Newsletter #120, 01/01/2003

"Half the variations which are calculated in a tournament game turn out to be completely superfluous. Unfortunately, no one knows in advance which half."
Jan Timman

The North American Open, held December 26-29 at Ballys Casino in Las Vegas, saw a big jump in attendance with over 600 players competing, including 17 Grandmasters.  GMs Nikola Mitkov of Macedonia and Ildar Ibragimov, formerly of Russia but now representing the United States, shared first in the Open section with 5 from 6. Tying for third with 4 1/2 were GMs Giorgi Kacheishvili, Jaan Ehlvest, Varuzhan Akobian, Vadim Milov, Alex Shabalov, Valery Filippov  and Vladimir Georgiev.

Bay Area players did well in the lower sections. Adam Lischinsky tied for first in the Under 2000 and Yefim Bukh was second in the Under 1800. Bill Goichberg organized and directed the event for the Continental Chess Association.

Chess players have been featured on the stamps of many countries, but not the United States. Recently, however, Anatoly Karpov's stay in Lindsborg, Kansas, was recognized by the US Postal Service which featured a special cancellation with his name on it, on December 14, 17 and 18. Individual cancellations can be ordered for $1 each from the Lindsborg Postmaster Sabrina T. Spellman (913) 227-2441 or write USPS, 125 E. Lincoln, KS, 67456-9998.

"What distinguishes a Grandmaster from a master? Chess-lovers often ask questions like that. To many people it seems that Grandmasters simply calculate variations a little deeper. Or that they know their opening theory slightly better. But in fact the real difference is something else. You can pick out two essential qualities in which those with higher titles are superior to others: the ability to sense the critical moment in a game, and a finer understanding of various positional problems."
Yusupov

The University of Maryland at Baltimore County B , led by GM Alex Sherzer and IM Eugene Perelshteyn, won the 2002 Pan Am Intercollegiate held in Miami immediately after Christmas. UMBC B's other team members were: FM William Morrison, NM John Rouleau, and Battsetseg Tsagaan. The winners, who were seeded number three, scored 5 1/2 from 6, drawing only with second seed University of Texas at Dallas. UTD, led by GMs Yury Shulman and Marcin Kaminski, tied for second with pre tournament favorite UMBC A (GMs Alex Onischuk, Alex Wojtkiewicz and Pavel Blehm) at 5-1. Because of the rules of the competition, the two University of Maryland schools did not compete against each other. Stanford did not send as strong a team as in years past and finished in the middle of the 30 team field which came from as far away as Peru and Puerto Rico.

Win Aung Ye, Ben Haun and Anthony Rozenvasser tied for first in the Bob Burger Open held January 4 at the Mechanics' Institute. The three winners scored 4 1/2 from 5 to finish on top of the 42 player field. Anthony Corrales directed for the MI.

The Winter Marathon, which started yesterday evening, looks like it will be the best attended event in the series which dates back to the early 1970s. IM Walter Shipman and FM Frank Thornally head the list of 60 pre-registered entrants.

Tuesday Night Marathon + Lecture Series Announcements

Due to the participation of Alex Yermolinsky and John Donaldson in the US Championship the schedule for the next few weeks will be altered.

1. There will be a lecture on Tuesday, January 7, by John Donaldson. There will be no lectures on January 8, 14 and 15. Alex will resume his regular lecture schedule on January 21.

2. Anthony Corrales will direct round two of the Marathon on January 14.

3. The MI will be closed on Monday, January 20, in recognition of the Martin Luther King Junior holiday. Accordingly the pairings for round 3 (January 21) will be posted at noon on the 21st.

4. Steve Brandwein will be updating the pairings and standings for the TNM during Alex's absence. This will be the only new material appearing on the website during this time.

Bay Area IM Elliott Winslow, who is one of the strongest backgammon players in the world, is now living in Paris, home to American players IM Kamran Shirazi and NM Marty Appleberry. We wish Elliott well in his new home!

Chess FM will host a live interview (conducted by Fred Wilson) with GM Alex Baburin on Tuesday (7th January) at 9:00 PM ET (New York time). A wide range of topics will be discussed, including how to make progress in chess. Everyone is welcome to listen to the show or call in with questions!

Former Bay Area resident and MI member, IM Jeremy Silman, will be the head commentator for the 2003 US Championship. Jeremy is now finishing up a book on the life and games of GM Pal Benko. His website is full of free chess material.

"Chess is mental torture."
Garry Kasparov

1-3 Kaidanov, Shabalov, Fishbein 4.5/6;
4-15 Gulko, Seirawan, Benjamin, Stripunsky, Yermolinsky, Akobian, Ivanov, Nakamura, Kreiman, Foygel,Mulyar, Muhammad 4;
16-25 Goldin, Christiansen, Fedorowicz, Zaitshik, Browne, Gurevich, Kraai, G. Shahade, Burnett, Sarkar 3.5; 26-36 DeFirmian, Finegold, Serper, Kudrin, Lapshun, Perelshteyn, Paschall, Pixton, J. Donaldson, Lein, Battsetseg 3;
37-44 Ashley, Enhbat, Kriventsov, Kaufman, Baginskaite, Watson, J. Shahade; Bennett 2.5;
45-55 Ippolito, E. Donaldson; Krush, Pruess, Markzon, Hahn, Epstein,
Sagalchik, Ross, Groberman, Shiber 2;
56-57 Tsai, Levina 1;
58 Esserman 0.5.

IM Walter Shipman, FM Frank Thornally, NMs Igor Margulis, Russell Wong and David Blohm, Experts Larry Snyder, Alex Setzepfandt and  Peter Grey, and Class A players Victor Todortsev, Thomas McCaughy, Lazar Shnaiderman  and  Benjamin Gross are tied for first at 2-0 in the 78-player MI Winter Tuesday Night Marathon.

"One of the main aims has been to highlight the differences in approach between a Grandmaster and a weaker player, and to try and narrow the gap. To some extent this comes down to technical matters - more accurate analysis, superior opening knowledge, better endgame technique and so forth; but in other respects the difference goes deeper and many readers will find that they need to rethink much of their basic attitude to the game. One example of this would be the tremendous emphasis which is placed on the dynamic use of the pieces, if necessary at the expense of the pawn structure, or even of material. This is no mere question of style; it is a characteristic of the games of all the great players."
Peter Griffiths, Introduction to Secrets of Grandmaster Chess

GM Alex Shabalov and WIM Anna Hahn took home the titles of US Champion and US Womens Champion at the 2003 US Championships held January 9-18 in Seattle. Organized in exemplary fashion by America's Foundation for Chess, the event featured a record prize fund of $253, 600.

1    Shabalov    6½
2    Kaidanov, Goldin, Gulko, Benjamin, Stripunsky, Ivanov, Fedorowicz    6
9    Seirawan, deFirmian, Christiansen, Yermolinsky, Akobian, Nakamura, Zaichik, Burnett, Sarkar    5½
18    Finegold, Serper, Kreiman, Fishbein, Gurevich, Foygel, Muhammad    5
25    Kudrin, Lapshun, Browne, Mulyar, Kraai, G.Shahade, Enkhbat, Paschall, J. Donaldson, Lein, Kaufman, Krush*, J.Shahade*, Hahn *    4½
39    Ashley, Perelshteyn, Pixton, Ippolito, E. Donaldson *, Watson  4
45    Baginskaite*, Pruess, Markzon, Battsetseg*, Shiber *    3½
50    Kriventsov, Esserman, Epstein*, Ross*, Groberman *    3
55    Bennett, Tsai *    2½
57    Sagalchik*    2
58    Levina * 11/2

Players marked * were contenders for the Womens title.

The 35-year-old Shabalov, who lives in Pittsburgh, was a deserving winner. The leader for much of the event, he lost to Joel Benjamin in the penultimate round, but came right back to win against IM Varuzhan Akobian while his rivals were all drawing. Shabalov received $25,000 for his victory and shared a $10,000 "combativeness" prize with Akobian. Among those on 6 special mention should be made of GM Gregory Kaidanov. Despite being half a point behind "Shaba", Gregory almost the same performance rating (2678 to 2668) due to his playing a higher-rated field - a result of being the top seed. It was good to see the name of John Fedorowicz among the leaders. John was one of the top players in the US in the 1980s and early 1990s and even won the NY Open outright. Plagued by a bad cold he started slowly in Seattle but caught fire in the second half. Hopefully this result will be a catalyst for further excellent performances.

GM Shabalov in his well-spoken closing speech did a good job of pointing out some of the heroes of the Championship. He mentioned Akobian (who missed the GM norm by half a point) and Hikaru Nakamura as two of the brightest US juniors to appear in a long time and to FM Stephen Muhammad as the revelation of the tournament. According to chief Tournament Director Carol Jarecki the 41-year-old Atlanta-based Muhammad faced the highest rated opposition of any player in the Championship being paired up nine times in route to a 5-4 score for a performance rating of 2576. He easily fulfilled the requirements for his third and final IM norm. Another player who Shabalov did not mention, who also did well, was IM Justin Sarkar of New York who would have made his first GM norm if he defeated Alex Yermolinsky in the last round (they drew).

The title of US Womens Champion was decided in a three-way playoff between Jennifer Shahade, Irina Krush and Anna Hahn after they all finished at 50 percent. The vagaries of the Swiss System showed as Shahade (who made her second IM and WGM norms) played by far the strongest field of the three (2466) compared to Krush (2391) and Hahn (2279), but committed the cardinal sin of losing in round nine, while Krush was drawing and Hahn was winning. In the 15 minute game playoffs Anna defeated both her rivals to take the $12, 500 top women prize.

