Newsletter #173, 01/07/2004

"Playing for complications is an extreme measure that a player should only adopt when he cannot find a clear and logical plan."
Alexander Alekhine

Nick DeFirmian tied for first with fellow GMs Tomi Nyback and Ralf Akesson with scores of 7 from 9 in the 33rd Rilton Cup held in Stockholm over the New Years Holidays. Among the 143 player field, which included 23 GMs, were veterans Svetozar Gligoric (81 on February 2) and Mark Taimanov (78 on February 7) who played impressively finishing with 6 and 5 points respectively.
The following victory over German GM Phillip Schlosser in round eight put Nick in the lead with a round to go.

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.f4 e6 7.a4 Nc6 8.Be2 Be7 9.Be3 0-0 10.0-0 Qc7 11.Kh1 Re8 12.Bf3 Rb8 13.g4 Bf8 14.g5 Nd7 15.Bg2 b6 16.Rf3 Bb7 17.Rh3 g6 18.Qg4 Bg7 19.Rd1 Nb4 20.Qh4 Nf8 21.Qf2 f6 22.f5 exf5 23.exf5 fxg5 24.f6 Bxg2+ 25.Kxg2 g4 26.Rg3 Bh8 27.Rxg4 Rxe3 28.Qxe3 Bxf6 29.Qf3 Be5 30.Nd5 Nxd5 31.Qxd5+ Kh8 32.Nc6 Re8 33.Nxe5 dxe5 34.Rc4 Qe7 35.Kh1 e4 36.Qd4+ Kg8 37.Qd5+ Kg7 38.Qd4+ Kg8 39.Qd5+ Kg7 40.Re1 e3 41.Rf4 Nd7 42.Rf3 Nf6 43.Qd4 e2 44.Kg1 1-0

IMs  Ricardo DeGuzman and Walter Shipman and FM Frank Thornally are the top seeds in the Mechanics' Institute Winter Tuesday Night Marathon which started last night. It's still possible to enter the eight round event with a bye for the first round.

The following list is restricted to players who have played at least 10 FIDE rated games over the last two years and excludes those who have been inactive like GMs Biyiasas and Tarjan as well as IMs Addison, Kaplan, McCambridge, Whitehead and Winslow.

1. GM Yermolinsky 2566
2. IM Donaldson     2460
3. GM Browne        2455
4. IM DeGuzman    2439
5. IM Bhat              2431
6. IM-elect Mezentsev 2385
7. FM Pruess            2376
8. FM Zilberstein       2370
9. WGM Baginskaite 2336
10. IM Rey 2334

Congratulations to MI member Nicolas Yap who won an event at the Sacramento Chess Club the weekend of December 20-21 with a score of 3.5 from 4 to earn his USCF Master title.

Those looking to play in the South Bay will want to check out the Campbell Chess Club. Located at the Campbell Community Center at the intersection of Winchester and E. Campbell it attracts approximately 80 players every Thursday night. Expert Frisco Del Rosario gives weekly lectures at 6:45. USCF rated play runs from 7:30 - midnight.

Former Bay Area Master and Stamer Memorial winner Jude Acers has a new book out. Go to
http://www.italiangambit.com for more information.

Mike Runyon writes: "I am around 1950 and would like to play a 4 game rated match at the MI on the week ends on Saturdays or Sundays, one game a week over four or five weeks at a time control of 40 in 2 followed by game in 1 hour.  My opponent should be rated 1800+. Contact me at (707) 554-6069 or
scamper2@netzero.net ."

David and De Knudson have announced they will no longer be running the annual Governor's Cup. Held every fall in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, this was one of the largest regional tournaments in the country.

The third issue of Bob Long's Squares is out. This 64 page glossy magazine includes articles by GMs Rowson, Nielsen, Mueller,  an in-depth article on the European Club Championship, an interview with Chess Enterprises publisher Bob Dudley, tips on chess book collecting by MI member Andy Ansel and a 5-page piece on Tulsa 1931 by Frank Berry plus much more. Go to www.squares64.com for more information.

"In opposite colored Bishop endings when both sides have weak pawns one should not try for a big material advantage."
Mikhail Botvinnik

The 2003 Pan Am Intercollegiate Team Championship held, December 27-30 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Miami, was won by the University of Texas at Dallas, headed by GM Marcin Kaminski, IM Dmitri Schneider, IM Magesh Chandran and IM Amon Simutowe. They defeated favored University of Maryland at Baltimore County (GM Alexander Onischuk, GM Pavel Blehm, IM Eugene Perelshteyn and  IM Pascal Charbonneau) 2.5-1.5 in the critical match).  Berkeley and Stanford didn't send teams.

Top Teams:

1st:University of Texas, Dallas A-Team, 5.5 points
2nd:University of Maryland, Baltimore County A-Team, 5.0 points
3rd:University of Texas, Dallas B-Team, 5.0 points
4th:Miami-Dade College, 4.5 points
5th:Brooklyn College A-Team, 4.0 points
5th:(6th) University of Maryland, Baltimore County B-Team, 4.0 points
5th:(7th) University of Toronto A-Team, 4.0 points
5th:(8th) Pontifica Universidad Catolica, 4.0 points
5th:(9th) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 4.0 points
10th: Princeton University, 3.5 points.

Individual Award Winners:

1st Board 1: GM Leonid Yudasin-(Brooklyn College A-Team)
1st Board 2: Vladimir Pechenkin-(Toronto A-Team)
1st Board 3: Eugene Perelshtein-(UMBC A-Team)
1st Board 4: Jeff Hawel-(Western Ontario B-Team)
Top Alternate: Michal Kujovic-(UTD B-Team)

Organizers of the 2003 Pan Am Intercollegiate Chess Championship was Arden and Suzie Dilley and Chief TD was Dr. Ira Lee Riddle.

IM Walter Shipman, FM Frank Thornally and NMs Andy Lee and Egle Morkunaite are among the leaders with perfect scores after two rounds, but 14-year-old NM Nicolas Yap lost to veteran Ben Gross. It's still possible to enter the 74-player event with byes for the first two rounds  of the eight round tournament.

US CHAMPION Alex Shabalov was interviewed by Jan Ackermanfor the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on January 3rd of this year. Here are a few highlights. The full interview can be found at http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20040103closeuplocal3p3.asp .

"It has been a very good year," Shabalov said yesterday from his home. By December, newspapers were referring to him as the "American Player of the Year" and he was featured in several international chess magazines. Shabalov said he won about $80,000 in prize money in 2003. With his game in place, Shabalov plans to take a break in the spring and try to write about some of his experiences on the road. "I want to write something entertaining about modern tournament life, the life of a tournament player. I think I have a lot of funny stories. I got so many offers," Shabalov said.

Who knows where it could lead? Could Alexander Shabalov build a reputation that makes him a household name in chess, like Bobby Fischer did so many years ago? When Shabalov sits down at the computer to write, he is certain that he won't be working on an autobiography -- not at age 36."It's a bit early for that," he said. Shabalov, who has been playing chess since he was 7, was trained according to the precepts of the Soviet School of Chess. He discovered the game by watching his father play with his friends in his homeland. He became a professional chess player in 1988 and a Grandmaster in 1991. With the Soviet Union beginning to crumble, Shabalov and his wife left Riga, Latvia, in 1992 and settled in Pittsburgh, where his wife's sister was already living. His wife, Olga, is a cardiologist at UPMC Shadyside Hospital. They have two daughters, Anna, 15, and Kathy, 11.

Duane Catania recently donated a number of books and magazines to the Mechanics' Institute. One of the items was a booklet produced by the late IM Bill Martz (1945-1983) for a class he taught in his hometown of Milwaukee in 1976. The following three games are not given in ChessBase Mega 2004. Does anyone know when and where they were played (Martz didn't give this information)?

Martz,W - Browne,W [E79]
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f4 0-0 6.Nf3 c5 7.Be2 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Nc6 9.Be3 Bg4 10.Nxc6 Bxe2 11.Nxd8 Bxd1 12.Rxd1 Rfxd8 13.Ke2 Rdc8 14.c5 dxc5 15.e5 Ng4 16.Rd7 b6 17.Rxe7 Re8 18.Rxe8+ Rxe8 19.Bc1 f6
Black should have tried  19...Nh6 and 20...Nf5 - Martz.
20.Kf3 Nh6 21.exf6 Bxf6 22.g4 Nf7 23.Rd1 Nd8 24.Nd5 Bg7 25.Nc7 Rf8 26.Rd7 Nf7 27.Ke4 h5 28.gxh5 gxh5 29.Ne6 Ra8 30.Kf5 Bh8 31.Ng5 Nxg5 32.Kxg5 Re8 33.f5 Re1 34.Kg6 Rg1+ 35.Bg5 Rxg5+ 36.Kxg5 Bxb2 37.Kg6 Kf8 38.f6 Ke8 39.Rxa7 1-0

Martz,W - Van Buskirk,C [E79]
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f4 0-0 6.Nf3 c5 7.Be2 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Nc6 9.Be3 Bg4 10.Nxc6 Bxe2 11.Nxd8 Bxd1 12.Rxd1 Rfxd8 13.Ke2 Nd7 14.Rd3 Nc5 15.Bxc5 dxc5 16.Rhd1 Rxd3 17.Rxd3 Bxc3 18.bxc3 Kf8
Black would do better to give up a pawn to activate his Rook: 18...Rc8 19.Rd7 Rc6 20.Rxb7 Ra6 with good chances to draw - Martz.
19.Rd7 b6 20.g4 f6 21.h4 h6 22.a4 Kf7 23.f5 g5 24.h5 Ke8 25.Rc7 Kf7 26.a5 bxa5 27.Rxc5 a4 28.Ra5 e6 29.c5 exf5 30.exf5 a3 31.Kd3 a2 32.Kc4 Ke7 33.Rxa2 a5 34.Kb5 Rb8+ 35.Kc6 Rc8+ 36.Kb6 Rb8+ 37.Kc7 Rb3 38.c6 Rxc3 39.Rxa5 Rc4 40.Ra7 Rxg4 41.Kb8+ Kd6 42.c7 Rc4 43.c8Q Rxc8+ 44.Kxc8 Ke5 45.Ra5+ Kf4 46.Kd7 g4 47.Ke6 Kg5 48.Ra3 Kxh5 49.Kxf6 Kh4 50.Kg6 1-0

Grefe,J - Martz,W [B80]
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.g3 a6 7.Bg2 Nf6 8.0-0 d6 9.Re1 Bd7 10.Nxc6 bxc6 11.Na4 Be7 12.c4 0-0 13.c5 dxc5 14.Qc2 c4 15.Qxc4 Qa5 16.Be3 Rab8 17.Bc5 Bxc5 18.Nxc5 e5 19.Nxd7 Nxd7 20.Red1 Nc5 21.b3 Ne6 22.Qxc6 Nd4 23.Qd5 Rb5 24.Qd7 Rc5 25.Bf1 Rc2 26.Bd3 Rxa2 27.Rac1 Qb6 28.Rf1 g6 29.Rc8 Rd2 30.Rxf8+ Kxf8 31.Qc8+ Kg7 32.Bc4 Nf3+ 33.Kg2 Qf6 34.Qxa6 Ne1+ 35.Kh3 Qf3 36.Rxe1 Rxf2 37.Be2 Qg2+ 0-1

Mig Greengard known for his work at Kasparov.com, has Bay Area roots having grown up in El Sobrante. Now he has his own website at http://www.chessninja.com . A recent article by Mig at this site featured former MI Chess Director Jim Eade, author of the best-selling Chess for Dummies.

Speaking of Books. Through insider sources I've been keeping tabs on the best-selling chess books at one of America's largest online and offline booksellers. (No, not just checking their popularity rankings online, which vary dramatically due to complex and rigged formulas.) "Chess for Dummies" outsells the rest, with the classic "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" close behind. Both of these outsold the new Kasparov "My Great Predecessors" book if you take the average of its first few months of availability. Of course the massive "Predecessors" hardback costs two to four times as much as the others. There has been a great deal of conjecture over which chess book is the best selling of all time, with most plumping for "Fischer Teaches..." That would certainly seem to be fair claim based on how well it still sells. Chess historian Edward Winter has discussed the various claims in his Chess Notes column (ChessCafe.com) and compilations. The top chess books far outsell the top bridge books. On the other hand, the top-selling nonfiction book, "The South Beach Diet," sells 250 times the top chess book, "Dummies." The good news is that the Dummies book, by Jim Eade, is an excellent primer. Even better is GM Patrick Wolff's book "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess". Put decorative paper dust-jackets on them if you're embarrassed to read them on the bus.

FM Eric Schiller writes:
Head over to www.chessbrain.net. Sign up the club, download the software, turn on the machines Friday morning, January 30th, and the club will earn part of a Guinness Record for Man vs. Machines event. All the information is up at their site. I'm working with them on the event. No cost, just a fun event which should get some decent media coverage. Members can participate from their home/office/school, too. Each participant gets a certificate as part of the official Guinness record. The game will be between GM Peter Nielsen and the Chessbrain distributed computing project. We expect over 1000 computers from around the world to gang up on the GM.

Steinitz mistranslated? A recent exchange in GM Alexander Baburin's Chess Toda  (http://www.chesstoday.net) suggests that a well-known  axiom attributed to Steinitz might be misunderstood.

"Mr. Barsky misquoted Steinitz, who said only that failing to attack in a superior position would lose the advantage - not transfer it to the opponent writes IM
Anthony Saidy.

To which GM Baburin replies: I agree. More interesting, however, is the (relatively) recent dispute between Mark Dvoretsky and GM Iosif Dorfman on whether the stronger side has to attack in the superior position and whether this is what Steinitz claimed. As I understand, Dorfman believes that Steinitz was misquoted when translated to Russian and English and that he never declared this necessity to attack – a good squeeze would do just fine!

Congratulations to MI Member Hugo Kitano for his third place finish in the K-3 National Championships last December in Chicago.

IM Jay Whitehead of Berkeley is offering chess lessons. Contact him at jkdasa@yahoo.com or (510) 204-9278 .

"In American opens you have the first three, four prizes and the rest is peanuts. You have to play very aggressively."
Alex Shabalov

Bill Goichberg, who has been involved in United States Chess Federation affairs for over forty years, was recently named Executive Director of the organization.
Best known as the founder of the Continental Chess Association which runs tournaments from coast to coast, Goichberg brings a wide variety of chess experience to the job. Back in the 1960s he worked in the USCF office under the late Ed Edmondson, serving as Ratings Director. Soon after this he founded the CCA and started organizing some of the first scholastic tournaments in the United States. A strong master he served as Captain of the gold-medal winning US Olympiad team in Haifa, Israel, in 1976. Goichberg founded and ran the successful National Chess League in the late 1970s and has been instrumental in supporting both the Professional Chess Players Health and Benefit Program and the yearly Grand Prix. Each year he faithfully attends USCF annual meetings and serves on many committees. It's hard to think of anyone in US chess who had more involvement in such a wide variety of chess activities in the United States.
Nay sayers will point to the apparent conflict of interest in having the largest tournament organizer in the country running the day to day operations of the USCF ignoring that Goichberg has not bid on a USCF national event since the US Open in 1997. The fact that he is taking this position without pay speaks volumes about his motivations. We wish him well in his efforts to turn things around in New Windsor.

