Chess Room Newsletter #563

Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club Newsletter #563

December 7, 2011

I don’t know when I was hooked, or why for that matter. Maybe it was for the reason Botvinnik gave: Some people like to think and chess is the best way to satisfy the urge.

GM Andy Soltis

1) Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club News
The Fall Tuesday Night Marathon is coming down to the wire. IM Eliot Winslow and NM Hayk Manvelyan are tied for first at 7-1 with one round to go, while FM Andy Lee is alone in third with 6 points, having lost only to the leaders. Winslow and Manvelyan will both face opponents in the 5.5 point score group, which includes NM Russell Wong, Experts Demetrius Goins and Peter Grey, Siddarth Bannik, and Class A player Jayakrishnan Ramachandran.
Last night Australian GM Ian Rogers gave a well-attended lecture, in which he presented Hikaru’s victory over Viswanathan Anand, the first win by an American player over a reigning world champion since Yasser Seirawan’s defeat of Garry Kasparov at the Dubai Olympiad in 1986!

King’s Indian E97
Anand – Nakamura
London (4) 2011

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0–0 6.Be2 e5 7.0–0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4 Ne8 10.c5 f5 11.Nd2 Nf6 12.a4 g5 13.Nc4 h6 14.f3 f4 15.Ba3 Ng6 16.b5 dxc5 17.Bxc5 Rf7 18.a5 h5 19.b6 g4 20.Nb5 cxb6 21.axb6 g3 22.Kh1 Bf8 23.d6 a6 24.Nc7 Rb8 25.Na5 Kh8 26.Bc4 Rg7 27.Ne6 Bxe6 28.Bxe6 gxh2 29.Nc4 Qe8 30.Bd5 h4 31.Rf2 h3 32.gxh3 Rc8 33.Ra5 Nh4 34.Kxh2 Nd7 35.Bb4 Rg3 36.Qf1 Qh5 37.Ra3 a5 38.Be1 Rxc4 39.Bxc4 Bxd6 40.Rxa5 Bc5 41.Be2 Bxb6 42.Rb5 Bd4 43.Bd1 Bxf2 44.Bxf2 Nxf3+ 45.Bxf3 Qxf3 46.Rb1 Rg6 47.Rxb7 Nf6 48.Rb8+ Kh7 49.Rb7+ Kh6 0–1

Rogers felt White was doing well right from the opening, and had possibilities to capture with the bishop on a6 and follow up with Nc6. He believes the tide started changing after 29.Nc4?, which was strongly countered by 29...Qe8!, which, because of the threat of ...Qc6, chased the white bishop off the h3-c8 diagonal. The bishop on h3 would have insured the safety of White’s king.
Hikaru has scored spectacularly well against 9.Nd2 and 9.b4 with his attack-the-king-at-all-costs approach (9...Ne8).
His results against top level opposition in the last three years:
0-1 Beliavsky (2662) Amsterdam 2009
0-1 Gelfand (2761) Bursa 2010
½-½ Kamsky (2702) US Championship 2010
½-½ Kramnik (2780) Khanty Mansiysk Olympiad 2010
0-1 Anand (2811) London 2011

That’s 4 out of 5 against an average of 2743, for a performance rating of close to 3000!
NM John Blackstone shares the following game played at the Mechanics’ in 1911 for the Pacific Coast Championship.

Queen Pawn D00
E. J. Clarke – A.J.Fink
San Francisco 1911

1.d4 d5 2.e3 Nf6 3.Bd3 e6 4.f4 c5 5.c3 Be7 6.Nf3 Nbd7 7.0-0 0-0 8.Ne5 Nxe5 9.fxe5 Ne8 10.Nd2 g6 11.Nf3 Ng7 12.h3 Bd7 13.Nh2 c4 14.Bc2 f5 15.exf6 Bxf6 16.e4 Kh8 17.e5 Be7 18.Ng4 Nf5 19.Nh6 Nxh6 20.Bxh6 Rxf1+ 21.Qxf1 Bf8 22.Be3 Bg7 23.Qf4 Qb6 24.b3 cxb3 25.axb3 Qc7 26.Rc1 Rf8 27.Qh4 Be8 28.Bg5 Bf7 29.Bd3 a6 30.c4 dxc4 31.bxc4 Kg8 32.Rf1 Qd7 33.Bf6 Rc8 34.Rb1 Bxf6 35.exf6 Rd8 36.d5 exd5 37.Qh6 Be6 38.Re1 dxc4 39.Rxe6 cxd3 40.Rd6 d2 41.Rxd2 1-0