Five MI members played in the US Championship this year. Former Champion Alex Yermolinsky nearly took the title last year, but this time around he was handicapped by a serious cold that plagued him for much of the event. He still managed to make it to 5 1/2 and was pushing to get to 6 which would have given him a share of second. Six-time US Champion Walter Browne of Berkeley was one of the oldest players in the competition at 54 but held his own against several of the top seeds ( Christiansen, Kaidanov, Gulko, deFirmian) before running out of gas at the end to finish at 50 percent. I managed to make a norm a round before the end, but alas it was of the IM rather than GM variety. A slow start and last round loss were counterbalanced by a good run in the middle which also put me on 50 percent. David Pruess made a respectable score in his Championship debut but I know that both he and Camilla Baginskaite will improve on their 3 1/2 scores next year. It was good to see IM John Watson, formerly of Fairfax, but now living in San Diego, participate. This was only John's second event in the last four years after suffering a life-threatening stroke but he played well in scoring four points.

There were no GM norms made this year. FM Stephen Muhammad scored his third and final IM norm. FM Igor Foygel scored his third and final IM norm. WIM Jennifer Shahade scored both her second IM and second WGM norm. Joel Benjamin won the top Paul Albert Jr. Brilliancy Prize ($1000) for his eight round win over Shabalov. I took the second prize for my round seven win over GM Sergey Kudrin and Yasser Seirawan (over Lapshun) and Gregory Serper (over Ippolito) shared the third prize.

Here was the deciding game of the Championship.

The official site for the Championship can be found at http://www.af4c.org. Besides offering all the games in PGN and Java format there is lots of other information including a daily heavily annotated game (http://www.af4c.org/uschamps_daygame08.asp) by chief commentator Jeremy Silman, who was taking a rare break from his website duties at www.jeremysilman.com.

Those looking for even more information can find it at The Week in Chess (http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic428.html) where Mark Crowther has a cross table complete with performance ratings which often gives a truer idea of how players have done in a Swiss. For example on 4 1/2 points the huge swing ranged from 71-year-old veteran Anatoly Lein (defeated only by Yermo) who faced 2510 opposition to IM Larry Kaufman (2353) and Anna Hahn (2279) who essentially played in different tournaments.

On a final note the Seattle Chamber of Commerce should start donating to America's Foundation for Chess. I saw at least a dozen Bay Area players stopping by to take in the Championship including MI Trustees Mark Pinto and Vince McCambridge, former Chess Room Director Jim Eade, Dennis Waterman, Gilbert Chambers and Lloyd Stephenson.

IM Walter Shipman, FM Frank Thornally, NM Russell Wong and Expert Alex Setzepfandt are tied for first with perfect scores after three rounds of the Winter Tuesday Night Marathon.

IM William Addison recently visited the Chess Room to let people know that former Chess Room Director Kurt Bendit has moved to SF Community Convalescent Hospital (Bush at Divisadero) and would appreciate visitors.

X3D Technologies Corp. and from New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg offices announcing the First F.I.D.E. Official World Chess Championship, "Man Vs. Machine" to take place January 26th through February 7th 2003 in 6 matches. The matches will be broadcast on in Extreme 3D by X3D Technologies, live on the Internet at http://www.x3dworld.com/.

Also, I find most chess players like chess advertising and we will have that too.
All of this for only $25.00 if you act FAST. If we get your check, money order, or credit card amount for $25 (or multiples of that for your friends!), your first issue will be to you in early March, only a few weeks away if you think about it. After that, subscription rate goes to $30 per four issue. The single copy price is $9.50.
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"The world championship is a disputed title. You've got a situation like boxing. Speaking as a member of the chess world, it's extremely undignified."
Yasser Seirawan

Garry Kasparov leads the computer Deep Junior 1 1/2 - 1/2 in their six game match scheduled for January 26th-February 7th, in New York. The prize fund for the match is $1m with a $500,000 fee for Garry Kasparov, the other half being divided: $300,000 to the winner and $200,000 to the loser. Official Live coverage: http://www.x3dworld.com

The 65th Corus Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee took place January 10th-26th and Viswanathan Anand continued his run of excellent results the past year. Judit Polgar had one of her best ever performances and raised her FIDE rating from 2700 to 2715. Steadily improving Evgeny Bareev had an incredibly combative event with eight decisive results. The failures of two of the four World Championship Candidates, Kramnik and Ponomariov, was noticeable.

Final scores:
1 Anand (India) 8.5/13; 2 Polgar (Hungary) 8; 3 Bareev(Russia) 7.5; 4-8; Van Wely (Holland), Kramnik (Russia), Grischuk (Russia) Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Shirov (Spain) 7; 9-10 Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Topalov (Bulgaria) 6.5; 11-12 Ponomariov (Ukraine), Karpov (Russia) 6; 13 Krasenkow (Poland) 4.5; 14 Timman (Holland) 2.5;

1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Bf5 5 Ng3 Bg6 6 h4 h6 7 Nf3 Nd7 8 h5 Bh7 9 Bd3 Bxd3 10 Qxd3 Ngf6 11 Bf4 e6 12 0-0-0 Be7 13 Kb1 0-0 14 Ne4 Qa5 15 Nxf6+ Nxf6 16 g4 Nxg4 17 Rdg1 Qf5 18 Qd2 g5 19 hxg6 fxg6 20 Bxh6 Qxf3 21 Bxf8 Rxf8 22 d5 cxd5 23 Qd4 Nf6 24 Rxg6+ Kf7 25 Rhg1 Rc8 26 Rg7+ Kf8 27 Qh4 Ke8 28 Qa4+ Kf8 29 Qh4 Ke8 30 Qa4+ Kf8 draw

There is a seven-way tie for first at 3 1/2 from 4 at the midway point of the Tuesday Night Winter Marathon which features a record 81 entries including 9 players rated over 2200. The leaders are IM Walter Shipman, FM Frank Thornally, NMs Russell Wong, Rodolfo Hernandez and Egle Morkunaite, 12-year-old Expert Alex Setzepfandt who has beaten NM Igor Margulis and drawn NM Wong in the past two rounds, and Class A player George Sanguinetti.

Here is an exciting battle from round four between 13-year-old Expert Nicolas Yap and veteran Master David Blohm where Nicolas plays a new move (15.Nd5). This game reflects well on both players. The first time control was 30 moves in 90 minutes which means the players could have been in time pressure around move 25-30. These notes were written the morning after the game was played and should be considered preliminary.

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 Qa5 8.0-0 0-0 9.Bb3 d6 10.h3 Bd7 11.f4 Qh5 12.Nf3 b5 13.a3 a5 14.Qd3 b4
More commonly seen is 14...a4, but the text might be better.
15.Nd5
A new try. 15.Ne2 bxa3 16.Ng3 axb2 17.Nxh5 bxa1Q 18.Rxa1 Nxh5 is an interesting queen sacrifice proposed  by Blohm's teacher GM Roman Dzindzhihashvili;
15.axb4 axb4 16.Rxa8 (16.Nd5 runs into 16...Rxa1 17.Rxa1 Bxh3) 16...Rxa8 17.Ne2 Qa5= Hector-Minzer, La Coruna 1995, allows Black to complete his plan of bringing the Queen back to the queenside.
15...a4?!
15...bxa3! 16.Rxa3 Nxd5 puts the onus on White as b2 is hanging. Note that  17.exd5 Nb4 wins serious material for Black.
16.Bc4 bxa3 17.Qxa3 Nxd5
17...Nxe4 18.Nb6 Rad8 19.Nxd7 Rxd7 20.Qxa4 is much better for White.
18.Bxd5 Rab8 19.c3 Rfc8
19...e6 was the best try with the idea 20.Qxd6 exd5 21.exd5 Bxh3 22.dxc6 Rxb2 23.gxh3 Qxh3 White should answer 19...e6 with 20.Ba2 and some advantage.
20.Rad1
The immediate 20.Ng5 looks stronger.
20...Be8 21.Ng5 Na5 22.e5 Qe2 23.Bd2 Nc4 24.Qa2
24.Bxc4 Qxc4 25.exd6 exd6 26.Bc1 d5 27.f5=
24...Rxb2?
Fritz suggests the interesting line 24...Nxd2 25.Bxf7+ Bxf7 26.Qxf7+ Kh8 27.Qd5 Qe3+ 28.Kh1 Bxe5 29.Qxd2 Qxd2 30.Rxd2 Bf6 31.Ne6 a3 and Black is doing fine.
25.Bxc4 Rxd2 26.Qxd2?
26.Bxf7+ Bxf7 27.Qxf7+ Kh8 28.Rxd2 Qxd2 29.Qe6 Rf8 30.Nf7+ Rxf7 31.Qxf7 h6 32.Rb1 Kh7 33.Rb8 mating. Now Black gets ample compensation for the lost Exchange.
26...Qxd2 27.Rxd2 Rxc4 28.exd6 exd6 29.Rxd6 Bxc3 30.Rd8 Kf8 31.Ra8 ½-½
Black could consider playing on with 31...h6 32.Nf3 Rxf4.

Filipino IM Enrico Sevillano, based out of Las Vegas, won the Western Class Championships held January 17-20 in Los Angeles. Sevillano, who scored 5 1/2 from 7, defeated IM Igor Ivanov and GM Pavel Blatny and drew GM Alex Wojtkiewicz in the last three rounds. Tying for second at 5 were Ivanov, Blatny, Wojtkiewicz, and IMs Melikset Khachiyan  and Tim Taylor.

Several MI members made the trip south and turned in excellent performances. NMVivek Nambiar, playing in the open section, defeated two 2300 players and drew IM Andrianov. 14-year-old Expert Matthew Ho scored 50 percent against 6 masters. Uri Andrews tied for first in the Expert section while Monty Peckham had 4 1/2 and Ricky Yu (playing up a class) had a respectable 3 from 7. Troy Pendergraft tied for first in Class B. Congratulations to all!

A total of 236 players competed in the multi-section event organized by Bill Goichberg's Continental Chess Association. Note that another CCA event will be held in Southern California this weekend (see below under upcoming events). Adventurous souls who like events with quick time controls can play in two events in the Southland this weekend with the start of the doubleheader in Joshua Tree on Saturday (also below under upcoming events).