Agoura Hills in Southern California was the scene of the first major tournament of the year on the West Coast and IM Andranik Matikozian of Glendale was the surprise winner finishing ahead of several GMs. Matikozian, former Armenian junior champion, had a strange first half of the tournament. Playing in a short schedule he found himself in such a small section that he was forced to play the same player, Tatev Abrahamiyan, twice!  Four players in a four player group gave organizer Bill Goichberg no choice. Merging into the main schedule with a 4-0 score Matikozian escaped from difficult positions against GMs Jaan Ehlvest and Alex Yermolinsky to enter the last round with 5 1/2 points. He then drew with GM Dasheveg Sharavdorj to take first at 6-1. Sharavdorj, who had an excellent event, was second at 5 1/2 followed by MI Grandmaster-in-Residence Alex Yermolinsky (undefeated) and GM-elect Varuzhan Akobian.

The big news for MI members was the sensational result of Tuesday Night Marathon regular Haluk Akol. Mr. Akol, who is 80, showed several young whippersnappers their place, tying for first in his section. Well-done Haluk!

Ricardo DeGuzman continued his domination of the MI's monthly G/45 tournaments winning the Bob Burger Open on January 17 with a score of 5-0. Among his victories was a last round win over fellow IM Jay Whitehead who was making a welcome return to the arena after a break of many years. NM Batsaikhan Tserendorj was second at 4.5 followed by George Sanguinetti, Clarence Lehmann and Erin Harrington at 4. Anthony Corrales directed the 56 player event for the Mechanics'.

The popular Children's Wednesday Afternoon Class, which temporarily stopped when corporate sponsorship dried up, has been jump-started thanks to  generous donations by Dee Karnad and Haluk Akol. The Class, which runs each Wednesday from 3:15 PM to 5:15 PM and is taught by MI Scholastic Chess Director Anthony Corrales, is free to all children.  If you like the idea of this sort of program consider offering support. Donations to the Mechanics' are tax deductible due to the M.I.'s 501(c) (3) nonprofit status.

IM Walter Shipman and NMs Igor Margulis, Egle Morkunaite and Andy Lee are the only perfect scores left after three rounds of the MI Tuesday Night Marathon. Five rounds remain to be played in the 80-player tournament. It is still possible to enter with half point byes for the first three rounds.

The Berkeley Chess Club has moved back to its old location at the beautiful Berkeley City Club at 2315 Durant Avenue. The location is only a block from the UC Berkeley campus and is a 5 minute walk from the downtown Berkeley BART station. The club, which meets Fridays, offers weekly USCF rated play. The program for kids run 6:30 PM to 8 PM and for adults 8 PM to Midnight. IM Jay Whitehead and NM Andy Lee have attended the club recently. Call Alan Glascoe at (510) 652-5324 for more information.

If you are in the East Bay and looking for new chess books check out Games of Berkeley (across the street from the downtown Berkeley BART) where NM Alan Benson works. Alan, who also gives private lessons, is noted for his knowledge and love of chess literature. He can help you find the right book for your level..

"It has been said that man is distinguished from animal in that he buys more books than he can read. I should like to suggest that the inclusion of a few chess books would help to make the distinction unmistakable."
Edward Lasker, 'The Adventure of Chess', 1949

International Master Walter Shipman jumped into the lead in the Winter Tuesday Night Marathon by defeating National Master Andy Lee in a tense game. Shipman leads the 80-player field with 4 points with FM Frank Thornally, NMs Igor Margulis and Egle Morkunaite and Expert Igor Traub tied for second at 3 1/2. Among those playing Tuesday night was noted Swedish book collector Peter Holmgren who served as the houseman defeating Haluk Akol.

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 Nd7 5.e4 dxe4 6.Nxe4 Ngf6 7.Bd3 Nxe4 8.Bxe4 Nf6 9.Bc2 Be7 10.0-0 0-0 11.b3 c5 12.Bb2 b6 13.Qe2 Bb7 14.Rad1 Qc7 15.Rfe1 Bxf3 16.Qxf3 cxd4 17.Rxd4 h6 18.Rg4?!
This looks very tempting but the prosaic 18.Red1 gives a clear advantage.
18...Nxg4 19.Qxg4 Bg5
White's point is that 19...g6 is met by 20.Rxe6.
20.Qe4 f5?!
This turns out well but 20...g6 21.Qd4 e5 would have given Black the better chances.
21.Qxe6+ Qf7 22.g3?
This is the losing move. White can't avoid the Queens coming off but he can keep the Rooks on. 22.Bxf5 Rae8 23.Re4 Qxe6 24.Bxe6+ Kh7 25.Ba3 Rd8 26.Bd5 would have given White the better chances. Now IM Shipman changes Queens and Rooks and the game is over.
22...Rae8 23.Qxf7+ Kxf7 24.Rxe8 Rxe8 25.Bxf5 Bf6 26.Bxf6 Kxf6 27.Bd3 Rd8 28.Bf1 Rd2 29.a4 Rb2 30.c5 bxc5 31.Bc4 Ke5 32.Kf1 Kd4 33.Ke1 g5 34.h3 h5 35.Bf7 h4 36.gxh4 gxh4 37.Be6 Ke5 38.Bc4 Rb1+ 39.Ke2 Rh1 40.f4+ Kxf4 41.Be6 Ke5 0-1

Ernest Hong reports that information is up for Jerry Weikel's Reno Far West Open scheduled for April 9-11.

The website is http://www.renochess.org/fwo/index.html  and the printable PDF flyer is at http://www.renochess.org/fwo/flyer.pdf.

$25,000 PRIZE FUND!!! for this Six Round Swiss in Five Sections (based on 300 paid players, $16,250 Guaranteed). Large prize fund made possible by the generosity of the Sands Regency Casino Hotel. ADDITIONAL PRIZES! Top Senior (65 & over) and Top Club Money Prizes. Trophies awarded to top three places in sections A through D, top unrated player in section D. Free entry to main tournament for GMs and IMs. Free entry with a one-year USCF membership for unrated players (but ineligible for cash prizes).ADDITIONAL EVENTS: FREE lecture by GM Larry Evans on Thursday evening. FREE game/position analysis clinic by GM Larry Evans on Saturday afternoon. GM Sergey Kudrin Clock Simul on Thursday night. Five Minute Blitz Tournament on Thursday night. HOSTED BY THE SANDS REGENCY CASINO HOTEL in Reno, Nevada. Site of the 1999 100th U.S. Open. Coffee and coffee cakes served each morning. SPECIAL HOTEL RATES. Discounted rates are Sunday-Thursday $19 (nineteen!!). Friday or Saturday $45, single or double occupancy, plus 13.5% room tax. To guarantee hotel reservation with credit card by telephone call 1-800-648-3553, group code CHE 408. (Please, no tournament entries by telephone.)

Contact chief organizer and head TD Jerry Weikel at  wackyykl@aol.com .

Fred Wilson writes:

"This will apparently be my LAST Internet radio show for chess.fm.  It appears that ICC, while "moving and growing" chess.fm onto its website, is also jettisoning myself, Pete Tamburro, Jr., Dan Heisman, Riley Kellogg, Mark Diesen & Bill Paschall. HOWEVER, I have been "tossing some ideas around" with Hanon Russell, founder of the well-known, terrific website http://www.chesscafe.com , and it is possible "Chess & Books with Fred Wilson" will resurface on his site in early February, as a one hour prerecorded show, in an "MP3" type format-perhaps one or two times a month.  PLEASE CHECK MY WEBSITE OR CHESSCAFE.COM FOR FUTURE DETAILS.
Finally, thank you all very much for listening and participating! I really enjoyed doing this show-especially talking with and learning from so many great chess professionals, and also hearing from so many great chess fans and enthusiasts!  Hopefully, not so far down the road, I will be able to continue bringing you information and opinions from important members of the chess community you want to hear from.

Best in Chess,
Fred Wilson"
Fred's last guest on Chess.fm, on Wednesday, Jan. 28th,  will again be the award winning and internationally acclaimed author IM JOHN WATSON.
John has not only won the CJA "Book of the Year" award for his terrific "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy", but its superb sequel, "Chess Strategy
in Action" is in serious contention for the "2003 ChessCafe.com Book of the Year"!  John will discuss his brand new "Play the French, 3rd edition",
along with his views on the uneasy USCF situation, the current spate of new opening books, and his favorite new & recent titles.  John's perceptive,
and often piercing, column of "Book Reviews" is one of the most popular spots to visit on "The Week in Chess" at www.chesscenter.com.  Please email
any questions you have for John Watson to tony@chess.fm or fred@fredwilsonchess.com.
EXTRA! EXTRA!  IM John Watson will also list and discuss his "top 10" personal favorite chess books published after 1960!  You won't want to miss this
fascinating selection from one of our most astute and accomplished contemporary critics!
 

John Henderson of  America's Foundation for Chess writes:
"Not just the US Championships!
America's Foundation for Chess (AF4C) is committed to the education of our children. By making chess a larger part of America's cultural fabric -
accessible in schools and in popular culture - AF4C hopes to elevate the profile of chess in America so that it will soon become a regular part of
every child's classroom experience.
You can now access their fabulous AF4C video on the Web!
Go to www.af4c.org and click on "watch the video" in the left column.

He's on the road again. Rusty Miller writes that Jude Acers is back in action! You can find out about his nationwide tour at : http://hometown.aol.com/rmille9601/myhomepage/index.html . For more information about his new book go to  http://www.italiangambit.com

Congratulations to Teresa Haun who won the annual Sojourner Truth tournament in Menlo Park this past weekend with a score of 3 1/2 from 4. We hope to have more details next week.

Six-time US Champion Walter Browne is offering an almost complete run of his magazine Blitz Chess (just 2 of over 50 issues missing for $123. Individual issues are available at varying prices. Contact Walter at Wbkingchess@aol.com .

Here is a game from San Francisco's past courtesy of Andy Ansel.

1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.d4 Qxd5 4.Nc3 Qd8 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Bd3 e6 7.O-O Be7 8.Be2 Nc6 9. h3 Bxf3 10. Bxf3 Nxd4 11. Bxb7 Rb8 12. Ba6 O-O 13. Bd3 c5 14. b3 Nd5 15. Ne2 Nxe2+ 16.Qxe2 Bf6 17.Qe4 g6 18.Bh6 Bxa1 19.Bxf8 Kxf8 20.Rxa1 Qf6 21.Re1 Nc3 22.Qc6 Qe7 23.a4 Rd8 24.Qf3 Rd5 25.Bc4 1-0

Jaan Ehlvest won the 88th New York Masters on 20th January 2004 with  a score of 4-0, defeating three GMs along the way to pocket $310.. A record 7 GMs played. Go to http://www.newyorkmasters.com/ for more information.

An issue of Wisconsin Chess from 1980 explains one reason the USCF has had difficulties of late. Author Fred Cramer gives USCF annual dues progression for 1940-80.
USCF dues:
1940 $1
1950 $3
1952 $5
1967 $10
1975 $15
1980 $20
(Today - 2004 $49)
Cramer then points out the for a period of time in the 60s and 70s, when dues were $10, it was possible to become a life member by paying $10 for ten years in a row as a Sustaining Life Member. Yes, the exact same amount as the regular yearly dues! Thousands paid their $100 over ten years and the USCF has been servicing these memberships for decades.

"Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation."
Max Euwe

Top seeds FM Frank Thornally and IM Walter Shipman share the lead at 4.5 from 5 and will face off in round six of the Mechanics' Institute's Winter Tuesday Night Marathon. Tied for third at 4-1 in the eight round event are NMs Egle Morkunaite, Igor Margulis, Victor Ossipov, Russell Wong and Nicolas Yap plus Experts Alex Setzepfandt and Larry Snyder.

Mea Culpa! Last week in the Newsletter it was reported that Teresa Haun won the Western Region Women's Chess Championship in Menlo Park the weekend of January 24-25.  In fact it was 15-year-old Jamie Brett. Jamie is ranked #80 among all women in the United States at 1729 and we expect it won't be long before she finds herself a Class A player.

2003 will go down in American Chess as the Year of Alex Shabalov. The Pittsburgh base GM won the US Championship as well as practically every other significant event held in the country. One of the few titles to escape his grasp was that of Marshall Chess Club Champion. This rare slip for Shaba can be partly attributed to the following loss to the indomitable Jay Bonin. The veteran New York IM is well-known for his love of the game and annually ranks among the most active players in the nation.
In the following game Jay tries an interesting novelty in the Semi-Slav variation of the Queen's Gambit in which he sacrifices a pawn for pressure. Does he more than enough compensation for the pawn? Did Shaba over estimate his chances? I'm not certain what the answer is in this fascinating game.
NOTE - Just before sending out this Newsletter I went out to the mailbox and found the Winter 2004 issue of Chess Life waiting for me. Inside I found that GM Michael Rohde had beat me to the punch and already annotated the game! I encourage you to check out his excellent annotations on page 37 . I have added a few of his comments to my annotations in critical positions.with attribution in bold and a larger font size.