Source: Jack O'Keefe Project http://www.chessarch.com/excavations/item.php?a=1&source=Pittsburgh_Gazette_Times&date=1911.08.06

Ricardo DeGuzman won the 11^th Annual Guthrie McClain G/45 at the MI last Saturday. The Filipino IM scored 4.5 from 5, including a fourth-round win over visiting nationally-ranked junior Evan Ju (2341), and a last-round draw with NM Ryan Porter. Zu, Porter, Jack Zhu and Joshua Cao shared second with 4—1 scores in the 34-player-field.
GM Jesse Kraai, the standard-bearer for the 2011 Mechanics’ entry in the U.S. Chess League with 6.5 from 9 and a performance rating of 2708, was named board two for the USCL third all star team.

Hello everyone,

It's Wednesday! Time for the weekly blitz chess tournament at Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club. As always, it starts no later than 6:40 pm, with sign-up beginning at 6:20 pm. Entry is $10 with clock, $11 without clock. Prizes are 50%, 30%, 20% of entry fees. Time control preferably is 3 minute, increment 2 seconds; otherwise 5 minutes, no increment.

Last week’s winners were

1st – IM Ray Kaufman
2nd - Jules Jelinek
3rd - Merim Mesic

Look forward to seeing you tonight.

Jules Jelinek
Weekly Wednesday Night Blitz Coordinator

2) Metropolitain Chess Club Action

Metropolitan Chess, Inc. is hosting an International Master norm and a International Grandmaster norm round-robin tournament in tandem from December 7th to December 11th of 2011. The tournaments are sponsored by California Market Center, Fashion Business, Inc, Chess.com, MonRoi, LawyerFy, and Betty Bottom Showroom.
These tournaments are the 13th and 14th in the series, and are being held in Suite C1002 of the California Market Center on 110 East 9th Street, Los Angeles 90079. The tournaments are both organized by Ankit Gupta, NM.
The participants in the 13th Metropolitan Chess FIDE Invitational, a GM-norm event, include GM Georgiev, Vladimir (MKD), GM Kekelidze, Mikheil (GEO), GM Khachiyan, Melikset (USA), IM Molner, Mackenzie (USA), IM Arnold, Marc (USA), IM Matikozyan, Andranik (ARM), IM Sevillano, Enrico (USA), IM Ginsburg, Mark (USA), SM Yankovsky, Roman (RUS), and FM Kiewra, Keaton (USA).

The participants in the 14th Metropolitan Chess FIDE Invitational, an IM-norm event, include IM Zhanibek, Amanov (KAZ), IM Stopa, Jacek (POL), IM Remlinger, Larry (USA), FM Kavutskiy, Konstantin (USA), WGM Abrahamyan, Tatev (USA), FM Akopyan, Harutyan (USA), CM Carreto, Giovanni (MEX), SM Aleskerov, Faik (AZE), NM Dan Lee (USA), and NM Robert Akopian (USA).

The tournaments will be 10 player round-robin events (all play all), with rounds scheduled as follows: 7th: 7:00 PM, 8th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 9th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 10th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 11th: 10:00 AM & 4:00 PM. Spectators are welcome and encouraged to come to watch the games in person at the tournament site.

The IM norm in the 14th Metropolitan Chess FIDE Invitational will be 6.5/9.0, and the GM norm in the 13th Metropolitan Chess FIDE Invitational will be 6.5/9.0 as well.

The standings, updated daily, can be found on the Metropolitan Chess, Inc. website at: http://metrochessla.com/schedule.php after the tournaments begin.

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Best Regards,
Ankit Gupta, NM