GMs Igor Novikov and Michael Rohde shared first place with NM Sergey Shchukin at 5 1/2 from 7 in the Liberty Bell Open held January 17-20 in Philadelphia. This was yet another triumph for the ultra-consistent Novikov while Rohde had his best result in a while with a victory over GM Ildar Ibragimov and draws with Novikov and GM Alexander Chernin. Shchukin, rated only 2246 going in, dropped a point and a half early but won his last four games to grab a share of top prize despite not playing anyone over 2414.
A total of 346 players competed in the multi-section event organized by Bill Goichberg's Continental Chess Association

"Chess books should be used as we use glasses - to assist the sight; although some players make use of them as if they thought they conferred sight."
Jose Capablanca

Win Aung Ye of Burma defeated top rated Andrey Chumachenko in the last round to win the third annual Henry Gross Memorial G/45 held February 1 at the MI.  Teenager Nicholas Yap was half a point behind Ye's perfect score beating NM Victor Baja and drawing NM Robin Cunningham. Tying for third at 4-1 in the fifty player event were Chumachenko, Cunningham, Sean Colure and Jimmy Plumb. Roy Hoppe, who hadn't played a rated game in more than thirty years, scored a very credible 3 1/2 from 5. Anthony Corrales directed for the Mechanics'.

IM Walter Shipman defeated up and coming Expert Alex Setzepfandt and FM Frank Thornally beat NM Egle Morkunaite to grab the lead in the Winter Tuesday Night Marathon with a score of 4 1/2 from 5.  Three rounds remain in the 80 player event.

MI Chess Room regular Jack Dean recently passed away at the age of 79 after a stroke.  Jack, who worked professionally as a bookkeeper, was a well liked member of the Chess Room for over three decades.  He was a regular in the Tuesday Night Marathons until his health declined.

I only recently learned that Ivars Dahlberg passed away last year on February 28 in Los Angeles.  Dahlberg, who held the FIDE Master title, and had a peak FIDE rating of 2480, had not played regularly in two decades.  Born in Latvia, he came to the United States in the early 1950s, settling in Oregon where he won several state championship titles.  He moved to Southern California around 1970, working as a financial planner.  Dahlberg had several excellent results in Futurity tournaments at the Chess Set in Los Angeles in the late 1970s.  At Lone Pine 1981 he was among the leaders with four points after six rounds before fading at the end.

Anyone with more information about Ivars, particularly information on how to contact his relatives, is urged to contact Val Zemitis ( chess@davis.com ), who is working on an encyclopedia of Latvian chess players.

Melik Khachiyan won the Foothills Open held in Pasadena on February 1 with 4 1/2 from 5.  Khachiyan defeated fellow IMs Tim Taylor and Anthony Saidy en route to victory. Tying for second at 4 were Taylor, Saidy and NMs Lernik Manukyan and Ilia Serpik.  A total of 86 players participated in the three section event organized by Bill Goichberg's Continental Chess Association.

The Carroll Capps Memorial, held each November to honor the longtime MI Chess Room regular, features an impressive list of winners including former World Junior Champion Julio Kaplan and GMs James Tarjan, Walter Browne, Nick deFirmian, Peter Biyiasas and Gustavo Darcy Lima. Here are all the winners except for November 1979, for which information is unavailable.

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 Canceled
1979   (July) Nick deFirmian and (November) ???
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 Biyiasas, 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,  and Larry Snyder
2000    Kenneth Hills and Ryan Porter
2001    Ricardo DeGuzman
2002    Ricardo DeGuzman and Victor Ossipov

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. We have been unable to find results for this event and ask for assistance.

"Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all
worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity.'

Vladimir Nabokov, 'Poems and Problems', 1969

Brazilian GM Giovanni Vescovi won the A section in Bermuda in impressive style, but it was 15-year-old Hikaru Nakamura of White Plains, New York, who was the big story making his third and final GM norm. In doing so Hikaru broke Bobby Fischer's 44-year-old record as the youngest American Grandmaster. Hikaru, who was only half a point from GM norms in Bolivia and San Francisco last year, is well on his way to bigger and better things. We look for him to be crossing the 2600 FIDE barrier shortly. Congratulations also go to chief sponsor Nigel Faulks and chief organizer Nigel Freeman for again putting on a first rate chess festival.

GMA Final Standings: 1. Vescovi, Giovanni g BRA 2592 8.0; 2. Svidler, Peter g RUS 2693 7.5; 3. Markowski, Tomasz g POL 2574 7.0; 4. Motylev, Alexander g RUS 2640 6.0; 5. Miton, Kamil g POL 2544 5.5; 6. Macieja, Bartlomiej g POL 2629 5.0; 7. Movsesian, Sergei g SVK 2663 5.0; 8. Volokitin, Andrei g UKR 2565 5.0; 9. Gershon, Alik g ISR 2571 4.5; 10. Shabalov, Alexander g USA 2613 4.5; 11. Christiansen, Larry M g USA 2562 4.0; 12. Al-Modiahki, Mohamad g QAT 2571 4.0;

GMB Final Standings: 1. Fridman, Daniel g LAT 2572 8.0; 2. Nakamura, Hikaru m USA 2520 7.5; 3. Perelshteyn, Eugene m USA 2442 7.0; 4. Schmaltz, Roland g GER 2529 6.5; 5. Moreno Carnero, Javier m ESP 2508 5.5; 6. Berg, Emanuel m SWE 2527 5.5; 7. Seul, Georg m GER 2437 5.0; 8. Kallio, Heikki g FIN 2474 5.0; 9. Paschall, William M m USA 2444 5.0; 10. Dinstuhl, Volkmar m GER 2416 4.5; 11. Blatny, Pavel g CZE 2475 3.5; 12. Mulyar, Michael A m USA 2446 3.0;

1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 a6 6 Be3 e6 7 Qf3 Nbd7 8 Be2 Qc7 9 0-0-0 b5 10 a3 Bb7 11 Bg5 Rc8 12 Bd3 Be7 13 Qg3 Qd8 14 Bd2 Ne5 15 Kb1 0-0 16 h4 Nfd7 17 Bg5 Rxc3 18 bxc3 Nb6 19 Bc1 Na4 20 Ne2 Qc7 21 f4 Nd7 22 Qe3 Bf6 23 Bd2 Rc8 24 g4 d5 25 e5 Be7 26 Bc1 d4 27 cxd4 Bxh1 28 Rxh1 b4 29 Qe4 g6 30 Ka2 bxa3 31 f5 Rb8 32 c4 Ndc5 33 dxc5 Nxc5 34 Qf3 Qxe5 35 Bxa3 Nxd3 36 Qxd3 Bxa3 37 Nc3 Qa5 38 Qc2 Rb2+ 39 Qxb2 Bxb2+ 40 Kxb2 Qb4+ 0-1

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 0-0 Be7 6 Re1 b5 7 Bb3 d6 8 c3 0-0 9 h3 Bb7 10 d4 Re8 11 Nbd2 Bf8 12 a4 h6 13 Bc2 exd4 14 cxd4 Nb4 15 Bb1 c5 16 d5 Nd7 17 Ra3 f5 18 Nh2 c4 19 Rg3 Nc5 20 exf5 Rxe1+ 21 Qxe1 Nbd3 22 Bxd3 Nxd3 23 Qe6+ Kh8 24 Ng4 Qe8 25 Re3 Qxe6 26 dxe6 Be7 27 Nb3 bxa4 28 Na5 Nxc1 29 Nxb7 Rb8 30 Na5 c3 31 bxc3 a3 32 c4 a2 33 Ra3 d5 34 Ra4 Rb4 35 Rxa2 Nxa2 36 cxd5 Nc3 37 Ne3 Rb1+ 38 Kh2 Rb5 39 Nc6 Bd6+ 40 f4 Nxd5 41 Nxd5 Rxd5 42 e7 Bxe7 43 Nxe7 Rc5 44 Kg3 a5 45 Kg4 a4 46 Kh5 a3 47 Kg6 a2 48 Kf7 Rc7 0-1

The brightest development in American chess in the past few years has been the emergence of America's Foundation for Chess (http://www.af4c.org). The Seattle based organization has sponsored three US Championships and is a leader in scholastic chess. If you like what this 501(c) (3) organization is doing consider making a donation or just e-mail them and let them know how much you appreciate their efforts.

IM Walter Shipman and NMs Igor Margulis and Rudy Hernandez lead the Spring Tuesday Night Marathon at 5 from 6 with two rounds to go.

Veteran Victor Todortsev sends in his round five win over longtime MI member David Blohm. It's not easy to pinpoint where White made his final error.

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.Be2 Be7 9.0–0 0–0 10.Kh1?!
10.f4 is more active.
10...d5
Black has equalized
11.exd5 Nxd5 12.Nxd5 Bxd5 13.Qd2 f5 14.Rfd1 Bxb3?!
Here 14...Be6 was more exact.
15.Qxd8?!
This asks for trouble as it gives Black the d-file. To be preferrred was 15.axb3 when White is doing fine.
15...Raxd8 16.axb3 f4 17.Bd2 Bc5 18.Kg1 e4 19.Bc4+ Kh8 20.Be1 Nd4 21.b4
Here 21.Ba5 with the idea 21...b6 (Better is 21...Nxc2 22.Bxd8 Nxa1 23.Bh4 Nc2 with the advantage)
22.Bc3 Nxc2 23.Rxd8 Rxd8 24.Rxa7 was worth considering.
21...Bb6 22.Rac1
There is no way out now. as 22.c3 loses to 22...Nc2 23.Rxd8 Rxd8 24.Rc1 Nxe1 25.Rxe1 e3.
22...f3 23.c3
If 23.Kf1 then 23...e3!
23...Ne2+ 24.Bxe2 fxe2 25.Rxd8 Rxd8 26.Rc2 e3 27.f4
As 27.Rxe2 loses to 27...exf2+ 28.Bxf2 Rd1+
27...Rd2 0–1

Chess has been in the news lately. The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an incredibly detailed story about Bobby Fischer's father,  Paul Nemenyi.  (http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/special_packages/inquirer_magazine/5/5112116.htm)

Garry Kasparov has wrote an article which appeared Monday in the Wall Street Journal under the title Man vs. Machine: Saving chess from IBM.