1.d4 Nf6
It's interesting that Shaba uses 1...Nf6 as a way to reach the Slav. One reason might be that he wants White to commit a Knight to c3 or f3 in the event of an Exchange Slav - 1...d5 2.c4 c6 3.cxd5 cxd5 4.Bf4 (4.Nc3 e5!?) 4...Nc6 5.e3 Nf6 6.Bd3 e6 7.Nc3 circumventing Botvinnik's old favorite 1...d5 2.c4 c6 3.cxd5 cxd5 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Bf4 e6 7.e3 Nh5 . Another possibility - and more likely - is he wants to avoid something like 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 or 3.Bg5.
2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2
As we will soon see the game continuation could also arise from Zvaginsev's line of the Meran: 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4 b5 8.Bd3 Bb7 9.0-0 Bd6 10.Qc2. In this line White would not necessarily choose to play Qc2, but if Jay's novelty proves to be of long-term worth he will have killed two birds with one stone.
6...Bd6 7.Be2 0-0 8.0-0 dxc4 9.Bxc4 b5 10.Bd3
The text is well-known but 10.Be2 is more popular here.
10...Bb7 11.e4 e5 12.dxe5 Nxe5 13.Nxe5 Bxe5 14.h3
White would like to grab space and get the Kingside pawns rolling but the text is necessary preparation. In Tuzan-Mukhametov, Moscow 1990, Black got excellent play after 14.f4 with 14...Bd4+ 15.Kh1 Ng4 16.g3 Qc7 17.Nd1 f5 18.h3 Nf6 19.e5 c5+ 20.Kh2 Nd5 21.Qd2 c4 22.Bb1 Rad8.
14...b4
The theoretical move that has been responsible for putting 10.Bd3 out of favor. Earlier continuations did not fare so well and ilustrate Bonin's great experience in this variation:
(A) 14...Qe7 15.Be3 Rfe8 16.Rae1 a6 17.Ne2 Bd6 (17...c5! 18.Bxc5 Qc7 19.Bd4  ½-½ Portisch-Tukmakov, Reggio Emilia 1987 was correct) 18.Nd4 g6 19.Nb3 Nd7 20.Na5 Ne5 21.Nxb7 Qxb7 22.Be2 Rac8 23.f4 Nd7 24.Bg4 Rc7 25.e5 Bb4 26.Rd1 Nf8 27.Bf3 Rcc8 28.Rc1 Re6 29.Bd5 and White went on to victory in Bonin-Shabalov, New York 1992.
(B) 14...Re8 15.Be3 Qe7 16.Ne2 Bc7 17.Rad1 Bb6 (why not 17...Nxe4 18.Bxe4 Qxe4 19.Qxe4 Rxe4 20.Rd7 Rc8 ?) 18.Nd4 and White had a clear advantage,  Bonin-Alexopolous, New York 1994.
(C) Rohde suggest 14..Rc8! as Black's best meeting 15.Be3 with 15...c5! and 15.f4 with 15...Bd4+ 16.Kh1 c5! 17.e5 Ng4 18.Bxh7+ with a messy position. I'm not sure I totally agree with this. After 14...Rc8 (played by Portisch against Z. Varga in the 1993 Hungarian Team Championship) 15.Be3 c5 (Portisch played 15...b4 16.Na4 c5 and lost) I thing White came claim some advantage with 16.Bxb5 and now:
(C1) 16...Bxc3 17.Qxc3 Nxe4 18.Qc2;
(C2) 16...Qa5 17.Bc4 Bxc3 18.Qxc3 Qxc3 19.bxc3 Nxe4 20.Rab1 Bc6 21.Rb3.  In both cases White's Bishops should give him some pull.
15.Na4
Here 15.Ne2 c5 16.f3 c4! (16...Rc8 17.Bc4) 17.Qxc4 Qb6+ 18.Kh1 Rfd8 is Illescas's great idea which gives Black good play.
15...Bd4
Black intends ...c5, ...Qe7 and ...Rfe8 with strong counterplay.
16.Be3!?
This is Jay's very interesting new idea in which he cripples his pawn structure in return for activity. Odds are strong that he will lose the front e-pawn but compensation will come in the form of more active pieces. Previously seen was 16.Rd1 Qe7 17.Bf4 c5 18.e5 Nh5 19.Bh2 f5 20.Be2 Qg5 21.Bf3 Bxf3 22.Qb3+ Kh8 23.Qxf3 f4 ½-½ Gutman-Goloshchapov,  Alushta 1999. Note that 16.e5?! fails to 16...Bxe5 17.Nc5 Bc8 and Black's position is superior to the game continuation as he has no weakness on e6.
16...Bxe3 17.fxe3 Nd7 18.e5 h6 19.e6
Another possibility was 19.Rad1 Qe7 20.Bh7+ Kh8 21.Bf5 Nxe5 22.Nc5, but I prefer Jay's choice.
19...fxe6 20.Bc4 Qe7 21.Qg6 Rf6 22.Rxf6 Nxf6 23.Rc1 Rd8
This certainly looks natural. An alternative was 23...Kh8 trying to keep White's Knight from coming to c5. Rohde then suggests 24.Rf1! intending to play Bc4-d3.
24.Nc5 Bc8 25.Nd3 Rf8 26.Nf4 Bd7
White definitely has compensation for the pawn, but probably no more. One could easily imagine Shaba playing White in such a position!
27.Qd3 Rf7 28.Ng6 Qc5 29.Qd4 Qg5
No doubt Shaba was playing for a win here, but I wonder if the text overreaches. Maybe it was time to consider trying to bail out with 29...Qxd4 30.exd4 Nd5 31.Bxd5 exd5 32.Ne5 Re7 33.Nxd7 Rxd7 34.Rxc6 Re7. GM Rohde gives 29...Qxd4 30.exd4 Nd5 31.Ne4 as the way for White to play. He continues 31...Re7 32.Bb3 Be8 and White can keep improving with Rc1-c5, Bb3-a4, Kg1-f2, etc. while Black watches.
30.Ne5 Re7 31.h4 Qg3 32.Rf1
White could reach an attractive ending after 32.Qf4 Qxf4 33.exf4 but Jay, sensing blood, correctly keeps the Queens on.
32...Nd5 33.Rf3 Qe1+ 34.Kh2 Be8 35.Rg3 h5
It's difficult to suggest an improvement here. Trying to anticipate Qd4-c5-d6 with 35...Rb7 runs into  36.Nd3 Qd2 37.e4.
36.Qc5 Rb7 37.Qd6 Nf6 38.Bxe6+ Kh7 39.Bf5+ Kg8 40.Nd3 1-0

President's Day Weekend is known in the Bay Area as time for the Peoples Open and elsewhere in the country for the regional Amateur Team Championships but the Heartland will have also a major event this year. Noted Arbiter Frank Berry will be bringing some of the best female players in the country (GM Polgar, WGM Goletiani, WGM Zatonskih, IM Krush and WIM Shahade) to Stillwater, Oklahoma, for a unique event. Details follow:

Feb. 14-16, 2004. <Oklahoma>  US Women's Olympic Team Challenge and GM Susan Polgar Simul. One section 7-SS, (modified-see below), G -100 + 15 sec a move, Holiday Inn, 2515 W. 6th Ave (Hwy 51), Stillwater, Oklahoma 74074. HR: $60 (1-4) 405-372-0800. EF: $50+15 OCF mem if mailed before 2-7, $60+15 at site <$15 OCF mem required of all>. No phone entries. Tournament size limited to first 75 players. Guaranteed $$5,000 prize fund: $600, 500, 400, X-300, 200, 100, A-300, 200, 100, B-300, 200, 100, C-300, 200, 100, 100, D-under 300,200,100,100, Unr-200, 100. Reg: Noon-1:30 Sat. Rds: 2-6, 9-1-6, 9-1; 2 half-pt byes available rd 1-5, Free Parking, -- GM Susan Polgar Lecture and Simul 11AM Sat $25 limited to 25 players;  Dream Team (includes GM Polgar, WGM Goletiani, WGM Zatonskih, IM Krush and WIM Shahade) will not be paired against each other and will not compete for announced prize fund as they will be available to play against all in the one section but for a separate prize fund: Frank Berry, 402 S. Willis St, Stillwater, OK  74074;  405-372-5758, FKimBerry@AOL.com. LS, NC, W.  No comps available.

Former MI member Jeremy Silman, now based in Los Angeles, has come out of retirement to take on the world. Chessworld.net writes:

ChessWorld.net is hosting a "Rest of the World" match against IM Jeremy Silman. This is a voting game where the "Rest of the World" (ROW) votes for the moves against Silman, and the highest voted move played after five days. The match has inspired the largest ROW team ever at ChessWorld, well over 300 players at last count. IM Silman opened the game with 1. d4 and the voting is underway. You can get in on the game at http://www.chessworld.net - head for Play!..World team games after logging in. The up to date position is also available on the TWIC front page.

"Exposing a concrete error in a chess game is much easier than objectively assessing an overall scheme of play. Every strategic plan, including an incorrect one, is linked to certain distinct conceptions in the player's mind, and may be crowned with success given a fortunate conjunction of circumstances..."
Viacheslav Eingorn

International Master Osmand Palos died last Saturday, February 7, at the age of 54 in Chicago. The cause was lung cancer. Palos, who suffered from diabetes for many years, had been in poor health for some time. He leaves behind his sons Robert and Davor.

Osman Palos was born October 29, 1949, in Gracanica, Yugoslavia. He legally changed his name to Osmand after becoming a U.S. citizen in 2002.

Osmand was the strongest player in Tuzla, the second largest city in Bosnia, for many years until he left in the late 1980s. His best years as a chess player were in the mid-1980s. During this time he received the IM title in 1985 and achieved his peak FIDE rating of 2440 in 1987. His best ever result was winning the Pula Open in 1986 with a GM norm performance score of 10 from 11. Two other good results were 8.5 from 13 in a Category 4 (2328) round robin in Tuzla in 1991 and =2nd with GM Ikonnikov behind GM Klinger at the 138 player Werfen Open in 1992. Palos was a regular participant in Yugoslav Team Championships in the 1980s , winning the gold medal on board 5 in 1982 with a score of 6 from 9.

Osmand played often in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the late 1980s and early 1990s, collecting many GM scalps including those of Ikonnikov, Kudrin, Vukic, Kupreichik and Khenkin among others. Palos was a big fighter when healthy and not one to respect reputations. To get an idea of his persistence play over his 107 move draw with GM Eingorn from Graz 1987.

Palos loved to play blitz and could often be found between rounds indulging in his favorite pastime. He was an inconsistent but dangerous opponent who could pose a danger to anyone. One example: his 2-0 score versus GM Krasenkov in the 1997 New York City Blitz Championship.

Much of his life Osman worked as a businessman, only becoming a full-time chess professional when things started to deteriorate in Yugoslavia. One of his last important duties in his old town was directing the Women's Interzonal in Tuzla in 1987. Fleeing the Balkans he spent several years playing in Western Europe before talking a position as a chess trainer in the United Arab Emirates in 1993.

Palos first arrived in Chicago in late 1996, quickly establishing himself not only as one of the top players in the city but also one of the best chess coaches. Neil Gleason of Madison, Wisconsin, remembers: "In early 1999, I spent an evening arguing politics with him.  The next morning, he gave me a 10 minute lesson in the exchange Caro Kann ("play simple chess") over breakfast, whereupon I proceeded to use it with white to notch 2 convincing victories that same day in a quick tournament.  He was a skillful instructor who would readily demonstrate that chess is a very simple game."

Palos was already in poor health by the time he arrived in the United States but he still managed to hold a USCF rating over 2400 until the last few years of his life, peaking at 2477. He was especially proud of his two wins over GM Goldin, one of the best players in the US. His last major event was the Lindsborg Rotary Open in December of 2002 where he scored a respectable fifty percent against a field averaging 2442 FIDE.
Osman Palos will be remembered as a warm, modest and intelligent man who gave his life to chess.
Unfortunately only 329 of Osmand's games are available in Mega 2004, representing probably less than 10 percent of those he played during his career. Here is a small selection covering three decades.

Palos,O (2350) - Hazai,L (2475) [E73]
Tuzla (9), 1983
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 0-0 6.g4 c5 7.d5 e6 8.g5 Ne8 9.h4 exd5 10.exd5 Nc7 11.h5 b5 12.Qd3 Re8 13.Qg3 Nd7 14.hxg6 hxg6 15.Bf4 Ne5 16.0-0-0 Bf5 17.Nf3 bxc4 18.Nxe5 Rxe5 19.Bxe5 Bxe5 20.f4 Bg7 21.Bxc4 Rb8 22.Rh4 Rb4 23.b3 Qb8 24.Bd3 Rxb3 25.axb3 Qxb3 26.Bxf5 Nb5 27.Qe3 Kf8 28.Bd7 Qa3+ 29.Kc2 1-0

Kupreichik,V (2535) - Palos,O (2390) [C02]
Cattolica op  (5), 1993
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Ne7 5.Bd3 Nec6 6.Be3 Nd7 7.a3 a5 8.Nf3 Be7 9.h4cxd4 10.cxd4 Nb6 11.Nbd2 Bd7 12.Ng5 Bxg5 13.Bxg5 Ne7 14.h5 Bc6 15.Qg4 Kd716.Rh3 Qf8 17.Ke2 f6 18.exf6 gxf6 19.Bh4 Qh6 20.Re3 f5 21.Qf3 Nc4 22.g4 f423.Re5 Nxe5 24.dxe5 Rhf8 25.Kf1 Ng6 26.hxg6 Qxh4 27.gxh7 Rf7 28.Nb3 Rxh729.Bxh7 Qxh7 30.Rd1 Rh8 31.Nd4 Qh2 32.Ke2 Rh3 33.g5 Rxf3 34.Nxf3 Qh5 35.Rg1 d4 0-1

Palos,O (2363) - Kaufman,L (2422) [A13]
World op 29th Philadelphia (9), 08.07.2001
1.c4 e6 2.Qa4 Nf6 3.Nc3 c5 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.e3 d6 6.d4 Bd7 7.Qd1 cxd4 8.exd4 Rc8 9.Bd3 Be7 10.0-0 0-0 11.Be3 e5 12.d5 Na5 13.Nd2 Ng4 14.Bxa7 b6 15.Na4 Bxa4 16.Qxa4 Qc7 17.b4 e4 18.Bxe4 Nxc4 19.Nxc4 Qxc4 20.Bf5 Ra8 21.Qd7 Nh6 22.Bxb6 Bf6 23.Rab1 Qxd5 24.Bh3 Rxa2 25.b5 Rb2 26.Rxb2 Bxb2 27.Qc6 Qe5 28.Bc7 Ba3 29.b6 Bc5 30.b7 Ba7 31.Bxd6 Qf6 32.Qc7 Re8 33.g3 Nf5 34.Bxf5 Qxf5 35.Qc6 Qe6 36.Rc1 h5 37.Qxe8+ Qxe8 38.Rc8 1-0

2) DeGuzman wins 4th Annual Henry Gross Memorial

Filipino IM Ricardo DeGuzman did it again, winning the 4th Annual Henry Gross Memorial 5-0 on February 7th to continue his mastery of MI G/45 events. Here is his key 4th round win.

Tserendorj,B - DeGuzman,R [C88]
Henry Gross Memorial (4), 2004

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.a4 b4 9.a5 d6 10.d3 Rb8 11.Nbd2 Nd7 12.Nf1 Nc5 13.Bd5 Nd4 14.Nxd4 exd4 15.Ng3 Be6 16.Qf3 Bg5 17.b3 Bxc1 18.Raxc1 Qg5 19.Ne2 Qe5 20.Qg3 Bxd5 21.exd5 Rfe8?!
21...Qxd5 22.Nf4 Qf5 23.Re7 gives White some play for the pawn but was the right way to play.
22.Qg4 Qxd5 23.Nf4 f5
Now 23...Rxe1+ 24.Rxe1 Qc6 is rudely met by 25.Nh5 g6 26.Nf6+ Kg7 27.Qxd4.
24.Qxg7+
Also to be considered was 24.Rxe8+ Rxe8 25.Qxg7+ Kxg7 26.Nxd5.
24...Kxg7 25.Nxd5 Re5 26.Ne7 Rb5 27.Nc6 Rxe1+ 28.Rxe1 Kf6 29.Re7?
This allows a neat trick. Instead 29.Ra1! was indicated.
29...Nxb3! 30.Rxh7 Nxa5 31.Nxd4 Rd5 32.Rh6+?
The last chance to  keep fighting was 32.Nf3.
32...Kg5 33.Re6 Rxd4 34.g3 f4 35.f3 b3 0-1

IM Walter Shipman, FM Frank Thornally and NMs Russell Wong and Nicolas Yap are tied for first at 5-1 with two rounds to go in the Mechanics' Institute Winter Tuesday Night Marathon.

Thank to long-time MI Member Frank Ruys for his recent donation of books and magazines to the Institute.

IMs Andranik Matigozian and Tim Taylor tied for first in the Foothills Open in Pasadena this past Sunday. The two winners, who each score 4.5 from 5, both drew with GM-elect Melikhset Khachiyan.

The USCF recently announced that the Executive Board scheduled a Special Election.

Due to the resignations of two Executive Board Members (Dr. John McCrary and Frank Camaratta), the USCF will hold a special election for two one-year terms to the USCF Executive Board. Candidates must submit nomination petitions with the signatures of 30 Voting Members and must pay a filing fee of $250.00. Nomination petitions must be received by the USCF Secretary or the USCF office (ATTN: Barb Vandermark) by 5PM (EST) on Wednesday, March 31st, 2004. Any USCF member 16 years or older as of June 1st 2004 and living in the United States is a Voting Member. Candidates will be entitled to a 150 word statement and picture in the May issue of Chess Life, and a half page in an election supplement which will appear in the June issue of Chess Life. The copy deadlines are April 1st for the 150 word statement and photograph and May 1st for the half-page election supplement. Ballots will be included in the June issue of Chess Life. The date for ballot counting has not yet been set. The elected Board members will serve for one year, beginning with the certification of election results by the Delegates on August 14th, 2004, and through the end of the 2005 Delegates Meeting.

