaugars, Keith Vickers and Larry Snyder
2000 Kenneth Hills and Ryan Porter
2001 Ricardo DeGuzman
2002 Ricardo DeGuzman and Victor Ossipov
2003 Ricardo DeGuzman and Batsaikhan Tserendorj
2004 Nicolas Yap
2005 Ricardo DeGuzman and Ron Cusi
2006 Batchimeg Tuvshintugs
2007 Ricardo DeGuzman
2008 Ricardo DeGuzman
2009 Ricardo DeGuzman and Andy Lee
2010 Vladimir Mezentsev
2011 Ricardo DeGuzman
2012 Hayk Manvelyan and Michael Lin
2013 Ricardo DeGuzman and Gabriel Bick
2014 Paul Gallegos and Andrew Hong
2015 Uyanga Byambaa
2016 Jack Zhu
Masters Royale: Vladimir Pafnutieff is deep in thought and Carroll Capps is getting ready to make a move, while Earl Pruner takes in the action at the Mechanics in the 1950s. (Photo: Mechanics’ Chess Club Archives)
Ricardo DeGuzman, a former member of the Philippines Olympiad team, has won the Capps a record nine times. Next is fellow International Master John Grefe, with five first-place or shared first-place finishes. International Master Jay Whitehead and Senior Master Charles Powell each won the Capps four times.
The Capps has had a number of titled players compete, including the late Walter Browne, who won the event three times. His first victory was in 1974, when he took home $500 for his 5½–½ score, drawing only with Washington state master Viktors Pupols in the last round. Pupols, Craig Barnes, Steve Spencer and Jeremy Silman tied for second in the 90-player event with 5–1 scores.
4) This is the end
This endgame is from a recent Tuesday Night Marathon. It illustrates some subtleties of rook-and-pawn endings.
Black to move
Show solution
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