Amy Harmon wrote an article for the New York Times about chess players and computers called
More Chess Players Use Computers for Edge (http://www.nytimes.com/ads/digitalpremium5xREV.htm) which quotes GMs Bareev and Ashley among others. It makes for depressing reading.

The King of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, has been accelerating time controls ever since he took over FIDE. At present he likes G/90 with a 30 second increment each move. The last FIDE World Championship was played with this time control as was the recent Olympiad. A recent poll done by Yasser Seirawan which was published at the ChessBase website (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=642) suggests that many top GMs strongly disagree with King Kirsan.

21 out of the top 80 players (down to 2613 FIDE) responded to Yasser's survey including Kasparov and Kramnik. 15 of the respondents chose choice C and Michael Adams interestingly the traditional choice D. One sometimes wonders if the only reason for choice B was the fact that when it was implemented clocks could not be programmed to only have an increment in the final control.

There are reports that Kirsan hopes to have the next Olympiad again played at G/25 significantly shortening the length of the event from a little over two weeks to five days. Could GM Tkachev's idea of holding the World Championship at a time control of one minute per player be coming soon?

Here are the choices the players were presented:

The following time-controls for Digital Clocks for Professional seven-hour games were given the most consideration:
A) 150 minutes plus 30 seconds for all moves (All/150+30)
B) 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 30 seconds and 60 minutes plus 30 seconds for all moves (40/100+30, All/60 + 30)
C) 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by 20 moves in one hour, followed by 15 minutes plus 30 seconds for all moves (40/2, 20/1, 15+30/All)
D) 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by 20 moves in one hour, followed by 30 minutes for all moves (40/2, 20/1, 30/All).
(The Mechanical Clock time control.)

Choice A, (All/150+30) gives each player two and a half hours to begin the game, and players can use the allotted time however they wish. The additional 30 seconds means that a player would have to make 120 moves before obtaining an additional one hour of thinking time, keeping the game well within the desired seven-hour period.

Choice B, (40/100+30 & 60 + 30/All) keeps a more constant rate of play. Unlike the first time-control (All/150+30), it is unlikely that the two players will consume a great deal of time on a given move and on the reply to it. Choice B is slightly slower than Choice A.

Choice C, (40/2, 20/1, 15+30/All) is the most conventional. The first two time-controls of Choice C are exactly the same as those used for the Mechanical Clock. The third time-control of 15 minutes plus the 30-second bonus increment avoids the undesirable guillotine finish. However, this time-control is the slowest. It would mean that games that last beyond move 90 would probably go beyond the seven-hour playing session.

The fourth suggested time control Choice D is the same for the Mechanical Clock.
These time controls were the ones most discussed. The Committee welcomes suggestions for other Professional Chess time-controls for the Digital Clock. The Committee requests the top two hundred rated players to select the digital clock time control for Professional Chess by a majority vote.

Arthur Stamer was a member of the Mechanics' for over 50 years and served as its first chess director. Here is an honor roll of winners.

1964   William Addison
1965   Earl Pruner
1966   Duncan Suttles
1967   Earl Pruner and Dennis Fritzinger
1968   John Blackstone and Jude Acers
1969   Earl Pruner
1970   Julio Kaplan, Gilbert Ramirez, Dennis Fritzinger and Jairo Gutierrez
1971   James McCormick and David Blohm
1972   Rex Wilcox
1973   Craig Barnes
1974   Clark Harmon
1975   Craig Barnes and C.Bill Jones
1976 Roy Ervin, Jeremy Silman, and Frank Thornally
1977   John Watson
1978 Peter Biyiasas and Paul Cornelius
1979   Peter Biyiasa
1980   Nick deFirmian
1981   Viktors Pupols
1982   Peter Biyiasas
1983   Nick de Firmian and Jeremy Silman
1984   Peter Biyiasas
1985   Zaki Harari
1986 Nick deFirmian
1987   Dov Gorman
1988   Alex Savetti and Sid Rubin
1989   Marc Leski and Elliott Winslow
1990   Gregory Kotlyar
1991 Igor Ivanov, Richard Koepcke, Greg Hjorth and Jim Eade
1992   Walter Browne and Renard Anderson
1993   Nick deFirmian, John Donaldson, Marc Leski and Emmanuel Perez
1994   Emanuel Perez and John Grefe
1995   Dmitry Zilberstein and Paul Enright
1996   William Orton and Romulio Fuentes
1997 Igor Margulis
1998   Walter Shipman
1999   Russell Wong
2000   Walter Shipman, Gennady Fomin and Steven Gaffagan
2001   Walter Shipman, Guenther Steinmueller, Eugene Levin, Andy Lee, Jennie Frenklakh,
          Rey Salvatierra, Steven Gaffagan, Larry Snyder and Monty Peckham
2002   Ricardo DeGuzman and Michael Aigner

"If your opponent cannot do anything active, then don't rush the position; instead you should let him sit there, suffer, and beg you for a draw"
Jeremy Silman

Belorussian GMs Alexei Aleksandrov and Alexei Federov tied with Viorel Bologan of Moldova and Peter Svidler of Russia for first in the  2nd Aeroflot Open. The four winners tied at 7-2 with Bologan apparently winning the event on tiebreak. Gregory Kaidanov, who finished first last year, was once again among the leaders throughout, but lost with Black in the last round to Svidler to end up with six points.  US Champion Alex Shabalov had 4 1/2.

David Gliksman and James Thinssen, who both grew up in Southern California, finished with  4 1/2 and 4 points from 9.  in the B group.

IMs Ricardo DeGuzman and John Donaldson tied for first in the Open section of 30th People's Open held February 15-17 on the UC Berkeley campus. The two winners, who drew in round three, scored 5 from 6, to take home $425 apiece. Teenager Monty Peckham of Oakland was clear third at 4 1/2 and should go over 2200 as a result. 13-year-old Alex Setzepfandt, also of Oakland, had an excellent result in tying for fourth at 4-2 with FM Richard Kelson of Clayton.

While overall attendance was excellent with 157 players in the main event and 112 scholastic players, the Open was weaker than normal with only three IMs and 5 other masters in the 22-player section. Don Shennum  did an excellent job directing the event and has already posted a list of all prize winners, as well as crosstables from each section, at http://wave.prohosting.com/~dshennum/peoples/peoplesresults.htm

People's Open Winners: 1974-2003

1974  Ruben Rodriguez (held in Hayward with 199 players)
1975  Walter Browne (over 100-held in Hayward)
1976  Peter Biyiasas, Walter Browne and John Grefe (Berkeley from 1976 to present - 220 players)
1977  Walter Browne (168)
1978  Larry Christiansen and Nick deFirmian  (142)
1979  Eugene Meyer (216)
1980  Paul Cornelius, John Donaldson and Charles Powell (196 players)
1981  James Tarjan (209)
1982 Jeremy Silman and John Grefe (111)
1983  Jeremy Silman (209)
1984 ???
1985  Igor Ivanov and Kamran Shirazi
1986  ???
1987 Cris Ramayrat and Jay Whitehead
1988 Nick deFirmian, Cris Ramayrat, Marc Leski and Dov Gorman  (about 180)
1989 Nick deFirmian (213)
1990  Nick deFirmian and Vince McCambridge (close to 200)
1991  John Donaldson, John Grefe, Marc Leski, Larry Remlinger, and Vladimir Strugatsky
        (219 with 29 masters)
1992 Walter Browne (193)
1993  Nick deFirmian and Renard Anderson (+200)
1994 ???
1995  John Donaldson (210)
1996 ???
1997 John Donaldson, Robin Forman and Walter Shipman (160)
1998 Tigran Ishkhanov and Vinay Bhat (170)
1999 Vinay Bhat (141)
2000 Camilla Baginskaite (130)
2001  Mauro Casadei (131)
2002  John Donaldson and Dmitry Zilberstein (160)
2003  Ricardo DeGuzman and John Donaldson (157)

Does anyone know who won in 1984, 1986, 1994 and 1996?

Only one round remains in the Winter Tueday Night Marathon but the battle for first remains very unclear. Four players are presently tie for first at 5 1/2 from 7 (IM Walter Shipman, NMs Russell Wong and Igor Margulis and Burmese Expert Win  Aung Lee)  and there is a large group half a point behind. Incidentally the 80-player field ties the attendance record for a TNM, equaling the turnout for the  MI Winter Marathon  of 1973. According to the January-February 1974 issue of the California Chess Reporter that twelve round event was won by NM Peter Cleghorn at 10 1/2 with NM Dennis Waterman second at 10. Three of the players (Peter Grey, Paul Vayssie and Max Wilkerson)  who participated in that Marathon are also playing in the current one thirty years later!

The staff of the Mechanics' Institute recently completed the first of a two volume series on the history of the
Mechanics' Institute Chess Room. The fruits of their research are available on a CD which includes almost 90
pages of text, approximately 10 photos from the MI archives and over 150 games in ChessBase format. Visits
of World Champions Lasker (twice), Capablanca, Alekhine (twice), and Euwe, are among the highlights.  The
price of the CD is $10 + $1 for shipping.  To order, send a check payable to the Mechanics' Institute for $11 to:
Mechanics' Institute, Room 408, 57 Post Street, San Francisco, CA, 94104.

"Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe"
Hindu proverb

The seven player double round robin in Linares has already witnessed one big upset with 15-year-old Teimur Radjabov defeating Garry Kasparov with the black pieces. Standings after 4 rounds.  Note: (3) means three games played so far.