"I've seen lots of players reach their peak and then stop all forward progress. Then they become useless hacks, good only for donating blood."
Larry Christiansen

International Master Ricardo DeGuzman continued his winning ways in Bay Area tournaments by defeating NM Michael Aigner in the last round of the People's Open held February 14-16 in Berkeley. DeGuzman, who scored 5-1 to take home the $500 first prize, was only nicked for draws by FMs Adrian Keatinge-Clay and Bela Evans. NM Paul Gallegos had an excellent result, finishing second at 4 1/2, losing only to DeGuzman. There was a big tie for third at 4 with Evans, Keatinge-Clay and Aigner joined by IM Walter Shipman, SM Dmitry Zilberstein and NM Matthew Ho.

Larry Snyder won the Expert section in fine style scoring 5-1. This result will put Larry comfortably over 2100 as he continues his quest to reach 2200, a goal he briefly reached in 1997. Good luck Larry! Don Shennum directed the 155 player multi-section event.

International Master Walter Shipman and FM Frank Thornally lead the Winter Tuesday Night Marathon with scores of 6-1 with a round to go. Tied for second a half point back are NM Andy Lee and Expert Ariel Mazzarelli. The next Marathon starts on March 16 and will be a 9-rounder.

Here is how the two leaders did it last night.

Wong,R - Thornally,F [C89]
Winter TNM (7), 02.2004

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 d5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Rxe5 c6 12.d4 Bd6 13.Re2 Qh4 14.g3 Qh5 15.Re4 Qg6 16.Bxd5!?
16.Bc2 Bf5 17.Re2 Rae8 18.Bxf5 Qxf5 19.Nd2
16...cxd5 17.Re1 Bg4 18.Qb3
18.f3 Bf5 19.Be3 Bxg3 20.hxg3 Qxg3+ 21.Kh1 a5 22.Qd2 Qh4+ 23.Kg1 Ra6 24.Re2 Rg6+ 25.Rg2 Rxg2+ 26.Kxg2 Bh3+ 27.Kh2 Bg4+ 28.Kg2 Qh3+ 29.Kg1 Re8
18...Rae8 19.Be3 f5?!
19...Qh5
20.Qxd5+ Kh8 21.f4?
21.Nd2 f4 22.Bxf4 Bxf4 (22...Rxe1+ 23.Rxe1 Bxf4 24.gxf4) 23.Rxe8 Rxe8 24.gxf4 Bh3+ 25.Qg5 Qc2 26.Qh5
21...Bxf4 22.Bf2 Rxe1+ 23.Bxe1 Be3+ 24.Kh1
24.Bf2 Bxf2+ 25.Kxf2 f4
24...Qh5 0-1

Shipman,W - Yap,N [D01]
Winter TNM (7), 2004

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Bg5 Nbd7 4.Qd3 c5 5.0-0-0 e6 6.e4 cxd4 7.Qxd4 Bc5 8.Bxf6 Qxf6 9.Qxf6 Nxf6 10.exd5 Bxf2 11.Bb5+ Kf8 12.d6 Nd7 13.Nf3 f6 14.Rhf1 Be3+ 15.Kb1 a6 16.Bc4 Nb6 17.Bb3 Kf7 18.Rd3 Bh6 19.Ne5+ Ke8 20.Ng4 Bg5 21.Ne4 h5 22.Ngf2 Bf4 23.g3 Be5 24.Nc5 h4 25.Ng4 1-0

GM Nick deFirmian, who has long ties to the Mechanics', recently tied for first in the AS04 100 Centenary 2004 in Copenhagen, scoring 7.5 from 9. Here is his last round game.

Ruslan Pogorelov (2451) - Nick deFirmian (2523) [A33]
AS04 Centenary Copenhagen (9), 15.02.2004

1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.a3 Bc5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.e4 0-0 9.Be2 b6 10.0-0 Bb7 11.Be3 Rc8 12.f4 d6 13.Rc1 Nb8 14.Qd3 Nbd7 15.Bf3 Qc7 16.Nd2 Qb8 17.b4 Rfd8 18.g4 Nf8 19.g5 N6d7 20.Qe2 Re8 21.Qf2 Bd8 22.h4 a6 23.h5 Ba8 24.Be2 Qb7 25.Qg3 Bc7 26.Kf2 Bb8 27.Rg1 b5 28.cxb5 axb5 29.Nxb5 Nb6 30.Bxb6 Qxb6+ 31.Qe3 Qb7 32.Nb3 Qd7 33.Rxc8 Rxc8 34.Rc1 Rxc1 35.Nxc1 Bc6 36.Qd3 d5 37.e5 Bxb5 38.Qxb5 Qa7+ 39.Kf3 Qxa3+ 40.Nd3 Qa7 41.Nc5 Bc7 42.Qa6 Qb8 43.b5 Bb6 44.Qb7 Qxb7 45.Nxb7 h6 46.Kg4 Nd7 47.Nd6 hxg5 48.Kxg5 Kf8 49.h6?
49.Kg4
49...gxh6+ 50.Kg4
50.Kxh6 Be3 51.Kg5 Nxe5
50...Bc7 51.Nc8 f6 52.exf6 Nxf6+ 53.Kf3 Nd7 54.Bf1 Ke8 55.Bh3 Nc5 56.b6 Kd8 57.bxc7+ Kxc8 58.f5 Kxc7 59.fxe6 Kd6 60.Kg4 Nxe6 61.Bf1 Ng7 62.Kf4 Ke6 63.Bh3+ Kf6 64.Bc8 Ne6+ 65.Kg4 d4 66.Ba6 Nc5 67.Bf1 Kg6 68.Kf4 h5 69.Bg2 Kf6 70.Bf1 d3 71.Bg2 Ne6+ 72.Ke3 h4 73.Be4 Nc5 74.Bg2 Ke5 75.Bh3 Kd5 76.Bg4 Kc4 77.Kf4 Kd4 78.Kg5 Ke3 79.Kxh4 Ne4 80.Bd1 Nc3 81.Bb3 Ne2 82.Kg4 Nd4 83.Ba4 Nc2 84.Kf5 Kd2 85.Ke4 Kc3 86.Kd5 d2 0-1

Newsletter reader Michael Aigner shares his memories of Osmand.

"I was saddened to hear of the passing of IM Osmand Palos of Chicago. You probably didn't know, but he has special meaning to me because of one game we played in the summer of 2000 at the old Chicago Chess Club. I was visiting my dad in the Windy City, and on the spur of the moment, decided to play in a one-day G/90 tournament. As luck would have it, I was paired up on board 1 in the first round. Of course, my opponent was an institution of Chicago area chess, although I didn't know it at the time. I'm sure that Palos wanted to quickly forget our game (he blundered a piece), but I will never forget it. Not only was this my first victory against an International Master, but it was also the game that took me over 2200 USCF.  I won the other two games in that tournament, with Palos watching me like a hawk. In the end, I took the first place prize that he probably had hoped to win, but he was gracious in congratulating me."

A photo of Osmand, taken by Tony Boren, can be found at http://www.kevinspraggett.com/osmanpalos.jpg .

Peter Dahl did a booklet on the life and games of Henry Gross almost fifteen years ago Now he has a second edition, with many analytical improvements, available on CD for the bargain price of $1 (to cover the cost of the CD, packaging and postage). You can place orders with Peter by writing him at Bpdahl@aol.com or 75 Inverness Dr., San Francisco, CA  94132.

You won't find the following game, sent in by NM Robert Haines of Albuquerque, on any database.

Gross - Wade, R.G.
Bognor Regis Premier 1953

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Bd2 dxe4 5. Qg4 Qxd4 6. Nf3 Nh6 7. Qf4 e5 8.Nxd4 exf4 9. Bxf4 c6 10. O-O-O Bxc3 11. bxc3 Nf5 12. Bc4 O-O 13. Rhe1 Nxd4 14.Rxd4 Bf5 15. g4 c5 16. Rd2 Bxg4 17. Rxe4 Bf5 18. Re5 Be6 19. Bd3 Nd7 20. Rg5 f6 21. Rg1 Ne5 22. Be4 Bxa2 23. Be3 Rac8 24. f4 Ng6 25. Bxg6 hxg6 26. Rxg6 Be6 27.Rg1 b6 28. Kb2 Rfd8 29. Rgd1 Rxd2 30. Rxd2 Kf7 31. Bf2 Ke7 32. Bg3 Rd8 33. Re2 Kd7 34. Rd2+ Kc8 35. Re2 Bf5 36. Kb3 Kc7
End of first time control.
37. Re7+ Rd7 38. Re8 Kc6 39. Re2 a5 40. Be1 Kb5 41. c4+ Kc6 42. Bc3 Rd8 43. Rg2 Rd7 44.h4 Kd6 45. Ka4 Re7 46. Kb5 Kc7 47. Ka4 Kc6 48. h5 Re3 49. Bb2 Be4 50. Rh2 Kc7 51. c3 Rf3 52. Rh4 f5 53. Kb3 Bd3 54. Bc1 Rf2
End of second time control.
55. Rh3 a4+ 56. Ka3
56. Kxa4 Bxc4
56... Bxc4 57. Bb2 Rxf4 58. h6 gxh6 59. Rxh6 b5 60. Rh7+ Kb6 61. Rh2 Rf1 62. Rc2 Bb3 0-1

Kerry Lawless site, www.chessdryad.com, is dedicated to preserving the chess heritage of California. To that end a concerted effort is being made to enter all significant tournaments games played in the Golden State into the CalBase database on the chessdryad site (over 20,000 games so far). Among those events missing, for which neither Kerry nor the MI have bulletins are:

Bagby Memorials (Northern California Championships)
1976 (won by Roy Ervin)
1984 (won by Paul Whitehead)
1986  (won by Peter Biyiasas)

3rd San Francisco International 1987 (organizer Guillermo Rey)

CalBase has all 41 games published in the bulletin for the 1994 San Mateo IM norm event, but the following four games are missing:

Shaked-Izumikawa 1/2-1/2, Summerscale -Busquets 1-0, Remlinger-Izumikawa 1-0 and Remlinger-Mortazavi 1/2-1/2.

Can anyone help out?

Max Burkett, who served as the bulletin editor for many years, has recently posted all the games from the 1983 CalChess Masters at:
http://people.montana.com/~mburkett/tourneys/X83CCM.htm

Zsuzsa Polgar came out of retirement to win the Dream Team Challenge this past weekend in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Polgar, who hasn't played a tournament game in about 6 years, scored 6.5 from 7 in the unique event which was run as a Swiss, but with the stipulation that none of the members of the Women's Olympic Training Squad could be paired with each other. IM Irina Krush was second at 6 followed by FM Jennifer Shahade and WGM Rusa Goletiani on 5 1/2. IM Anna Zatonskih was fifth at 5 with best male finishers Movses Moivsisyan and Sergey Galant at 4.5. Moivsisyan, who beat Krush and drew Polgar, earned enough points to push his rating over 2200.  Frank Berry organized and sponsored this unique tournament.

GM Alex Baburin's online daily Chess Today recently published the following information about an interview FIDE czar Ilyumzhinov gave regarding the FIDE World Championship situation.

The Championship shall take place in Tripoli, 8th May - 2nd June. The Prize fund will be 1 million 508 thousand US dollars. The winner will get one hundred thousand dollars. Regarding the problem with the Israeli players: Ilyumzhinov asked Khaddafi to allow them to visit the country and hopes for a positive answer. There is also an idea originating from Khaddafi's son - that of dividing the Championship into two groups. One of the groups will play in Malta, and Libya will pay for everything.

One final interesting point from the interview - FIDE will send contracts to all 128 World Championship participants. Included in the contract is a clause making it obligatory for KO Championship winner to participate in the match against Garry Kasparov. Ilyumzhinov is sure that Anand will play in Libya.

The official FIDE site has published an interesting statistic: The top chess countries by average rating of their 10 top players:
1. Russia - 2726
2. Ukraine - 2622
3. England - 2614
4. Hungary - 2613
5. France - 2612
6. USA - 2607
7. Israel - 2605
8. Germany - 2601
9. China - 2593
10. Netherlands - 2591

"Your body has to be in top condition. Your chess deteriorates as your body does. You can't separate mind from body."
Bobby Fischer

IM Walter Shipman and FM Frank Thornally tied for first in the Winter Tuesday Night Marathon with scores of 6.5 from 8. The two winners each received $355 for their efforts in winning the 80-player event. Tying for third at 6 were NMs Egle Morkunaite, Russell Wong and Andy Lee, Expert Ariel Mazzarelli and Class A player Gary Luke. The next Marathon, a nine rounder, starts March 16.
Steven Svoboda looked to have the A prize sewn up after a nice last round victory but then Gary Luke pulled off a major upset.

Luke,G (1800) - Margulis,I (2259)
Winter TNM (8), 02.2004
1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 f5 6.Bf4 d6 7.e3 Nf6 8.Bd3 Qa5 9.Qc2 Nbd7 10.Nf3 Nb6 11.0-0 Na4 12.Rfc1 b5 13.Nd2 Nb6 14.cxb5 Nbxd5 15.c4 Nxf4 16.exf4 0-0 17.Re1 Qc7 18.Qc3 Bb7 19.Nb3 Rae8 20.Qa5 Qd7 21.Rad1 Ba8 22.Be2 Rc8 23.Qd2 Ne4 24.Qe3 Rfe8 25.f3 Nf6 26.Bf1 Kg7 27.a4 Kf7 28.Rd2 e6 29.Red1 d5 30.Nxc5 Qd6 31.Nd3 Qc7 32.c5 Kg8 33.c6 a6 34.Ne5 Qd6 35.Rc2 axb5 36.axb5 Qb4 37.Qd4 Qxd4+ 38.Rxd4 Re7 39.Rb4 Ne8 40.b6 Nd6 41.Ba6 Rf8 42.b7 Rc7 43.Nd7 1-0

Svoboda,S (1904) - Cendejas,J (1834)
Winter TNM (8), 02.2004
1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 d6 5.Nf3 e5 6.e4 f5 7.g3 Nf6 8.Ng5 h6 9.Ne6 Bxe6 10.dxe6 Nc6 11.Bg2 fxe4 12.Nxe4 Nxe4 13.Bxe4 0-0 14.Bxg6 Nd4 15.Bf7+ Kh8 16.Qh5 Qf6 17.0-0 Nxe6 18.Bg6 Nd4 19.Bxh6 Qf3 20.Be3+ Qxh5 21.Bxh5 Nc2 22.Rad1 Nxe3 23.fxe3 Rad8 24.Rxf8+ Bxf8 25.Rf1 Bh6 26.e4 Rd7 27.Rf6 Bg7 28.Re6 Bf8 29.Kg2 a6 30.Kh3 Re7 31.Rg6 Rf7 32.Kg4 Rf2 33.h4 Rxb2 34.Kf5 Rc2 35.Ke6 Rxc4 36.Kf7 Rxe4 37.Rg8+ Kh7 38.Bg6+ 1-0

Organizer and director Kevin Korsmo writes: This popular annual tournament was held February 21-22 in Spokane, Washington. IM John Donaldson and local Expert Curt Collyer tied for first in the 62 player Dave Collyer Memorial with scores of 4.5 from 5. Third place was shared by IM Eric Tangborn,
FM David Sprenkle, NM Nick Raptis, 9th grader Daniel Copeland, Kent McNall, and Kirk Steinocher, all of whom scored 4 points.

In Newsletter 179 we made an appeal for the four missing games from the 1994 International in San Mateo. IM John Watson has brought the number down to two by supplying the missing games Shaked-Izumikawa 1/2-1/2 and Remlinger-Izumikawa 1-0. Still missing are Summerscale -Busquets 1-0,  and Remlinger-Mortazavi 1/2-1/2.  By the way John's Chess Strategy in Action recently edged out Garry Kasparov's My Great Predecessors, volume 1, as the winner of the 2003 ChessCafe Book of the Year.

Izukiama - Remlinger [C07]
San Mateo, 1994
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 c5 4.exd5 Qxd5 5.Ngf3 cxd4 6.Bc4 Qd6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.Nb3 Nc6 9.Nbxd4 Nxd4 10.Nxd4 a6 11.c3 Bd7 12.Qf3 Qc7 13.Bb3 Bd6 14.h3 0-0-0 15.Rd1 Kb8 16.Be3 e5 17.Nc2 Bc6 18.Qe2 Ne4 19.Nb4 Bxb4 20.cxb4 f6 21.a4 Rxd1+ 22.Bxd1 Nd6 23.b5 axb5 24.axb5 Nxb5 25.Qg4 Re8 26.Qa4 b6 27.Qb4 Rd8 28.Ba4 Nd4 29.Bxc6 Nxc6 30.Qxb6+ Qxb6 31.Bxb6 Rd2 32.Rb1 Kb7 33.Be3 Rc2 34.Kf1 Nb4 35.Ra1 f5 36.Ra7+ Kc6 37.g3 Nd3 38.Rxg7 f4 39.gxf4 exf4 40.Ba7 Rxb2 41.Rxh7 Ra2 42.h4 Ne5 43.Kg2 Kd5 44.h5 Ke4 45.Re7 Kf5 46.h6 Ng6 47.h7 Nxe7 48.h8Q Rxa7 49.Qf8+ Ke6 50.Qxf4 Nf5 51.Qc4+ Kf6 52.Qc6+ Kg5 53.Qc1+ Kf6 54.f4 Rf7 55.Kf3 Kg7 56.Qg1+ Kh7 57.Ke4 Nh6 58.Qg5 Rg7 59.Qd8 Rf7 60.Qd6 Kg7 61.Qe5+ Kh7 62.Qc5 Kg7 63.Qg5+ Kh7 64.Ke5 Ra7 65.Qg1 Re7+ 66.Kd6 Nf5+ 67.Kd5 Rf7 68.Ke6 Nh6 69.Qg5 Rg7 70.Qh5 Rg6+ 71.Ke5 Ra6 72.Qe2 Ra5+ 73.Ke6 Rf5 74.Qh2 Rf8 75.Qh4 Kg7 76.Qg3+ Kh7 77.Qg5 Re8+ 78.Kd7 Rg8 79.Qh5 Rf8 80.Qe5 Nf5 81.Qc5 Kg8 82.Qg1+ Ng7 83.Qg4 Rf7+ 84.Kd6 Rf6+ 85.Ke5 Rf5+ 86.Ke4 Rf6 87.Qg5 Kf7 88.Qd5+ Kf8 89.Kf3 Ne6 ½-½

"Chess is not something that drives people mad, chess is something that keeps mad people sane.
William Hartston

This weekend's A.J. Fink Amateur Championship at the Mechanics' Institute parks the start of a pickup in chess activity in the Bay Area. Later this month the Northern California Scholastic Championship will be held and tournaments are also scheduled for Vallejo, San Francisco and Berkeley. The latter will start a new event, The Berkeley Chess Club Friday Night Marathon, this Friday. Go to http://www.berkeleychess.com/marathonberk.htm for more information.

Longtime MI Members might remember a strong visitor from Seattle who often visited the Chess Room in the late 1960s, skittling with then Chess Director IM William Addison. That was John Braley who went on to win three Washington State Championship titles in the 1970s and 80s and did an excellent job editing Northwest Chess in 1983-84. John turned 60 yesterday, March 2. Congratulations!

Though noted for his skill in maneuvering in closed positions John could also play some beautiful sacrificial games. Here are two good examples.

NM John Braley- NM George Krauss
Seattle 1971
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.c3 dxc3 5.Bc4 c2 6.Qxc2 Bb4+ 7.Nc3 d6 8.Bg5 f6 9.Bh4 Nh6 10.0-0 Bxc3 11.Qxc3 Qe7 12.Bd5 Bd7 13.Qb3 g5 14.Bg3 g4 15.Nh4 0-0-0 16.Rac1 Rde8 17.Qe3 Nf7 18.Rxc6 Bxc6 19.Nf5 Qf8 20.Qxa7 Nd8 21.Rc1 h5 22.b4 h4 23.Bf4 Rh5 24.b5 Bxd5 25.Bxd6 Qf7 26.Qa8+ Kd7 27.Rxc7+ Ke6 28.Qc8+ 1-0

NM John Braley - NM Neil Salmon
Seattle 1983
1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Nxc3 Nc6 5.Nf3 d6 6.Bc4 a6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.h3 e6 9.Qe2 Bd7 10.Rd1 Qb8 11.a4 Be7 12.b4 Nxb4 13.e5 dxe5 14.Nxe5 Qc8 15.Rxd7 Nxd7 16.Nxf7 Kxf7 17.Qxe6+ Ke8 18.Bg5 Qc5 19.Re1 Qxg5 20.Ne4 Qe5 21.Nd6+ Qxd6 22.Qxd6 Nc6 23.Bd5 Kd8 24.Rxe7 Nxe7 25.Be6 Ke8 26.Qxd7+ Kf8 27.Qxb7 1-0

The March 1st edition of the New Yorker features a three page review of the new book Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of all Time  by David Edmonds and John Eidinow.

American players did not have an easy time at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow. Top scorers were GMs Gregory Kaidanov and Boris Gulko with 5/9 followed by GMs Alexander Ivanov and Sergey Kudrin at fifty percent. IM Dmitry Schneider had 3. IM William Paschall had 4.5 from 9 in the B group.

Noted chess book collector Andy Ansel shares this recently unearthed game played by the late MI stalwart Henry Gross and NM Hugh Myers in the 1955 US Open.

NM Henry Gross - NM Hugh Myers
Long Beach (12), 1955
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.a3 a5 7.Bd3 Bd7 8.0-0 cxd4 9.cxd4 Nxd4 10.Nxd4 Qxd4 11.Nc3 Qxe5 12.Re1 Qd6 13.Nb5 Qb8 14.Qf3 Bd6 15.Qxd5 Bxh2+ 16.Kh1 Nf6 17.Qd4 h5 18.Bg5 Ng4 19.Qc5 f6 20.Rxe6+ Bxe6 21.Bg6+ Bf7 22.Re1+ Be5 23.Nc7+ Qxc7 24.Qxc7 Bxg6 25.Qxg7 0-0-0 26.Qxg6 fxg5 27.Qb6 Kb8 28.f3 Bd4 29.Qxa5 Nf2+ 30.Kh2 Rd7 31.Re2 g4 32.f4 g3+ 33.Kxg3 Rg7+ 34.Kf3 Rhg8 35.Rxf2 Rg3+ 36.Ke2 Bxf2 37.Kxf2 Rxg2+ 38.Kf3 R8g3+ 39.Ke4 Re2+ 40.Kf5 Rd3 41.Kg5 Red2 42.Qe5+ Rd6 43.f5 R2d5 44.Qe8+ Rd8 45.Qxh5 Rg8+ 46.Kf6 Rf8+ 47.Ke6 Rfd8 48.Qh2+ Kc8 49.f6 Rd2 50.Qh3 R2d7 51.f7 Rf8 ½-½
Source: Exploring the Chess Openings by Hugh Myers, pages 56-58.

One of the great bargains in American chess has to be a membership in the Mechanics' Instititute. Where else can you find a club open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, plus access to a general interest library that includes over 1000 chess books and over 60 chess videos for only $95 a year? Not quite the bargain, but still a real steal is membership in America's second oldest continuosly operating chess club, the Franklin - Mercantile of Philadelphia. Located in the downtown at 2012 Walnut Street, just off Rittenhouse Square, the club only charges adults $50 a year and juniors, students and those living over 25 miles away $25. Hours are:M-F 1pm-9pm; Sat 1pm -12am, Sundays vary. Club President is IM Richard Costigan. Call  (215) 496-0811 for more information.

=1st Jeremy Silman, Roy Ervin and Frank Thornally 4.5-.5

Ervin,R - Whitehead,J
San Francisco Stamer (4), 1976
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 Nbd7 7.0-0 e5 8.d5 Nc5 9.Qc2 a5 10.Be3 Nh5 11.g3 Bh3 12.Rfd1 f5 13.Bxc5 dxc5 14.exf5 gxf5 15.Nxe5 Nxg3 16.hxg3 Bxe5 17.f4 Bg7 18.Kh2 Bg4 19.Bxg4 fxg4 20.Kg2 Bxc3 21.Qxc3 Qd7 22.Re1 c6 23.Re5 Rf5 24.Rae1 cxd5 25.cxd5 b6 26.Rxf5 Qxf5 27.Re5 Qf6 28.Re8+ 1-0

Menas,B - Fritzinger,D
San Francisco Stamer (5), 1976
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.0-0 0-0 7.a4 c6 8.d5 Nb6 9.Bb3 cxd5 10.a5 dxe4 11.Ng5 Nbd7 12.Bxf7+ Rxf7 13.Ne6 Qe8 14.Nc7 Qd8 15.Ne6 Qe8 16.Nc7 Qd8 17.Ne6 Qe8 18.Nc7 ½-½

"Fischer was a genius of concentration. He thought about chess day and night. I also experienced an interesting case of concentration. It happened while I was playing in England. I got up from my board and noticed my wife. I realized that her face was familiar and I said ‘Good afternoon!’. She ran away ... I think that in order to reach a really high level one needs maximum concentration—both during the game and in preparation."
Svetozar Gligoric

Dmitry Vayntrub and Jacob Lopez tied for first place with 4-0 scores in the A.J. Fink Amateur Championship held March 6-7 at the Mechanics' Institute.
Young Daichi Siegrist was third at 3.5 in the 45-player field and we predict he will be an Expert before the end of the year. Anthony Corrales and John Donaldson directed for the Mechanics'.

Last Friday the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article by MI member Steve Rubenstein on the Bay 101 Club Shooting Star poker tournament which featured a first prize of $350,000.  About half the article was devoted to observations by Dennis Waterman, one of the best Bay Area players in the mid-1970s, with a USCF rating over 2400.
Rubenstein wrote: "Waterman, who is also a World ranked chess player, says he does not play poker on Saturday night with the boys, a six-pack and a bowl of barbecue potato chips. "Poker is a job," he said. "You don't do your job for fun. This is work."
Many strong Bay Area chess players like to play poker, and some quite well. Six-time US Champion Walter Browne is a house player for the Oaks Club n Emeryville while IM Elliott Winslow supports himself these days playing poker on the Internet. FM Ralph Dubisch of Sunnyvale played professionally for many years.
While a certain type of chess player can be a good poker player, you never see the reverse, which can probably be explained by the differences in psychology of the games. Many chess players only play chess, lacking any sort of gambling/gaming interest. Conversely poker players are not likely to be attracted to a game like chess where the gambling element is limited."

The first Berkeley Chess Club Friday Night Marathon got off to a very respectable start last week, attracting a field of 34 players to the Berkeley City Club near the UC campus. Top seed is NM Andy Lee followed by Experts Ian Zimmerman and David Barton. For more on this event visit http://www.berkeleychess.com/ .

Here is MI member Paul Gallegos convincing win over GM Raj Tischbierek from last December's North American Open in Las Vegas. Tischbierek is the editor of the highly respected German monthly Schach.
Gallegos,P - Tischbierek,R [B06]
North American Open, 2003
1.e4 g6 2.d4 d6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Be3 b5 5.Qd2 Nf6 6.f3 Nbd7 7.h4 Nb6 8.Nh3 Bxh3 9.Rxh3 Qc7 10.g4 h5 11.g5 Nfd7 12.f4 e5 13.a3 a6 14.Rf3 Bg7 15.dxe5 dxe5 16.f5 Bf8 17.Qf2 Be7 18.0-0-0 Rd8 19.fxg6 fxg6 20.Bh3 Nc4 21.Be6 Nd6 22.Rf7 Rb8 23.Rxe7+ Kxe7 24.Bxd7 Rhf8 25.Qg3 Nb7 26.Qh3 1-0

American chess players have two double headers coming up in early April. Those on the East Coast will go for the Millennium Open in Virginia Beach and Foxwoods while West Coast players have events in Burbank and Reno. Go to http://www.westernchess.com/wpo04/wpo04.html for details of the LA area event.

The Marshall is not the only club thriving in the five boroughs of Manhattan. The Susan Polgar Chess Center has recently moved to new quarters. See the story and what the club looks like at http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1520

It's hard to say what the strongest chess city per capita in the United States is. Certainly the campus of the University of Baltimore at Maryland County, with GMs Alex Onischuk and Pavel Blehm and IMs Eugene Perelshteyn and Pascal Charbonneau not to mention nearby residents GMs Jaan Ehlvest, Alex Wojtkiewicz and Alex Sherzer, is a pretty impressive concentration of strength. Removing special cases like this and the University of Texas at Dallas, where scholarships have brought in the talent, the winner might be Berkeley. Certainly New York City has many more strong players, but one GM (Walter Browne) and four IMs (Jay Whitehead, John Grefe, Vinay Bhat and John Donaldson) is not bad for a city of 110,000.

The authors of Bobby Fischer Goes To War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time, David Edmonds & John Eidinow, will be giving a talk at the Mechanic's Institute, on Friday, April 2, at 12:30 PM. The event is free for members and $5 for the public. Go to http://www.milibrary.org/events.html for more information.

"Laziness makes improvement impossible."
Bobby Fischer

The 4th annual Max Wilkerson Open will be held this Saturday starting at 10am. Named after the longest serving Mechanics' Institute Chess Director (16 years) this five round event will differ from other MI's other monthly G/45 event in that few kids are expected to play because of the concurrent Northern California Scholastic Championships.

Seventy entrants are signed up for the Mechanics' Institute Spring Tuesday Night Marathon with FM Frank Thornally the top seed. The nine round event will run through early May. It is still possible to enter the tournament with a half point bye for round 1.

The 2nd San Francisco International, held at Mz. Brown's Kitchen in the Mission District and organized by Guillermo Rey, was a memorable event. Zsuzsa Polgar made her first appearance in California and Elliott Winslow achieved his third and final IM norm.