+1 Kramnik (4), Anand (3) and Leko (3)
= Radjabov (4), Vallejo Pons (3)
-1 Kasparov (3)
-2 Ponomariov (4)

There was a six-way tie for first at 6-2 in the Winter Tuesday Night Marathon with IM Walter Shipman, NMs Russell Wong, Igor Margulis, and Victor Ossipov plus Experts Win Aung Ye and  Nicolas Yap taking top honors. The next Marathon begins March 18.

NM Michael Pearson is the winner of the 2003 Falconer Award given annually to the highest rated player under 18 in Northern California. Michael, who is 15 and lives in San Mateo, narrowly missed qualifying for the US Championship at last years US Open. His prize for winning the Falconer is $2,201 which matches his rating of 2201 at the end of December 2002. The Falconer award is named after its benefactor, MI Trustee and former US Senior Champion Neil Falconer.

2000 Vinay Bhat
2001 Vinay Bhat
2002 Vinay Bhat
2003 Michael Pearson

On February 27th GM Maurice Ashley will be at Contra Costa College in SanPablo, CA in conjunction with the Windsor East Bay Chess Academy.  We would like contact local chess clubs to see if they are interested in sending one or two teams of players to play GM Ashley on the 27th between 2:00 and 4:00pm at the college.  Please forward to chess clubs in the West Contra Costa County area or let me know how I can contact them.  Thanks!

Jennifer Ounjian-Auque
Student Life Center Supervisor
Contra Costa College
(510) 235-7800 ext. 4407

MI and Berkeley Chess Club member Andy Lee, who is attending college in the Heartland, sends in the following report.

My collegiate team (Carleton College in Minnesota) won the Midwest Amateur Team Championship on President's Day Weekend with a 5-0 score.  We were big underdogs, since our 1884 team rating made us the 13th seed in a field of
about 40 teams.  I went 5-0 on board one which was matched by our 3rd board.

Here's my game from the last round:

1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. Ngf3 Nc6 5. g3 Bd6 6. Bg2 Nge7 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1 Qc7 9. Qe2 f6 10. c3 b5 11. Nh4 Rb8 12. f4 d4 13. c4 a6 14. Bh3 Qa5 15. Nhf3 Bc7 16. a3 Qb6 17. Kh1 Qa7 18. Rg1 Ba5 19. cxb5 axb5 20. b4 Bxb4 21. g4 Bc3 22. Rb1 Ng6 23. Nf1 Qc7 24. f5 Nf4 25. Bxf4 Qxf4 26. Ng3 Ne5 27. Nxe5 Qxe5 28.Nh5 h6 29. Rbf1 c4 30. Nf4 Rf7 31. Ng6 cxd3 32. Qxd3 Qd6 33. g5 fxg5 34. e5 Qc6+
35. Bg2 Qc4 36. Qg3 Qc7 37. h4 Bd2 38. Qg4 exf5 39. Qxd4 Kh7 40. h5 Qc3 41.Qd5 Bb7 42. Qxb7 Rfxb7 43. Rxf5 Rb6 44. Rgf1 Bf4 45. Nxf4 gxf4 46. R1xf4 Rd8 47.Rf7 Rd1+ 48. Kh2 Rd2 49. Rg4 Qxe5+ 50. Kg1 Rd1+ 51. Bf1 Rxf1+ 0-1

Well done Andy!

The FIDE Man vs. Machine World Chess Championship, between Gary Kasparov and the computer Deep Junior is scheduled to re-air on ESPN2 Wednesday, March 5 at 2:30 p.m. ET.

GM Yasser Seirawan of Seattle is on the fast track to becoming a peace negotiator for the United Nations.  A few years he played a big role in rescuing the US Championship and more recently he has volunteered large amounts of time to try to reunify the World Chess Championship crown. As you might guess this has been a truly thankless task! To learn more about his efforts and the difficulties faced check out the new interview he did with GM Mikhail Golubev which is posted at GM Square site. The interview first appeared at GM Alex Baburin's well regarded online daily Chess Today  No 836.

IM John Donaldson won the 11th David Collyer Memorial held February 22-23 in Spokane with a 5-0 score. Kevin Korsmo organized and directed the 54-player event.

"For me, chess is life and every game is like a new life. Every chess player gets to live many lives in one lifetime"
GM Eduard Gufeld

Six-time US Champion Walter Browneof Berkeley was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame this past weekend in Miami along with fellow GM Lev Alburt. This was a richly deserved honor for Browne who has probably won more tournaments than any player in American history in a career dating back to the 1960s. Walter is also the founder of the World Blitz Chess Association and the editor of its excellent quarterly magazine Blitz Chess. Congratulations!

Standings: 1 V Kramnik (Russia) 5/8; 2 P Leko (Hungary) 4.5/7; 3-4 G
Kasparov (Russia), V Anand (India) 4.5/8; 5-6 T Radjabov (Azerbaijan), R
Ponomariov (Ukraine) 3/8; 7 F Vallejo Pons (Spain) 2.5/7.

IM Walter Shipman leads the March Masters which runs daily until Friday with rounds starting at 1pm.
1. IM Shipman 2/2; 2. FM Thornally 1/1; 3-4. NMs Pinto and Margulis 1/2 from 2,  5. NM Thiel 0/1.

Jacob Lopez and Yefim Bukh tied for first at 4 1/2 - 1/2 in the 53-player A.J. Fink Amateur Championship held February 28-March 2 at the Mechanics' Institute.

IM Vinay Bhat took a break from his studies at UC Berkeley and tied for first in a one day event held in San Leandro on February 22.  Vinay, who defeated NM Sertic and IM-elect Ron Cusi, was  held to a draw by rapidly improving junior Uri Andrews of San Jose. The 17-year-old Andrews, who only earned his experts rating this past June, may have come close to going over 2200 with his last round victory over 2300 NM Emmanuel Perez. Hans Poschmann directed the 3-section event which attracted 63 players.

"When a chess player looks at the board, he does not see a static mosiac, a still life, but a magnetic field of forces charged with energy - as Faraday saw the stresses surrounding magnets and currents as curves in space; or as Van Gogh saw vortices in the skies of Provence."
Arthur Koestler

Peter Leko and Vladimir Kramnik tied for first in Linares with Leko taking the title on tiebreak (more decisive results). Their victory marked the end of  Garry Kasparov's record-breaking ten consecutive elite tournament victories stretching from Wijk aan Zee 1999 through to Linares 2002. As expected, Kasparov fought to the bitter end in his last round game against Vishy Anand but could only draw.

A major incident occurred during the prize giving when the tournament's youngest participant, 15-year-old Teimour Radjabov, was controversially awarded (in a vote decided by journalists) the tournament's 'beauty prize' for his win against Kasparov . While the Baku teenager - with his proud mother videotaping the proceedings - was being handed the prize, an enraged Kasparov stormed up to the microphone and said, "I don't believe that this was the best game of the tournament. It has been selected only because it was the only game that I lost and I consider this to be a public insult and humiliation."

While everyone looked on in shock, Kasparov went after a group of journalists and worked his rage up to shouting level. "This is the worst insult you have ever done to me in my life! It is an insult to me and to chess! You consider yourselves chess journalists? If you think this was the most beautiful game of Linares, you are doing a great deal of damage
to chess with your reports and articles. Radjabov was completely lost in that game!"

Readers with good memories might recall the strong words that were heard when Kaparov-Nikolic won over Rogers-Milos and Shabalov-Smirin as the best game of the 1992 Olympiad in Manila. Kasparov's victory might have been the best, but his refusing to remove himself from the jury that judged the prizes left many shaking their heads.

Final Standings:
1-2. P Leko (Hungary) and V Kramnik (Russia) 7/12
3-4. V Anand (India) and G Kasparov (Russia) 6.5
5. R Ponomariov (Ukraine) 5.5
6. F Vallejo Pons (Spain)  5
7. T Radjabov (Azerbaijan) 4.5

IM Walter Shipman and FM Frank Thornally tied for first with undefeated scores of 3-1 in the MI March Masters held March 3-7. Rounds were held daily from Monday through Friday at 1pm with a time control of 30/90 followed by G/60. A similar event is planned for later this month. If you are rated over 2200 USCF and are interested in participating contact John Donaldson at imwjd@aol.com.

1-2. IM Shipman and FM Thornally 3; 3-4. NMs Thiel and Margulis 1.5; 5. NM Pinto 1.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - Ludek Pachman, a chess grandmaster and author of dozens of chess textbooks, died Thursday. He was 78, the news agency CTK reported Monday.
It said the Czech-born Pachman died in Passau, Germany. The report did not give the cause of his death.
Pachman, an internationally known seven-time Czechoslovak chess master and a devoted communist until the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion that crushed democratic reforms known as Prague Spring, emigrated to Germany in 1972.
He returned to Prague after the demise of communism in late 1989, but in 1998 moved to Germany again.
He was the author of a number of chess textbooks, such as ``Modern Chess Strategy,'' or ``Decisive Games in Chess History.''
Pachman also took part in many international chess tournaments.

The US Open will return to the West Coast from August 3-15 at the LAX Radisson. The 12-round tournament features the second highest guaranteed  prize fund ($55,000) in the history of the event. This will be only the seventh US Open hosted in California (Long Beach 1955, San Francisco 1961, Palo Alto 1981, Pasadena 1983, Los Angeles 1991 and Concord 1995) and promises  to be the strongest ever. Full details are available in Chess Life and at  http://www.uschess.org/tournaments/2003/usopen

"When you play human beings they could make a mistake, and some of your moves could scare your opponents to death. A computer is very powerful and calculates like God within its limits."
Gary Kasparov

Win Aung Ye of Burma won the 3rd annual Max Wilkerson G/45 Open held March 15 at the MI with a 5-0 score. SM Andrey Chumachenko of Davis was second at 4 1/2, taking a last round bye. The event, held to honor former MI Chess Director Max Wilkerson, shattered the one day attendance record for MI events with 74 players (the old record was 58). Anthony Corrales directed for the MI. The next one day G/45 will be held April 26.

FM Frank Thornally, NM Peter Thiel and IM Walter Shipman are the top seeds in the 75-player Mechanics' Institute Spring Marathon which started last night. The international field includes players from as far away as Burma and Turkey.

The USCF Executive Board met on March 15-16, 2003 in New Windsor, New York. One of the more important pieces of legislation that passed was the revision of existing eligibility requirements for the US Championship. A motion passed to the effect that the waiting period would be reduced to one year for persons with a green card or other acceptable proof of permanent residency and two years for persons with non-permanent status.  The exception for full time students under the age of 20 remains unchanged. Exact language has yet to be written. The new regulations will probably appear in the July Chess Life. Previously, three years of residence were required but with a much more lenient definition of what defined residency.

A. This is an invitation to an exhibition match between Irina Krush and Jennifer Shahade, two of the top women players in the United States, on Thursday, March 20th. The match will be held at the Viewing Gallery at 114 17th St. between 6th and 7th avenues, just a few blocks from the Marshall Chess Club! The match will begin at 7:00 pm and will last until 9:30 pm.  The Viewing Gallery is an art gallery, featuring the abstract paintings of Hector Leonardi. Wine will be served and feel free to invite friends! If you have any questions either email me at gregshahade@yahoo.com or call at 917-294-1338!
Location - The Viewing Gallery 114 17th St. between 6th and 7th avenues
Time – March 20th       7:00 – 9:30
Format – 25 minutes per player with 10 second increment.

B. The Chess Journalists of America recently announced its call for submissions for excellence in American chess journalism. Full details are available at http://www.correspondencechess.com/cja/pr030309.htm

C. FIDE norm hunters some regulations have been modified in the last year.

1. Norms are good for life and have been for more than one year.

2. There is a current rule that you require 24 games if you have a round robin or Olympiad norm or 30 games if relying solely on Swisses. This rule will be changed to 27 and it does not matter what type of event from 1 July 2003.

" The World has gone downhill since I was young. When I look around me nowadays, I am glad that I myself am going downhill."
Geza Maroczy 1947

Yefim Bukh, once the most feared B player on the West Coast, has been steadily making his way to 2000 and upward the past few months. Last night he defeated veteran NM David Blohm to join the log jam of players on two points after two rounds of the 75-player Spring Marathon.

Players who were active in  the 1970s will well remember the name of  Ken Rogoff.  A participant in the 1976 Interzonal in Biel, Rogoff was awarded the Grandmaster title in 1977. A few years later he retired from chess to devote himself to economics where he has risen to the top of the field. The London Daily Telegraph of March 20th quotes him in an article about the failings of the IMF.

"The International Monetary Fund, the Washington-based bank set up to police the financial globe and assist the Third World, yesterday made the startling admission that the policies it has been pursuing for the last 60 years do not often work. In a paper that will be seized on by IMF critics across the political spectrum, leading officials reveal they can find little evidence of their own success.
Countries that follow IMF suggestions often suffer a "collapse in growth rates and significant financial crises", with open currency markets merely serving to "amplify the effects of various shocks".
Kenneth Rogoff, the IMF chief economist who is one of the report's authors, called the findings "sobering".

Youngsters in the Half Moon Bay area no longer need to travel for chess activity thanks to the Coastside Chess Chess Club. Their website can be found at www.coastsidechess.us

The Quarterly for Chess History, Volume 6, produced by Moravian Chess Publishing, features a 9-page article  by Stephen Brandwein and John Donaldson on Lasker at the MI that draws heavily from the recent MI Chess History CD (see #6 below).  The MI has a copy in its library. Personal copies can be obtained Chess Cafe.

"Those who say they understand chess, understand nothing"
Robert Huebner

Garry Kasparov continues to head the FIDE rating list at 2830, followed by Kramnik 2789, Anand 2764, Leko 2746, Shirov 2735 and Topalov 2735. Top Americans are Onischuk 2647, Kaidanov 2640, Seirawan 2626 and Goldin 2611.

There were several upsets in round three of the Spring Tuesday Night Marathon with Expert Peter Grey defeating IM Walter Shipman and former "King of the Class B's" Yefim Bukh defeating Russell Wong for his 2nd Master scalp in two weeks. The remaining perfect scores are: NMs Margulis, Morkunaite, Thiel and Ye, Experts Grey and Ossipov, plus Bukh.

Longtime Mechanics' member Ray Cuneo recently passed away at the age of 96.  Interestingly Ray didn't start playing until he was 40. That didn't stop him from becoming a Mechanics regular for almost half a century!  Ray came regularly to the club right up until his death. Many of our older members in their 70s and 80s considered him a source of inspiration due to his physical vitality, mental agility and genial manner. If they had known he was also still actively participating in a bowling league in Alameda they would have been even more impressed. Ray was well liked by all and we will miss him very much.

Those with stories about Ray are encouraged to write to his granddaughter Karen Gomez.

Karen Gomez
1356 Graymill Court
Rohnert Park, Calif. 94928

4) Lubeck wins 2002-2003 Bundesliga

Congratulations to Grandmaster Nick deFirmian for helping his team win the prestigious Bundesliga competition. A graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in Physics with longtime ties to the Mechanics', Nick is currently based in Copenhagen.

John Hilbert, one of the hardest working researchers in the field of chess history, shares the following game from the early days of Southern California chess.

Winner of the special prize for the most brilliant "Cunningham" in the recent Southern California Correspondence Tourney, our old contributor, Walter Bennett, Esq., of Phoenix, Arizona Territory, vs. D.F. Sheldon

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 Be7 4.Bc4 Bh4+ 5.Kf1 d5 6.Bxd5 Nf6 7.Nc3 Nxd5 8.Nxd5 0-0 9.Nxh4 Qxh4 10.d3 Nc6 11.Bxf4 f5 12.e5 g5 13.Bg3 Qh6 14.d4 f4 15.Bf2 f3 16.h3 Bg4 17.g3 Bxh3+ 18.Kg1 g4 19.Qd3 Qg7 20.Re1 Rad8 21.Qe4 Qd7 22.Nf6+ Rxf6 23.exf6 Nxd4 24.Rd1 c5 25.c3 Ne2+ 26.Kh2 Qc7 0-1

New York Clipper, March 16, 1895 (Miron Hazeltine, ed.); taken from the New Orleans Times-Democrat (J.D. Seguin, ed.)

“Objectivity consists in understanding that the only one who
never makes a mistake is the one who never does anything.”
Vladimir Kramnik

FM Frank Thornally won the 2nd March Masters held March 24-April 4 at the MI with an undefeated score of 4 1/2 - 1 1/2. NM Peter Thiel was second in the four player double round with 4 followed by NMs Igor Margulis and Mark Pinto with 2 and 1 1/2 points respectively.

The following players have announced their intention of playing in the Thursday Masters Tournament starting April 17.

Roger Poehlmann
Adrian Keatinge-Clay
Frank Thornally
Mark Pinto
Bela Evans
Peter Thiel
Eric Schiller (tentative)

This event was envisioned as a 6 player round robin, but there is no reason we can't have two running concurrently.

Thursday afternoon USCF rated chess for non-Masters will also start on April 17. Each Thursday interested players with similar ratings will be paired. There is no cost for this activity.

The MI will be running a Master/Expert event on May 3-4.

Veterans Igor Margulis and Victor Ossipov share the lead with fellow National Master Egle Morkunaite of Lithuania at 4-0 with four rounds remaining in the Tuesday Night Marathon.

Tuesday Night Marathon stalwart Larry Snyder passed out a questionnaire last evening at the TNM polling players as to their preference for a 2 week (current practice) or 1 week break between TNMs. The people have spoken, but somewhat inconclusively.  28 for a 1 week break, 22 for 2 weeks, 6 no preference, and 18 non-voters out of 76 people playing last night is a much higher percentage than voted in the last Presidential election. Thought is being given to having alternating one week and two week breaks between TNMs.

Last week's Newsletter mentioned that Nick was a winning member of the Luebeck team in the Bundesliga. Here is one of his efforts from that competition.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.0-0 Bd7 6.d4 b5 7.Bb3 Nxd4 8.Nxd4 exd4 9.c3 d3 10.Qxd3 Be7 11.Qg3 Bf6 12.f4 Ne7 13.Nd2 0-0 14.Nf3 Ng6 15.Bd2 c5 16.f5 Ne5 17.Bd5 Bc6 18.Bxc6 Nxc6 19.Bf4 Re8 20.Rad1 Ne5 21.Rd5 Qc7 22.Rfd1 Rad8 23.Nxe5 dxe5 24.Bg5 Rxd5 25.Rxd5 Bxg5 26.Qxg5 Qb6 27.Qe3 Qa5 28.a3 Qa4 29.Qd3 b4 30.cxb4 cxb4 31.Qc4 a5 32.h3 h5 33.Kh2 h4 34.Rd6 Ra8 35.f6 g6 36.Rc6 Re8 37.b3 Qxa3 38.Rc8 1-0

Nick is currently playing in the Gaudal Chess Classics where he is running away with the top section. He has 6 1/2 from 8 with three rounds remaining.

Filipino IMs Ricardo De Guzman and Enrico Sevillano and IM-elect Ron Cusi shared first place at 3 1/2 - 1/2  in the Central California Chess Congress held March 29-30 in Stockton.

GM Alex Baburin's award winning online daily Chess Today is coming up fast on its 1000th issue.

MI Chess Director John Donaldson will be the featured guest on Fred Wilson's weekly show next Tuesday night (April 15) on Chess FM starting at 6:30 PM (PST). You can hear the interview at www.chessfm.com The show will be immediately rebroadcast at 8:00 PM (PST) and then again at 9:00 AM the next morning (PST).

Francisco Sierra, who ran so many chess events in San Jose in the 1970s and 80s is still alive and very well. The San Jose Mercury News of April 1, 2003, in its reporting of the Mercury News 10 K (6.25 miles) race lists the winner of the Mens 70 and over division as Francisco Sierra with a time of 51:51. Well done Francisco!