Category 4  (2344 FIDE average) IM norm = 8

1. GM Nick deFirmian 9.5/12; 2. FM Elliott Winslow 8.5 3-6. IMs John Donaldson, Victor Frias, Zsuzsa  Polgar and Cris Ramayrat 8; 7. IM Jay Whitehead 6; 8-9. NMs Zaki Harari and Guillermo Rey 5; 10-11. NMs Benjamin Ferrera and Dennis Fritzinger 4; 12. FM Richard Lobo 3.5; 13. NM Steven Cross .5

Polgar,Z (2400) - Ramayrat,C (2430) [E84]
San Francisco 2nd San Francisco (2), 03.1986
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 0-0 6.Be3 Nc6 7.Nge2 a6 8.Qd2 Rb8 9.Nc1 e5 10.d5 Nd4 11.N1e2 Nxe2 12.Bxe2 Nh5 13.0-0-0 f5 14.c5 Nf4 15.Bc4 b5 16.Bf1 Rf7 17.c6 Bf6 18.Kb1 Nh5 19.b4 f4 20.Ba7 Ra8 21.Bf2 Bh4 22.Kb2 Bxf2 23.Qxf2 g5 24.Be2 Nf6 25.a4 bxa4 26.Ra1 g4 27.Rxa4 Rg7 28.Rha1 g3 29.Qg1 gxh2 30.Qxh2 Rb8 31.Kb3 h5 32.Bxa6 Bxa6 33.Rxa6 Rg3 34.b5 Qf8 35.Ra7 Qc8 36.Kc4 Kg7 37.R1a2 Kg6 38.Qh1 Ng8 39.Qh4 Nf6 40.Ne2 Rg5 41.Qh3 Kh6 42.Qxc8 Rxc8 43.Nc3 h4 44.b6 cxb6 45.Nb5 1-0

De Firmian,N (2520) - Ramayrat,C (2440) [B87]
San Francisco 2nd San Francisco (4), 03.1986
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Bb3 b5 8.0-0 Bb7 9.Re1 Nbd7 10.Bg5 h6 11.Bxf6 Nxf6 12.Qd3 Nd7 13.Qh3 Nc5 14.Bd5 exd5 15.exd5+ Be7 16.Nf5 Bc8 17.Nxe7 Bxh3 18.Nc6+ Ne6 19.Nxd8 Kxd8 20.gxh3 Nf4 21.Re4 Nxh3+ 22.Kg2 f5 23.Rb4 Ng5 24.a4 bxa4 25.Rbxa4 Ke7 26.Rxa6 Rxa6 27.Rxa6 Rb8 28.b3 Nf7 29.Ne2 Rb5 30.c4 Rxb3 31.Nd4 Rb2 32.Nxf5+ Kf6 33.Nxd6 Ne5 34.c5 Rc2 35.Nc4+ 1-0

Winslow had beaten IMs Whitehead and Ramayrat and was contending for first when a loss near the end of the event nearly derailed him. The following game, from one of the last rounds, was critical to his success. Winslow quickly achieves a dominating position but then leaves his Queen hanging one move too long. That's when the real adventures start!

Winslow,E (2340) - Fritzinger,D (2215) [A54]
San Francisco 2nd San Francisco (10), 03.1986
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 4.Nf3 e5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 0-0 7.Qc2 Ne8 8.Bxe7 Qxe7 9.0-0-0 c6 10.Bd3 g6 11.g4 Ndf6 12.h3 Ng7 13.c5 dxc5 14.dxe5 Nd7 15.Ne4 b5 16.Qc3 Ne6 17.Nf6+ Kh8 18.g5 Nb6 19.h4 c4 20.h5 cxd3 21.hxg6 fxg6 22.Qb4 Rf7 23.Nxh7 Nf4 24.exf4 Qxb4 25.Nf6+ Bh3 26.Rxh3+ Kg7 27.Rxd3 Qc4+ 28.Kd2 Qxf4+ 29.Ke2 Re7 30.Rh7+ Kf8 31.Rh8+ Kf7 32.Rh7+ Ke6 33.Nd4+ Kxe5 34.Rxe7+ Kd6 35.Nf5+ Kc5 36.Re4 Qxe4+ 37.Nxe4+ Kb4 38.Ne3 Nc4 39.b3 Nxe3 40.Rxe3 Rd8 41.Nc3 Rd4 42.Nb1 Kc5 43.Rc3+ 1-0

All the games from this event will soon be available at www.chessdryad.com in its Cal Database.

Filipino IM Ricardo DeGuzman will be giving a simul at the Burlingame Chess Club on Thursday, April 1. Go to
http://www.burlingamechessclub.com/bccPAIR/2004tmts/deguzman/deguzman_simul.htm for more information.

GM Alex Baburin in the excellent online daily Chess Today (http://www.chesstoday.net) recently shared some information about some strange incidents involving Kasparov at Linares.

Dmitry Komarov in the Ukrainian newspaper Facty told a story about a little known aspect of the recent Linares tournament. Below is our translation of
his text (in Russian):
"A real detective story happened in the last rounds of the Super tournament in Linares. According to Silvio Danailov, manager of RuslanPonomariov, when playing against Vallejo, Kasparov before making his move suddenly stood up and left the playing hall. He did the same the day before when he played against Topalov. In accordance with the rules such behavior is strictly prohibited because of the possible computer assistance and is punished with a defeat. The arbiters noticed Kasparov's strange maneuver and asked the girl who was working in the press center to follow him. Garry went to his hotel room and stayed there for about fifteen minutes. Coming back he explained to the arbiters that he had had to take some medicine urgently. The arbiters gave Kasparov just a warning, while at the last European Team Championship Ponomariov lost a full point for a lesser offense – an accidental mobile phone call."

It's not at all clear that Kasparov was cheating, but can you imagine what his reaction would be if one of his opponents left the board for an extended period of time without consulting an arbiter? Though unquestionably one of the greatest, if not the greatest player of all time, Kasparov is not likely to be remembered as having great board manners. One only has to recall his actively utilized repertoire of facial grimaces and the incident with Judit Polgar where he violated the touch move rule. - J.D.

"I like to coax my opponents into attacking, to let them taste the joy of the initiative, so that they may get carried away, become careless, and sacrifice  material"
Viktor Kortchnoi

US Champion Alex Shabalov of Pittsburgh will be a special guest of the Mechanics' Institute this evening. The 36-year-old Grandmaster (2623 FIDE), who has won nearly every important American tournament the past year, will face off with MI Grandmaster-in-Residence Alex Yermolinsky at 5:15 tonight in a Fischer-Random exhibition. Admission is free to all.

There were upsets galore in the second round as Masters Russell Wong, Batsaikan Tserendorj and Victor Ossipov were knocked off by 1800 players Stephen Krasnov, Henry Plotkin and Andre Persidsky. Nine players remain with perfect scores in the 70-player field with 7 rounds to go.

Ganbold Odondoo of Mongolia won the 4th Max Wilkerson Open held March 20th at the Mechanic's Institute with a 5-0 score. Fellow IM Ricardo DeGuzman, who lost to Odondoo, was second with 4 points. Alex Yermolinsky directed for the Mechanics'.

Noted Bay Area tournament director Alan Benson, who organized many of the People's Opens in the 1970s and early 1980s, is offering his collection of chess books and memorabilia for sale. If you go to http://marspolaris.tripod.com/bookcoll.html you will not only see what he is offering, but also be presented with some interesting tidbits on Bay Area chess including Alan's reminiscences of a visit by Vassily Smyslov to Berkeley.

The 3rd San Francisco International was held October 11-30, 1986, and saw tournament organizer Guillermo Rey make an IM norm while tying for second. Only a handful of games from this event made it into local chess magazines and none are in ChessBase. There was a bulletin for this event which will hopefully surface soon. Standings:

1. J. Whitehead 8/10
2-3. Frias and Rey 7.5
4. Remlinger 7
5. Alzate 5.5
6-7. Ramayrat and Buzbuchi 4.5
8-10. Beelby, Lobo and Salvetti 3.5
11. M. Anderson 0

The golden days of Bay Area chess were probably the late 1970s and early 1980s when the "Fischer influence" was still felt and tournament site costs had not yet exploded. One of the great annual events was the Paul Masson Open held at the winery in Saratoga. Thanks to Max Burkett many of the games from the 1980 event (1--5. GMs Browne, Gheorghiu, Tarjan, Christiansen and Biyiasas 3.5/4) were preserved. Here are two that you won't find in any database.

Ayyar,R - Tarjan,J [B84]
Paul Masson Saratoga (1), 1980

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Be2 Be7 7.Be3 a6 8.0-0 Qc7 9.f4 0-0 10.Kh1 b5 11.a3 Bb7 12.Bf3 Nbd7 13.Qe1 Rac8 14.Qg3 Nc5 15.f5 e5 16.Bh6 Ne8 17.Nde2 Kh8 18.Bg5 Bxg5 19.Qxg5 Nf6 20.Ng3 Qb6 21.Rad1 Rfd8 22.Nh5 Nxh5 23.Bxh5 f6 24.Qh4 b4 25.Nd5 Bxd5 26.Rxd5 bxa3 27.bxa3 Qb2 28.Rfd1 Qxa3 29.Rxd6 Rxd6 30.Rxd6 Nd3 0-1

Christiansen,L - Batchelder,W [B42]
Paul Masson Saratoga (2), 1980

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Bd3 g6 6.0-0 Bg7 7.c3 Ne7 8.f4 Nbc6 9.f5 exf5 10.exf5 Nxd4 11.cxd4 Qb6 12.Kh1 0-0 13.Nc3 Nxf5 14.Bxf5 gxf5 15.Nd5 Qxd4 16.Ne7+ Kh8 17.Qxd4 Bxd4 18.Nxf5 Bg7 19.Nd6 Kg8 20.Rf5 a5 21.Bf4 Ra6 22.Rc1 Rc6 23.Rxa5 Bxb2 24.Rxc6 dxc6 25.Bh6 1-0

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — (March 17, 2004)  — America’s Foundation for Chess (AF4C) and NTC Foundation have set the dates for the 2004 U.S. Chess Championships. The national title tournament will take place from November 24 through December 5, 2004, at the Hilton Torrey Pines in La Jolla.

This will be the fourth year that AF4C has hosted the annual tournamentand its first year doing so with a co-sponsor. Expected to maintainits $250,000 prize fund, the 2004 U.S. Chess Championships will beheld over 12 days and is expected to attract attention from around the world. Chessmaster&reg; is returning as a 2004 corporate sponsor.

“The national title championship is a prestigious event in the world of chess,” said Erik J Anderson, president and co-founder of AFC4.“San Diego is an ideal site, with wide appeal to players,spectators and the media. I believe locating the tournament inSouthern California will allow us to take our efforts to promote chess to the next level.”

Countdown Already Started for 2004 Championships

Already half of the 64-player field has been seeded directly into the championship as the nation’s top players on the February 2004United States Chess Federation Rating List, or have won through byqualifying from the 2003 cycle of major U.S. tournaments.  Next month sees the start of the 2004 qualifying cycle with a further 32-playerslooking to do battle over the chessboard in the coming months for the honor of completing the line-up.  Further details of who hasqualified so far and which events make-up the 2004 cycle can be foundat http://www.af4c.org/events.asp.

Event Offers Something for Chess Fans and Non-Chess Players Alike

The 2004 tournament will highlight not only the elite chess competition,but also offer valuable educational activities sure to make chessmore accessible to the general public. Promoting chess as a learningtool that is fun, engaging and available to people young and old, novice or master

“We anticipate 12 days of tournament play and complimentary events,compelling children and adults to have an active role in thechampionship,” said Murray Galinson, chairman of the NTC FoundationBoard of Directors. “AF4C is determined to inject excitement intothe game and recruit new players and fans.”

During this year’s Kids Simul event, more than 400 children will be given an opportunity to play against America’s finest chess players, with one grand master playing against 25 children at one time. Otherevents will range from chess demonstrations, opportunities to meetthe masters and a fund-raising party.

About NTC Foundation

The NTC Foundation, a private 501(C)3 nonprofit corporation, is charged with the preservation and renovation of 26 historical buildings that are part of the historic core of the former Naval Training Center in San Diego, California. NTC Promenade  will be a newflagship for arts, culture, science and technology that will reflect, advance and strengthen San Diego as a center for innovation andcreativity.

About America’s Foundation for Chess

Founded on the hope of making chess a subject taught in every school in theUnited States, AF4C, a nonprofit organization, is committed to making chess a larger part of America's cultural fabric — accessible in schools and in popular culture. By organizing events such as the U.S. Championships, AF4Chopes to elevate the profile of chess in America so that it will soon become a regular part of every child's classroom experience.

Tripoli, Libya, will be hosting the FIDE World Championship from June 18 till July 13 under the patronage of the Leader of the Libyan Jamahirya, H.E. Moammar Al Gathafi, who also provides the prize fund for the Championship. The rumor mill has it that Gary Kasparov will be playing the winner of this event in a unification scheduled to be held in Pyongyang, North Korea (just kidding)!

The authors of Bobby Fischer Goes To War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time, David Edmonds & John Eidinow, will be giving a talk at the Mechanic's Institute, on Friday, April 2, at 12:30 PM. The event is free for members and $5 for the public. Go to http://www.milibrary.org/events.html for more information.

The authors of Wittgenstein’s Poker have turned their prodigious talent to a new book, Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most
Extraordinary Chess Match of all Time. Returning to the scene of the most notorious confrontation in chess history, Edmonds and Eidinow brilliantly
recreate the 1972 Fischer/Spassky world chess championship. Event is with David Edmonds only. This free event will be held at the store, located at 1010 El Camino Real in Menlo Park.  650.324.4321.

GM Larry Christiansen, who has long standing Bay Area ties, has a new book out: Rocking the Ramparts: A guide to Attacking Chess (Batsford 2003). Like his earlier work, Storming the Barricades the reader gets plenty of sharp attacking chess and some colorful stories. I particularly enjoyed Hector-Christiansen, Reykjavik 1998 (pages 122-125) where Larry shows how to put up maximum resistance, both chessically and psychologically, in a difficult position.

"When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
Buckminster Fuller

Mechanics' Institute Scholastic Director Anthony Corrales reports on the performance of M.I. members at the recently concluded Northern California Scholastic Championships held in Santa Clara.

Kindergarten:         Leo Kitano 3/5 = 6 - 13
K-3 Championship    Daniel Naroditsky 5/5 = 1st
K-3 unrated         Will Rothman 4.5/5  11th on tiebreak
K-3 Premier         Jack Damon 4/5 = 12 - 38
K-6 Championship    Davis Xu 6/6 1st
       2nd       Hugo Kitano 5.5/6 2nd
       10th      Jeremy Lowenthal 5/6 10th
       14th      Trevor Lowenthal 5/6 10th
       17th      Evan Sandberg 4.5/6 17th

The Mechanics' won the K-6 Team Championship with 21 1/2 out of 24 points.

K-8 Championship    Daichi Siegrist 6/6 1st
                    Shaun Tse 4/6 21st
                    Evan Frost 4/6 33rd
K-12 Championship: The Mechanics' team of Drake Wang (5), Erin Harrington (5), Nicolas Yap (4.5), and Ewelina Krubnik (4) took first place in this section.

This event, held in the fall of 1985, was the first Bay Area event to offer IM norms.  It was directed by Francisco Sierra and Kerry Lawless (the 2nd SF International was directed by Mike Goodall) and organized by Guillermo Rey. Andy Ansel has entered all the games which will soon be available at www.chessdryad.com. Here are some of the more interesting ones.

Standings:
1. IM Ramayrat 7/9; =2-3. J. Whitehead and Winslow 6 (IM norms) 4. IM Frias 5; 5-6. GM Biyiasas and P. Whitehead 4; 7-9. IM Strauss, Awate and Lobo 3.5; Rey 2.