'It is one of the insights of modern players, and especially of the best ones, that one has to play the position itself, not some abstract idea of the position.'
John Watson

Top-seed GM Alex Wojtkiewicz took care of business in the inaugural Western Pacific Open held April 11-13 at the Radisson Hotel  at LAX in Los Angeles, but he had company at the top. Sharing first place at 4 ½  - ½  and $1650 in prize money was Phoenix high school student Daniel Rensch. Only seeded 16th at 2274, Rensch defeated three International Masters (Taylor, Khachiyan, plus  Sevillano) and drew with another (Donaldson) for a USCF performance of  over 2800 against titled players.

Rensch was not the only youngster to make head headlines. His teammate, NM Pieta Garrett, defeated IM Nikolay Andrianov and 2300 rated Tibor Weinberger to grab a share of second at 4-1 along with GM Edhi Handoko of Indonesia, IM John Donaldson of the Mechanics’, SM Levon Altounian of  Tucson and NM Rico Salimbagat  of the Philippines.

This new event, which fills the gap in Southern California chess between the Amateur  Team West in February and the Lena Grumette Memorial over Memorial Day weekend, attracted 143 players including two GMs and 4 IMs. John Hillery directed for the Southern California Chess Association with assistance from Mike Carr and Randy Hough. Complete standings are available at http://www.westernchess.com/pco03/standings.html

NM Igor Margulis defeated Victor Ossipov to grab the lead with a perfect score after five rounds of the Spring Tuesday Night Marathon. Right behind at 4 ½ - ½ are NM Egle Morkunaite of Lithuania and the amazing Yefim Bukh.  Bukh, until recently only  had his sights set  on being the strongest B player of  all time.  Now that the USCF has floored him at 1800, due his winning several large B prizes, he has changed his ways with a vengeance numbering NMs Blohm and Wong and Expert Larry Snyder among his victims in the current TNM. Not bad for a player rated 1868! We expect him to earn his Master’s title in the next year. Credit Stacey’s manager Tom Allen for being the first TNM regular to appreciate Bukh’s true strength.

IM Walter Shipman and NM Victor Ossipov shared top honors in the 3rd annual Walter Lovegrove Senior Open held April 12th and 13th at the Mechanics’ Institute with 3 1/2 from 4. GM-in-Residence Alex Yermolinsky directed for the M.I.

DESPITE such a rich chess heritage and having some of the brightest talents in the game, Hungary has, in recent years, failed to organize an elite tournament to help better showcase their talents.

Not any more. As part of the celebrations to commemorate the 130th anniversary of Budapest, birthplace of chess superstars Peter Leko and Judit Polgar, a new top level event featuring 10 world-class competitors
is now taking place in the Hungarian capital. The patron of the event is Hungarian Prime Minister Dr. Peter Medgyessy, and the event, billed as the "Talent and Courage" tournament, is sponsored by the Hungarian
government in conjunction with the Hunguest Hotels Co.

Running 11-20 April, the event, a round-robin category 17 (average rating 2663) tournament, aims to give opportunities on home soil for the most talented young Hungarian grandmasters in order to acquire greater
experience.

The Hungarian line-up is made up of their successful silver-medal winning Olympiad squad that last year in Bled took the Russians to the wire: Peter Leko, Judit Polgar, Peter Acs, Zoltan Almasi and Ferenc
Berekes. Making up the field is five foreign grandmasters: Boris Gelfand (Israel), Nigel Short (England), Sergei Movsesian (Slovakia), Christopher Lutz (Germany) and Viktor Korchnoi (Switzerland).

The home fans had plenty to cheer about in the opening round, as in-form Judit Polgar turned on the style to beat the venerable Viktor Korchnoi in an eye-catching game.

1 Nf3 Nf6 2 c4 b6 3 Nc3 Bb7 4 d4 e6 5 Bg5 h6 6 Bh4 g5 7 Bg3 Nh5 8 e3 Nxg3 9 fxg3 Bg7 10 Bd3 Nc6 11 0-0 Qe7 12 a3 0-0-0 13 Rc1 h5 14 c5 g4 15 cxb6 gxf3 16 bxc7 Kxc7 17 d5 Qg5 18 dxc6 Qxe3+ 19 Kh1 fxg2+ 20 Kxg2 Bxc6+ 21 Be4 Bxc3 22 Bxc6 Qd2+ 23 Kh3 h4 24 Rxc3 hxg3+ 25 Kg4 Rhg8+
26 Kf3 dxc6 27 Qxd2 Rxd2 28 hxg3 Rxb2 29 Ke4 f5+ 30 Ke5 Rg6 31 Rh1 Re2+ 32Kf4 Re4+ 33 Kf3 Reg4 34 Kf2 e5 35 Rf3 Kd6 36 Rh7 a6 37 Ra7 Ra4 38 Rd3+ Ke6 39 Rc3 Kd5 40 Rd7+ Rd6 41 Rf7 f4 42 Rb7 Rc4 43 Rd3+ Kc5 44 Rdb3 Rd2+ 45 Kf3 fxg3 46 Kxg3 Rdc2 0-1

John Henderson - The Scotsman

April 7, 2003

Louie Ladow, a colorful San Francisco cab driver, chess expert, and fearsome blitz player, died in his sleep last night in Brisbane, CA. He leaves behind his wife, Sue, and daughters Emily and Mary.

In the 1970s, Louie was the scourge of the blitz afficionados at the Meat Market coffeehouse on 24th Street in the San Francisco community of Noe Valley. That community also included masters Paul Whitehead, Jay Whitehead, Bob Atlas, Doug Sailor, Nick Carlin, Mike Arne, Jerry Lehrman and the MI's own Steve Brandwein.

In the early 1980's, Louie staked a small claim in chess history, authoring the first electronic chessbook, the Najdorf Sicilian, for Enlightenment, Inc.'s Living Chess Library (TM). His opus was viewed on IBM, Apple, and Commodore 64 computers by thousands of chessplayers in 20 countries around the world, almost half a decade before the first appearance of Chessbase.

In the 1990's, Louie became active in local politics. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the city council of Brisbane, and argued vehemently in many committee meetings with SF Supervisor Gavin Newsom over cab driver medallion issues in the 2000's. His view was that new medallions should be given to those who had driven cabs the longest, rather than being dispensed into the cab companies' existing patronage system.

Several people in the chessplaying community will have their own memories of Louie Ladow. They will remember that he was crusty and could sometimes be quick-tempered. What I will always remember was Louie at the top of his wit one day in 1976 at the Meat Market cafe. He emulated Cyrano de Bergerac, rhyming a continuous string of improvisational poetry while running off eleven blitz victories in a row.

Louie would not have wanted to be remembered as a nice person. He would have wanted to be remembered as his own person.

Martin Marshall

NOTE: A blitz tourney in Louie's honor will be held at the MI in early June. Full details will be published in the Newsletter shortly.

"Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic just as music is the art which expresses the science of acoustics."
Mikhail Botvinnik

Isreali GM Ilya Smirin won the annual Foxwoods Open held April 17-21, taking home $7,000 for his efforts. The two qualifiers for the 2004 US Championship were GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Sergey Kudrin. MI Grandmaster-in-Residence Alex Yermolinsky narrowly missed qualifying, pressing his last round opponent GM Dmitry Gurevich for over 100 moves in a Rook + f and h pawn ending before finally agreeing to a draw. Congratulations to NM Michael Casella of Los Angeles for an excellent result in the 128 player open section which included 22 GMs and 11 IMs.

For more information go to:
http://members.cox.net/tournaments/foxwoods/

1 Ilya Smirin        2802  6
2 Gregory Kaidanov   2743  5½
3 Igor Novikov       2686  5½
4 Ildar Ibragimov    2667  5½
5 Hikaru Nakamura    2632  5½
6 Yury Shulman       2615  5½
7 Sergey Kudrin      2597  5½
8 Pavel Blatny       2558  5½
9 Jaan Ehlvest       2705  5
10 Alexander Goldin   2683  5
11 Alex Yermolinsky   2622  5
12 Alexander Ivanov   2615  5
13 Gennadi Zaitshik   2590  5
14 Alexander Fishbein 2571  5
15 Dmitry Gurevich    2541  5
16 Michael Casella    2318  5

English GM Nigel Short won the "Talent and Courage" tournament to bring his rating close to a personal all time high around 2700. The event was sponsored by the Hungarian government in conjunction with the Hunguest Hotels Co.

Final standing: 1 N Short (England) 6.5/9; 2 J Polgar (Hungary) 5.5; 3 P
Leko (Hungary) 5; 4-6 B Gelfand (Israel), C Lutz (Germany), P Acs
(Hungary) 4.5; 7-8 V Korchnoi (Switzerland), S Movsesian (Slovakia) 4; 9
F Berkes (Hungary) 3.5; 10 Z Almasi (Hungary) 3.

Igor Margulis drew with fellow NMEgle Morkunaite to maintain his lead in the Spring Tuesday Night Marathon with 5 1/2 from 6 with two rounds to go. Tied for second, half a point back, are IM Walter Shipman, Morkunaite, NMs Wing Aung Ye and Victor Ossipov plus Yefim Bukh.

The first round of the Thursday Masters, which runs one game week until late May, saw NM Roger Poehlmanngrab the lead with a win over FM Adrian Keatinge-Clay.

Standings for the 7-player round robin.

1. NM Poehlmann 1
2-5. FM Thornally, FM Evans, NM Pinto, NM Schiller 1/2
6. Keatinge-Clay 0
7. Thiel bye

Chess Historian and database maven Andy Ansel recently unearthed the following curiosity from 1935.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. d3 d6 6. c4 Be7 7. Nc3 O-O 8.Ne2 Ne8 9. c5 f5 10. exf5 Bxf5 11. Qb3+ Kh8 12. Qxb7 Nd4 13. Nfxd4
{which Knight not specified.}
13... exd4 14. Nxd4 dxc5 15. Nc6 Qxd3 16. Nxe7 Bg4 17. f3 Rxf3 18. gxf3 Bxf3 19. Qxf3 Qxf3 20. Bc6 Qf6 21. Bxa8 Qxe7+ 22. Kf2 1/2 - 1/2

A recent offhand contest at the Mechanic Institute Chess Club at San Francisco, California, started at 4 PM with an agreement to stop at 5 and if unfinished call it a draw. The agreement turned a win for Fink into a draw as the game was
unfinished at 5.

Source: The White Bear Press, Nov 8, 1935

Rene Olthof, the jack of all trades who helps keep New in Chess running smoothly, passes on the following information about one of the renaissance men of chess, Tim Krabbe. Krabbe wrote The Vanishing which was made into successful Dutch and American movies. His book, The Rider, is a cycling classic which I can warmly recommend - JD.

On April 13 Tim Krabbé, author, chess player and cyclist, celebrated his 60th birthday.For many, many years now chess players all over the world have been enjoying his articles on chess in general and chess curiosities in particular.

At the moment Krabbé, a celebrated author some books of whom have been turned into motion pictures both in the Netherlands and abroad, maintains one of the most attractive free chess sites of the world.

On this site you can find the provisional award of two unique tourneys for chess composition, initiated by Krabbé on the occasion of his 60th birthday. One section for chess problems (moremovers) and one for endgame studies. The (provisional) winners are the Polish composer Andrzej Jasik and Emil Melnichenko from New Zealand, a colourful personality (see photograph attached), who was born in Salzburg (Austria) in 1950 and has been active and successful in the world of chess composition for more than 25 years.

The Provisional Award  of the endgame study section can be downloaded (in English and in Dutch) as a PDF-file under http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/tk60jt_en.pdf or
http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/tk60jt_nl.pdf

For both sections Palview pages have been created. Here you can play over the problems and studies online or download them as PGN-files.

The complete set of links is as follows:

http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/tk60pr.html
http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/tk60pr_e.html
http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/tk60pr.pgn
http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/problems.htm
http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/tk60st.html
http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/tk60st_e.html
http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/tk60st.pgn
http://www.timkrabbe.nl/tk60/studies.htm

René Olthof
Tourney Director TK60-JT
Endgame Study Section

Kent Pullen, who tied for first in the 1969 and 1985 Washington State Championships, recently passed away at the age of 60.

A Battle in the Meran:  Remembering Kent Pullen

The following game was played in the 1969 Washington State Championship. The event was held at the Seattle Chess Club which was located in Fremont at that time. Kent and Jim McCormick tied for first with 6 from 7, with Viktors Pupols half a point back. McCormick won the title by winning the one game playoff.

The game was published in the March 1970 issue of Chess Life and Review (p.143) in the column Games by USCF Members by John Collins. Annotations  are by him unless otherwise noted. When both he and I have made comments to the same move I have noted as such.

1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 c6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4 b5 8.Bd3 a6 9.e4 c5 10.d5 c4 11.dxe6 fxe6
Back in 1984, in the  3rd Seattle Futurity held at the Seattle Chess Center, I played the alternative 11...cxd3 and Kent introduced the interesting piece sacrifice  12.exf7+ . This line was later taken up in Grandmaster practice and tested in games between Seirawan and Kortchnoi and Kortchnoi and Van der Wiel in 1989. (JD)
12.Bc2 Qb6
This little-played move was a Pupols favorite at one point in his career. (JD)
13.0–0
13.e5 Ng4 14.0–0 Ngxe5 15.Re1 Bd6 16.Nxe5 Bxe5 17.Qh5+ g6 18.Bxg6+ hxg6 19.Qxg6+ Kf8 20.Rxe5 Nxe5 21.Bh6+ Ke7 22.Qg5+ Ke8 23.Nd5 Qd6 24.Nf6+ Kd8 25.Ne4+ Qe7 26.Qd2+ Qd7 27.Bg5+ Kc7 28.Qf4 Qd4 29.Bf6 Rh5 30.g4 Bb7! 31.Re1 Rg8 was the exciting game T.Taylor-Pupols, Lone Pine 1974, which eventually ended in a draw. (JD)
13...Bb7 14.e5
Sharp. A pawn is sacrificed to get at the uncastled King. (JC)
14.Qe2 was tried in Christiansen-Nikolac, Wijk aan Zee 1976 (CI - 21/490).  (JD)
14...Ng4
If 14...Nd5 15.Ng5! or 15.Ne4
15.h3 Ngxe5 16.Nxe5 Nxe5 17.Qh5+ Nf7 18.Be3 Qc7
Hoping for comparative safety with 19...0–0–0.
19.Rad1 Bd6 20.a4 b4 21.Ne4
I evaluated this position as unclear in 1986 while writing a book on the Meran Defense. My feeling is that this evaluation still holds and Black's mistake comes on the next move. (JD).
21...Be5?
On  21...Bxe4 22.Bxe4 0–0–0 23.Qg4 regains the pawn. (JC).  21...Rd8 is much better. Black has some questions regarding what to go with his King, but his pieces are quite active. The game continuation should lead to real trouble. (JD)
22.Bc1 ?!
Momentary, simple protection is best. If  22.Bd4 0–0–0 and if 22.Ng5 g6. (JC).  22.f4! looks much stronger with the point that  22...Bxb2? runs into (better is  22...g6 though after  23.Qg4 Bxb2 24.Qxe6+ Qe7 25.Qxe7+ Kxe7 26.Bc5+ Ke6 27.Nd6 White is better) 23.Nd6+ Kf8 24.Nxf7 Qxf7 25.Bc5+ Kg8 26.Qxf7+ Kxf7 27.Rd7+ winning.
22...g6
If 22...0–0?? 23.Nf6+ Bxf6 24.Qxh7# (JC). 22...b3 23.Bb1 Rd8 was an interesting alternative with Black trying to hide his King on b8 and utilize his well-placed pieces. For example: 24.Rxd8+ Kxd8 25.Rd1+ Kc8 26.Qg4 Re8 (JD)
23.Qg4 0–0 24.h4
Continuing the attack is the right course. 24.Qxe6 Rae8 would activate all the Black pieces.
24...Bg7
Black is in bad shape. Possibly 24...Qe7, or 23...Rae8 would hold better. (JC) 24...Rad8 25.h5 Rxd1 26.Rxd1 b3 27.Bb1 Kg7 28.hxg6 hxg6 29.Nc5 is one example of the power in White's position. (JD)
25.h5 Ne5 26.Qxe6+
Now the capture of the pawn beings about an even stronger attack or a distinctly favorable ending.
26...Qf7
If 26...Kh8 27.Nd6 or 27.f4 follows. On  26...Rf7? 27.Ng5 or  26...Nf7? 27.hxg6.
27.Ng5! Qxe6 28.Nxe6 Rf6 29.Nxg7 Kxg7 30.Rfe1 Nf7 31.Re7 Bc8
Not 31...Bc6? 32.Bg5 and White wins the Exchange.
32.Rde1
If 32.Rd8 (threatening 32.h6 mate) 32...Re6 provides a defense. The game continuation is very good for White, but the alternative 32. Rd8 also looks promising. After 32...Re6 White has 33.h6+ Kf6 34.Rxe6+ Kxe6 35.Rd4 Ne5 36.f4 Nd3 37.Rxc4 Nxc1 38.Be4 winning:  (FRITZ)
32...Bf5 33.h6+ Kf8 34.Bxf5 Rxf5 35.Rc7 Re8
A pawn is lost. If 35...Ra5 (or 35...Rh5) 36.Ree7.
36.Rxe8+ Kxe8 37.Rxc4 a5 38.Be3 Kd7 39.Rc5!?
A move which poses some questions. Less committing are  39.Bb6! (threatening 40.Rc7+) and 39.Kf1.
39...Nxh6?
"Black would have had better drawing chances by playing 39...Rxc5 40.Bxc5 Kc6!" - Pullen.
40.Rxf5 Nxf5 41.Bb6 Kc6 42.Bxa5 Kc5 43.Kf1 Nd4
Or 43...Kc4 44.Bb6 Kb3 45.a5 and White wins.
44.Ke1 Kc4 45.Kd1 Kb3 46.Bb6 Nc6 47.a5 Nb8 48.Kc1 Kc4 49.Kc2 Kb5 50.Kd3 h5
50...Nc6 51.b3 Nxa5 52.Bxa5 Kxa5 53.Kc4 h6 54.Kc5 h5 55.f4 h4 56.Kc4 and Black is in zugzwang.
51.Ke4 Nd7 52.Kd5 g5 53.Ke6 Nxb6
The King and Pawn ending is quite lost, but if  53...Kc6 54.Kf5 and White wins the g and h pawns.
54.axb6 Kxb6 55.Kd5 h4? 56.f3!
But not  56.Kc4 g4 57.Kxb4 h3 and Black wins.
56...b3 57.Kc4 Kc6 58.Kxb3 Kd5 59.Kc3 Ke5 60.Kd3 Kf4 61.Ke2 g4
Or  61...h3 62.gxh3 Kg3 63.b4 Kxh3 64.b5 and White wins.
62.fxg4 Kxg4 63.Kf2 Kf4 64.Kg1 Ke3 65.Kh2 Kd3 66.Kh3 Kc4 67.Kxh4 Kb3 68.g4 Kxb2 69.g5  1–0
One pawn is enough. A game in the Tarrasch, classical, style.

"Chess is work."
Walter Browne

IM Walter Shipman and Masters Egle Morkunaite and Victor Ossipov are tied for first with 6 from 7 with one round to go in the Spring Tuesday Night Marathon.

Top seeds IM Ricardo De Guzman and SM Vladimir Mezentsev tied for first with 4.5 from 5 in the 3rd Annual Imre Konig Memorial held April 26. Anthony Corrales directed the 51 player event for the Mechanics'.