Ramayrat,C - Frias,V
San Francisco 1st Int (5), 1985

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.cxb5 a6 5.bxa6 Bxa6 6.Nc3 g6 7.f4 d6 8.Nf3 Bg7 9.e4 Bxf1 10.Rxf1 0-0 11.e5 dxe5 12.fxe5 Ng4 13.Qe2 Qc7 14.d6 Qb7 15.h3 Nh6 16.dxe7 Re8 17.Bg5 Nf5 18.Qb5 Qc8 19.Ne4 Nc6 20.g4 Nfxe7 21.Nd6 Qb8 22.Qc4 Nxe5 23.Nxe5 Qxd6 24.Qxf7+ Kh8 25.Qxe8+ 1-0

Strauss,D - Lobo,R
San Francisco 1st Int (9), 1985

1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.g3 b6 5.Bg2 Bb7 6.0-0 Be7 7.Re1 d6 8.e4 Nbd7 9.d4 cxd4 10.Nxd4 Qc7 11.Be3 0-0 12.Rc1 a6 13.f4 Rfe8 14.f5 Bf8 15.b3 h6 16.Bf2 Rac8 17.fxe6 fxe6 18.Bh3 Kf7 19.Qe2 Qb8 20.Rf1 Qa8 21.Nxe6 Rxe6 22.Bxe6+ Kxe6 23.Nd5 Be7 24.Bd4 Ne5 25.Nxb6 Qb8 26.b4 Rf8 27.c5 dxc5 28.bxc5 Bd8 29.Rf5 Bc7 30.c6 Bc8 31.Rxe5+ Bxe5 32.Qc4+ Ke7 33.Bc5+ Bd6 34.e5 1-0

Whitehead,J - Frias,V
San Francisco 1st Int (9), 1985

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 Nbd7 6.Bg5 c5 7.d5 0-0 8.Nf3 b5 9.cxb5 a6 10.a4 h6 11.Bf4 axb5 12.Bxb5 Ba6 13.0-0 Ng4 14.Qe2 Qa5 15.Bd2 Rfb8 16.h3 Nge5 17.Nxe5 Nxe5 18.f4 Nd7 19.Qe1 Qd8 20.Qe2 Qc8 21.e5 Bxb5 22.Nxb5 dxe5 23.Bc3 Nb6 24.Bxe5 Bxe5 25.fxe5 Nxd5 26.Qf3 Qe6 27.b3 Rf8 28.Rac1 Rac8 29.Rfd1 Nb4 30.Qe3 Rfd8 31.Na3 Rxd1+ 32.Rxd1 Nc6 33.Nc4 Nd4 34.Nd2 Kg7 35.Rc1 Rb8 36.Rxc5 Nxb3 37.Rb5 Rxb5 38.axb5 Nxd2 39.Qxd2 Qb6+ 40.Kh2 Qxb5 41.Qd4 Qb8 42.Kh1 Qb1+ 43.Kh2 Qf5 44.Qc5 Qf4+ 45.Kh1 e6 46.Qd6 h5 47.Qc7 g5 48.Qc3 g4 49.Qe1 Kg6 50.hxg4 hxg4 51.g3 Qd4 52.Kg2 Qd3 53.Kh2 Qc2+ 54.Kh1 Qf5 55.Kg1 Qf3 56.Qb1+ Kh6 57.Qc1+ Kh5 58.Qe1 Kg5 59.Kh2 Kf5 60.Kg1 Qd3 61.Qf2+ Kxe5 62.Qf4+ Kd5 63.Qxg4 f5 64.Qg8 Ke4 65.Qa8+ Qd5 66.Qb8 Qd1+ 67.Kh2 Qd2+ 68.Kh1 Kd3 69.Qb6 Qe3 70.Qb7 Qe4+ 0-1

The authors of Bobby Fischer Goes To War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time, David Edmonds & John Eidinow, will be giving a talk at the Mechanic's Institute, on Friday, April 2, at 12:30 PM. The event is free for members and $5 for the public. Go to http://www.milibrary.org/events.html for more information.

David Edmonds will be appearing at Kepler's books in Menlo Park (1010 El Camino Real on Friday night at 7pm : 650.324.4321) while John Eidinow will be at Cody's in Berkeley (2454 Telegraph Avenue at Haste: 510-845-7852) at 7:30pm the same evening.

Upsets continue in the Spring Tuesday Night Marathon. 1800-rated Harry Plotkin defeated his second Master in a row, downing Igor Margulis. Joining Plotkin with 3-0 scores are Larry Snyder, Steven Krasnov and Victor Todortsev. The seventy player event has six rounds to go.

Pal Benko: My Life, Games and Compositions by Pal Benko and Jeremy Silman is receiving some excellent reviews including one at ChessCafe that called it one of the best game collections of all time. Benko was one of the top American players for close to two decades. He is not the only chessplayer in the family. Go to http://www.math.tamu.edu/~benko/chess.htm and you will find the website of his son David, who is an Expert strength player and a member of the Math department at Texas A&M. He has a great picture of his father playing Tal at Curacao on the site.

Looking for a chess camp and live near Wisconsin? Check out NM Alex Betaneli's site at http://www.wichessacademy.com for more information.

Candidates running for two spots on the USCF Executive Board will soon be announced. I know of at least four individuals that will be running. They include the Bay Area's own Elizabeth Shaughnessy who divides her time between the Berkeley Chess School and serving as President of the Northern California Chess Federation, National Master Randy Bauer of Iowa who is an accountant and Mikhail Korenman of Kansas who organized the Lindsborg Chess Festivals and Karpov Chess School and is in charge of the College Final Four this weekend where the University of Maryland at Baltimore County and UTD will be renewing their rivalry. The fourth Candidate is chess gadfly Sam Sloan who is rapidly becoming the Harold Stassen of USCF politics.

"Games are usually lost, not through the taking of chances, but through the failure to apprehend certainties."
Gerald Abrahams

GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Ildar Ibragimov tied for first in the 5th Millennium Open held April 2-4 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The two winners, who scored 4.5 from 5, each received $1850. Tying for third through seventh at 4-1 in the 67 player open section were GMs Alex Wojtkiewicz and John Fedorowicz, IM John Donaldson and NMs Alex Stamnov and Boris Zisman. Among those on 3 1/2 were GMs Jaan Ehlvest and Julio Becerra This years edition of the Millennium Open, organized by Tom Braunlich and directed by Ernie Schlich and Michael Atkins, attracted 270 players and maintained its reputation as one of the best run tournaments in the United States.

Donaldson - Reichstein  English A34
5th Millennium Open  (2) 2004

1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.g3 Nc6 5.Bg2 d5 6.cxd5 Nxd5 7.0–0 Nxc3 8.bxc3 e5?! 9.d3 Be7 10.Nd2 0–0 11.Rb1 Be6 12.Qa4 Qc7 13.Nc4 Bd7  14.Ne3 Qc8 15.Nd5 Bd6 16.Qh4 Qd8?
Black had to play 16...f6 or 16...Re8. The text loses on the spot.
17.Bg5 f6
Forced as 17...Qc8 loses to 18.Nf6+ gxf6 19.Bxf6 Ne7 20.Qh6 Nf5 21.Qg5+.
18.Be4 h6 19.Bxh6 gxh6 20.Qxh6 f5
Or 20...Rf7 21.Bh7+
21.Nf6+ Rxf6 22.Bd5+ Be6 23.Bxe6+ Rxe6 24.Qxe6+ Kh8 25.Rxb7 1–0

Jude Acers will be visiting the following West Coast cities this June.

Friday, June 18 Chelan, Washington
1pm Riverwalk Books, 116 East Wooden 509-682-9103
www.riverwalkbooks.com
Saturday, June 19 - Seattle, WA King County Jail 10:30am-1:45pm

Sunday, June 20 - Bellevue, Washington
2 pm Crossroads Shopping Center 15 Board Exhibition

Tuesday, June 22 - McNeil Island Prison Exhibition in the evening

Wednesday, June 23 - Portland, Oregon
1pm Exhibition Lloyd Center

Sunday, June 27 - San Francisco, California
Wednesday, June 30 - Los Angeles, California

For more information go to:http://hometown.aol.com/rmille9601/myhomepage/index.html or write Russell Miller at rmille9601@aol.com .

National Master Dan Meinking of Cincinnati writes:

Milan Vukcevich: A Gentleman of Chess   (compiled by John Donaldson)

Shortly after Dr. Vukcevich's passing in May 2003, International Master John Donaldson (director of the famed Mechanics' Institute in San Francisco) created a volume entitled "Milan Vukcevich: A Gentleman of Chess".   This 87-page book contains biographical data on Dr. Vukcevich, articles written by and about him, 232 lightly annotated games (with diagrams), and a small selection of his problems.  Since only 10 copies were printed, this book is not available to the general public.

However, IM Donaldson has authorized the distrubution of his book on CD.  This CD contains: (1) a printable Word document containing all 87 scanned pages (in *.jpg file format); (2) games database files (ChessBaseLight required; download it for free at: www.chessbase.com); and (3) a Word document containing all 232 games (without diagrams).  For a copy of this CD, send $5(US) to: Dan Meinking / P.O. Box 389183 / Cincinnati, OH 45238-9183 (USA).  All proceeds go to the Vukcevich Super Cup tournament (for students) in Cleveland (May 22, 2004); www.vivacityinc.com for more details.  Email inquiries to: dmeinking@cinci.rr.com.

"The most important years for a developing chess player are between 12 and 14. What I learned in an hour then now takes me a week of study."
Alex Shabalov - during a recent talk at the Mechanics' Institute Chess Club

MI Newsletter reader NM Michael Aigner, who is profiled in the most recent issue of Chess Life, reports on last weekends Far West Open.

"The 4th Far West Open was held over Easter weekend in Reno, Nevada.  Intended to be a sister tournament of the annual Western States Open in October, this tournament was also hosted by the Sands Regency Hotel & Casino. 198 people came to Reno to gamble at the chess board, which ensures that this event will happen again next year!  The kudos for organizing a fine tournament once again go out to Jerry Weikel and his family.
The Open section was headed by GMs Alex Yermolinsky, Gregory Serper, Sergey Kudrin, and Walter Browne, plus GM-elect Melikset Khachiyan and a number of strong IMs.  Each of these GMs ended up tied for first at 4.5 out of 6.  They were joined by two local masters: Vladimir Mezentsev and Tigran Ishkhanov.  After an entertaining blitz playoff that ended early on Monday morning, GM Serper emerged with the trophy.
Other local players joined Yermolinsky, Browne, Mezentsev, and Ishkhanov at the cashier's cage.  They included Ricardo DeGuzman and Dmitry Zilberstein, who each scored 4.0 in the Open section.  Tied for second under 2300 at 3.5 were Victor Ossipov and Michael Aigner.  Also at 3.5 but sharing the top expert prize was Alexander Setzepfandt.  Many of the prize winners in the class sections were also from Northern California, including A section champion Yefim Bukh.
I expect that complete standings will be posted later this week at http://www.renochess.org/fwo/index.html

Michael Aigner

Grandmaster Ildar Ibragimov, formally of Kazan, Russia, and now representing the United States, was the winner of the 2004 Foxwoods Open on tiebreak. Ibragimov, whose 7-2 score was matched by fellow GMs Julio Becerra, Jan Ehlvest and, I believe, Giorgi Kacheishvili (the CCI report on Foxwoods is down as I write).  Ibragimov was a deserving winner as he played the top seeds facing by far the strongest opposition, but even he needed a little luck in round 3 as Berkeley's David Pruess had him completely beat with an extra piece and a big time advantage to boot, before letting things get out of hand. It would have been a fantastic double-header for Pruess had he converted because in the previous round he beat GM Yury Shulman.  Another Bay Area player, Alan Stein, was in the running for an IM norm right up until the end. I'm not sure whether he made it or not. I will have a full report on Foxwoods next week.

International Master Walter Shipman won the 4th Annual Walter Lovegrove Memorial Senior Championship held at the Mechanics' on April 3rd-4th.  Shipman, who came into the event as the second seed, defeated National Master Victor Ossipov in the penultimate round and then drew with Expert Larry Snyder to score 3.5 from 4 to take home the $200 first prize. Tying for second at 3 - 1 were Ossipov, Snyder, Oleg Shakhnazarov and Peter McKone. The latter, rated 1770, defeated top-rated NM Igor Margulis in the last round. MI Grandmaster-in-Residence Alex Yermolinsky directed the 20-player event.

Larry Snyder defeated Victor Todortsev in round 5 to merge as the only perfect score left in the nine round event. A point behind the Berkeley Expert are FM Frank Thornally, NMs Russell Wong and Nicolas Yap, and Experts Alex Setzepfandt and Peter Grey.

Snyder, a retired anesthesiologist who teaches chess in the Berkeley Chess School program, is threatening to regain the Master's title he held briefly in 1997.  Currently ranked 2085, he has a good number of points coming to him from strong performances in the last TNM, the Lovegrove, and an event in Southern California.

Southern California newcomer Jouaquin Banawa of the Philippines and IM Nikolay Andrianov of Phoenix shared first place with 4.5 out of 5 in the 2nd Western Pacific Open held April 2-4 in Burbank. Tying for third in the 54-player top section, which featured one GM and 11 IMs, were Melikset Khachiyan, Andranik  Matikozian, Enrico Sevillano and Kong Deng. Bay Area IM Ricardo DeGuzman won the blitz tournament with a perfect score. John Hillery organized and directed for the Southern California Chess Association.

Weekly blitz tournaments will be returning to the Mechanics' Institute every Wednesday evening starting April 21st. The events will be held starting at 7 PM immediately after GM Alex Yermolinsky's weekly lecture (starting time 5:15). Entry fee for the events is $5 with all money collected returned in prizes. The format for the events will be round robin or Swiss depending on entries. The tournaments will run approximately 1 1/2 hours.

GM Alex Baburin's Internet chess daily, Chess Today, is getting better and better. Recently, it featured two interesting articles on the topics of Internet chess cheating and upcoming FIDE championship. It is definitely one of the best sources of chess content on the Internet. I concur with the sentiments offered below by Peter Tamburro:

"You guys ought to advertise in Chess Life similar to the way I describe on my website your site: If you look at Chess Today as a monthly chess magazine, you get 30 deeply annotated games by either an IM or GM, you get a database of hundreds of games, you get up to the minute chess news, great interviews, a whole bunch of chess problems and people with a sense of humor. Take 30 days of Chess Today, print them out, staple them and try to compare any monthly magazine in the world with that result. Chess Today wins every time! Pete Tamburro, USA"

The following piece written by Martin Fischer, tournament director for www.playchess.com, is especially timely in view of  what happened at the recent Dos Hermanas Internet Tournament where the two winners, rightly or wrongly, were both disqualified.

"Indeed, I believe, if we allow enginehelp, Internet-Chess would simply die very soon and we will have no more interesting Internet-Tournaments.
It is possible to see if a human played alone or with the help of an engine: In my opinion most players, especially grandmasters, overestimate their
abilities in comparison to an engine, at least in Blitz-Chess (which is mostly played in the Internet). And, as a consequent follow up, they underestimate the chance to see if a human has played a tournament or an engine or a human with engine help. Let me explain my point of view: Almost any game of blitz-chess will be decided by tactics. If any player makes a tactical mistake in a game against an engine, he is lost. And even the strongest grandmasters are not able to play to play a higher number of blitzgames against equal, or almost equal, opponents without committing a tactical mistake (enough, to lose against an engine). If anyone does not believe me, he may have a look at several Big Databases and go over the blitz games with an engine. No one even reaches ten games in a row in a blitz tournament without serious tactical mistakes (if he/she plays worthy opponents). The reasons for these are quite simple: Chess is so rich that humans are not able to see anything relevant in a chess game in five minutes. They simply have to trust their intuition and have to take a chance (or they will overstep the time-limit). Sooner or later they take the wrong chance. In addition, humans get tired, engines do not. Humans are open to emotions, engines do not. Humans are vulnerable to psychological influences, engines do not. Therefore humans can't play like an engine during a tournament. They may do it in a single game, even two or three. However, after several games the 'fingerprint' of an engine can't be hid. Of course, the same applies to the human 'fingerprint'.

It is possible to detect the 'engine fingerprint' and to see who is cheating:On www.playchess.com we have developed software able to analyze
any blitz game and look for the above mentioned 'engine-fingerprints'. The software uses games from GMs like Adams, Seirawan, Dr. Hübner, just to mention a few, and – of course – Fritz 8 and other engines - as the basicsample. The software is updated in short intervals. The software compares the game in questions with the data from the sample and realizes indicators for 'engine-play'. A 'fingerprint' is defined when the software sees several serious indicators for an engine (ab)use. As these fingerprints may be a coincidence you need, like in real-live forensic, more than one hint (in our case: game). Just to mention some numbers: The recent 2nd German Internet championship (with €2,600 in prizes) is a good example. Levon Aronian won that tournament. The software indicated an engine fingerprint in one of his games (21 games were played in total). As he recently won a very strong OTB blitz-tournament in Reykjavik ahead of Kasparov, Short and Karpov, he is for sure one of the strongest blitz-players around and need no engine help to win the German Championship. The same number of 'engine-fingerprints' we had in the games of Dr. Hübner, who played in our office in Hamburg. On the other hand: We disqualified a player, who later on confessed that he was using an engine for advice, as we found 12 'engine-fingerprints' in 21 games of his. So, we have a clear difference between players who played honestly and a player who cheated. Of course,  for blitz-games only. In addition, before we will take any action against any player we will crosscheck the games with experts and only when we have surpassed the level 'beyond any reasonable doubt' a player will be disqualified and banned from the server.

Final remarks: Internet Chess Tournaments are possible and interesting. An efficient cheating control is possible, if the tournament is a blitz-tournament and has an endurance-factor (higher number of games). If using an engine is prohibited and money is at stake the (ab)use of an engine is not a peccadillo or some kind of a joke, it is simply a criminal act. Any player, who is thinking about engine help, may keep these in his/her mind."

Martin Fischer, Tournament director
www.playchess.com"

For more information on Chess Today,  please refer to http://www.chesstoday.net

The following extract, from the new player's association headed by French GM Joel Lautier, was recently published in Chess Today and illustrates how FIDE continues to act in a very unsavory manner.

"The FIDE World Championship will be held from June 18 until July 13 in Tripoli (Libya) and Valetta (Malta). Qualified players have been asked by the FIDE Secretariat to sign a copy of the "Player's Undertaking", before the 21st of April 2004, as presented on the FIDE website. This document does not constitute a proper contract between the participants and FIDE, for the simple reason that it only describes the player's obligations towards FIDE, whereas no mention is made of FIDE's obligations toward the players. Moreover, the undertaking is to be signed only by the participant and bears no signature from any FIDE representative, thus relieving FIDE of any legal responsibility. This means that should a dispute arise, FIDE will have a signed commitment from the participant to produce in court, while the latter is left empty-handed.
Among several contentious points, we would like to draw your attention to the obligation for the players to stay in the official hotels, either in Libya or in
Malta. Although highly unpopular, this compulsory measure is once more imposed on the participants, and this time without any mention of the expected prices for accommodation."

National Master Clark Harmon of Oregon is familiar to many older MI members. Clark won the California Junior Open title many years ago and in 1974 won the largest tournament ever held at the Mechanics', a 119 player Stamer Memorial with a nice first prize of $700. Clark was a longtime friend of the late Arthur Dake and is planning to honor his memory with a series of International events in Oregon. I just got the following email from Clark which is an update on the flyer that appears below. Players interested in norm opportunities or obtaining a FIDE rating should contact him at: charmon@solarprism.com

" We have the IM/GM spots pretty much tied down.  We look OK for the foreign players, but can always use a reserve.  I do have openings for 2 more non-titled FIDE rated players, and 2 more FM's or lower rated IM's.
As you know I have been traveling to Budapest, which takes me away from my business and home, not to mention the cost!   I have  funding from my company to hold about two or three Cat II to Cat IV  tournaments per year.   The Dake Memorial is the first, of course. The plan is to eventually offer a Cat IV to VII GM tournament with FIDE rating type tournaments to help with the funding. We won't  be as ambitious as the First Saturday guys, but hope to create some opportunities for West Coast players."

The 2004 Arthur Dake Memorial IM will be held June 5th-13th at US Fiberglass, Inc. offices at 117 NE 5th Street, Suite D,McMinnville, OR 97128.

It will be a 10 player round robin and a FIDE rated CAT II to CAT IV event .

Time Control 40/2 SD60
Rounds: Daily at 5:30 PM.  Last round at 10:30 AM
Players Meeting:  2:00 PM June 5th. Pairings Drawing at 2:30 PM.  Clocks and sets furnished.
Entry Fees:
$50 deposit must be received by May 10th, balance at players meeting.  Checks and all credit cards accepted. Note: there are 6 player slots available, some have to be foreign players, and a FIDE rating average of at least 2275 must be achieved for CAT II.  If you are not selected the deposit will be returned on June 5th.

FIDE Rating         USD
2100-2149            $450
2150-2199            $350
2200-2249            $250
2250-2299            $200
2300-2349            $150
2350-2399            $100
2400+                  $  50

IM/GM title holders will get "conditions."

Clark Harmon
10320 SE Hillview Drive
Amity, OR 97101
USA
charmon@solarprism.com

1-503-472-1285 (US Fiberglass, Inc.)
1-800-711-7336 (US Fiberglass, Inc.)
1-503-474-1147 (Fax)
1-503-868-7027 (Home) 1-503-312-7278 (Cell)

The USCF recently issued the following information:

"The 2004 United States Women's Championship will be held June 17-26 at St. John's University in Manhattan. An International round robin Tournament will be playing there concurrently. The top seven rated women and the 2003 champion (Anna Hahn) are invited to this event. If any players decline their invitations, further invitations will be sent to players in order of their April USCF ratings, but no one rated below 2200 will be invited. If seven or eight players accept their invitations, the tournament will be a round robin. If six or fewer accept, it will be a double round robin. The prize fund will total at least $8000. The Swiss system Championship scheduled for this fall in San Diego will be held as planned, but will be titled the 2005 US Championships and will include those who qualify from the preliminary tournaments plus seeded players. Besides the title of the 2004 US Women's Champion, the tournament will also determine the fourth player for the 2004 US Women's Olympiad Team. The three top women by rating, Polgar, Zatonskih and Krush have already qualified for the 2004 US Women's Olympiad Team by virtue of the rating formula criteria. The winner of this tournament will be the fourth player for the US Women's Olympiad Team. In the event of a tie for first including more than one than one candidate for qualification, a playoff will be held immediately after the tournament to determine the qualifier. If the Championship is won by one or more of the Olympiad Team qualifiers (Polgar, Zatonskih or Krush), a four game match will be held immediately after the US Championship between the top two finishers who are not already qualified Olympiad Team members. The winner of this match will be the fourth member of the 2004 US Women's Olympiad Team. In case of a multiple tie by the top finishers not already qualified for the team, they will play a double round robin immediately after the event to determine the fourth member of the US Women's Olympiad Team."

Thanks to Bay Area chess historian Andy Ansel of Walnut Creek who passes on the following two games which appeared in the California Chess News and News of the Pacific Coast , a short lived predescessor of the The California Chess Reporter.

Bean,S - Johnson,L
Atascadero CA North vs South mt (24), 1948

It is interesting that White is both blind and deaf.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 d6 5.d4 exd4 6.Nxd4 Bd7 7.Bxc6 Bxc6 8.Nxc6 bxc6 9.0-0 Be7 10.Qf3 0-0 11.Re1 Nd7 12.Ne2 Ne5 13.Qg3 f5 14.Nd4 Bh4 15.Qb3+ Kh8 16.Ne6 Qf6 17.Nxf8 fxe4 18.Re2 Rxf8 19.Be3 Qg6 20.Kh1 c5 21.Rf1 h6 22.Bd2 c4 23.Qh3 Be7 24.Bc3 Rf5 25.Bxe5 Rxe5 26.Qc8+ Kh7 27.Qxc7 Qe6 28.Qxa7 d5 29.a4 Bd6 30.Re3 Rh5 31.h3 Qe5 32.Rg3 Qxb2 33.Qf7 Qe5 34.Qg6+ Kh8 35.Qg4 Rg5 36.Qh4 d4 37.Re1 Qa5 38.Rxe4 Bxg3 39.Re8+ Kh7 40.fxg3 Qf5 41.Qxd4 Qxc2 42.Rc8 Rxg3 43.Qd5 c3 44.Qg8+ Kg6 45.Rc6+ Kh5 46.Qd5+ Rg5 47.Qf3+ 1-0

California Chess News and News of the Pacific Coast, Vol 1, No 8.

Alekhine,A - Pelouse,F
Portland simul, 1924

Played in a simultaneous exhibition Portland Oregon, March 1924

1.d4 e6 2.e4 c5 3.d5 d6 4.Nc3 a6 5.a4 Be7 6.f4 Bf6 7.Nf3 Bxc3+ 8.bxc3 exd5 9.exd5 Nf6 10.Be2 0-0 11.0-0 Bf5 12.Rb1 b6 13.c4 Nbd7 14.Bd3 Bxd3 15.cxd3 Re8 16.Bd2 Rb8 17.h3 h6 18.g4 Nh7 19.Bc3 Ndf8 20.Qd2 Qd7 21.f5 Qd8 22.Qf4 Ng5 23.Nxg5 hxg5 24.Qd2 f6 25.Kf2 Rb7 26.Rfe1 Rxe1 27.Rxe1 Qd7 28.Ra1 b5 29.axb5 axb5 30.Ra6 b4 31.Ba1 Ra7 32.Qa2 Rxa6 33.Qxa6 Kf7 34.d4 Qc7 35.Ke3 Nd7 36.Kd3 cxd4 37.Bxd4 Ne5+ 38.Bxe5 fxe5 39.Qb5 Qc5 40.Qd7+
1-0

California Chess News and News of the Pacific Coast, Vol 1, No 8.

"Russians don't retreat!"
IM Igor Ivanov in response to why he sacrificed a knight on g5 on f7 after ...h6.

Top-seed FM Frank Thornally defeated leader Expert Larry Snyder to force a five-way tie for first in the Spring Tuesday Night Marathon. Tied at 5-1 with three rounds to go are Thornally, Snyder, NM Russell Wong, Expert Alex Setzepfandt and Class A player Victor Todortsev.

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.Rc1 0–0 6.e3 c6 7.Nf3 Qb6 8.Qb3 dxc4?!
Black's treatment of the opening isn't very dynamic but Hort and Uhlmann have tried it on more than one occasion. The text, however, which gives up the center and aids White's development looks wrong. Better is 8...Bg4 9.Ne5 Be6.
9.Bxc4 Qxb3 10.Bxb3 Nbd7 11.0–0 Nb6 12.h3 Bf5 13.Rfd1 Ne4 14.Ne2
White with more space avoids exchanges, preserving his advantage.
14...Rad8 15.Ne5 Bc8 16.Nd3 Nd5 17.Bh2 Bh6
Black has been developing patiently. Here 17...Be6 might be better intending ...Bh6 the next move with the idea of meeting Nef4 with trades on f4 and b3. In the game White's Bishop plays a much more powerful role than its counterpart.
18.Nef4 Nxf4 19.Nxf4 Bg7 20.Nd3 Bh6 21.Bc7!
White increases his advantage with the next few moves and Black is powerless to stop him.
21...Rd7 22.Bb8 a6 23.Ne5 Rdd8 24.Bc7 Rde8 25.d5!
Excellent! White opens the game and Black's queenside is defenseless.
25...cxd5 26.Bxd5 Ng5 27.Bb6 Bg7 28.Nc4 Ne6 29.b3 Nd8 30.Na5!
The classic square for the Knight to paralyze Black's queenside.
30...Be6 31.Bxe6 Nxe6 32.Rd7 Rc8 33.Rc4 Bf6 34.Nxb7
White has correctly waited for this moment - he only wins material while still preserving a positional advantage.
34...Rxc4 35.bxc4 Rc8 36.c5 Kf8 37.Kf1 Ke8 38.Rd3 Be5 39.a4 Bc7 40.a5 Bxb6 41.axb6 a5 [41...Nxc5 42.Rc3] 42.Ke2 f6 43.Kd1 Nf8 44.Kc2 Nd7 45.Kb1 Rc6 46.Ka2 Nxb6 47.cxb6 Rxb6 48.Nxa5 Ra6 49.Rd5 e6 50.Rb5 1–0
A  nice positional effort by FM Frank Thornally.

The following event will be held on the 4th floor as part of the Author and Literary Events series.  For more information contact Laura Sheppard, Director of Events at RESERVATIONS: rsvp@milibrary.org,  EVENTS OFFICE: events@milibrary.org  or (415) 393-0114.

Tuesday, May 25, 6:00 pm
Birth of the Chess Queen: A History
Marilyn Yalom

The history of the Chess Queen, and this game piece’s astonishing connection with the rise of female sovereigns in Europe is traced in Marilyn Yalom’s fascinating and well-researched book.

From medieval courts to the Virgin Mary to the cult of Romantic Love, she reveals chess as both a “courting ritual” and a metaphor for royal power.  She is senor scholar at Stanford’s Institute for Women and Gender and author of A History of the Wife.
Members free; Public $5

Lindsborg, Kansas, and Dr. Mikhail Korenman are keeping busy. Korenman, who is running for the USCF Executive Board this summer, is turning into one of the major organizers in the United States. The past three years he has held strong international tournaments in Lindsborg, producing two GM norms and four IM norms. Last year Anatoly Karpov won the inaugural Lindsborg Rapid Chess event and the first Karpov chess school in the US was set up in Lindsborg.

Not content to rest on his laurels Korenman and the Anatoly Karpov International School of Chess recently hosted the United States Chess Federation’s President’s Cup. The following USCF press release gives the details.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) chess team celebrated a 3-2 victory over their archrival, the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). UMBC players won the title and the prestigious United States Chess Federation’s President’s Cup in a two-day match (April 3-4) at the Brunswick Plaza in Lindsborg, Kansas. Miami Dade scored one team point to beat out the team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Anatoly Karpov International School of Chess sponsored the match. Each team consisted of four players, plus an alternate, with the exception of MIT, who didn’t bring an extra player. Each team played the others in the round-robin match. The University of Maryland team lineup included two Grandmasters, Alexander Onischuck and Pawel Blehm. Completing the lineup was IM’s Pascal Charbonneau and Eugene Perelshteyn. Bruci Lopez was the team alternate. Onischuck and Charbonneau are familiar names in Lindsborg in that they competed in several tournaments there, including the Karpov Invitational held in December 2003. IM Perelshteyn played in the Lindsborg Open in December. The UMBC and UTD teams had the same number of match points after rounds one and two. They met in the third and final round. After four hours of play Dr. Mikhail Korenman, Director of the Karpov School, announced that UMBC had won the Final Four with a score of 3-2. UMBC players, IM’s Charbonneau and Perelshteyn, were the top scorers with perfect 3.0 scores.

This summer Lindsborg and Korenman will be hosting both the US Junior Closed and Open events as well as several chess camps featuring GMs Alex Onischuk and Yury Shulman.

Things are looking up for the USCF which now has sponsors for both the US Championship and Grand Prix. The only thing missing now is a backer for the US Olympiad teams.
Bill Goichberg,