Mechanics' Institute Chess Room Newsletter

For chess, that superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the ardor of a lover, the humility of a disciple.

English novelist Herbert Russell Wakefield

1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News

2) Alejandro Ramirez wins US Open - Daniel Naroditsky ties for second

3) 2010 US Chess Olympiad Teams

4) Here and There

5) Upcoming Events

1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News

There were several upsets in the second round of the Peter Grey Tuesday Night Marathon. The biggest saw the event's namesake, Peter Grey who has played in TNMs for forty years, defeat second seed NM Peter Zavadsky and Steven Krasnov beat high ranking Expert Jorge Lopez. Both losers showed their class by accepting their defeats like gentlemen.

Peter Grey, who typically opens 1.e4 does a switch and produces a nice victory. Naming the event after Peter seems to have inspired him!

Peter Grey - Peter Zavadsky [A70]
San Francisco 2010

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.Nf3 g6 7.e4 Bg7 8.h3 0–0 9.Bd3 Re8 10.0–0 a6 11.a4 Nbd7 12.Bg5 Qc7 13.Qd2 Rb8 14.a5 c4 15.Bc2 Nc5 16.Rfe1 b5 17.axb6 Qxb6 18.e5 dxe5 19.Nxe5 Nfe4 20.Nxc4 Bxc3 21.Qxc3 Qb5 22.Bxe4 Rxe4 23.Bh6 1-0

IM Ricardo DeGuzman, NM Romy Fuentes and Expert Steve Gaffagan tied for first with 4.5 from 5 in the 39-player Vladimir Pafnutieff Memorial held August 7th.

Congratulations go to Northern Californians Elizabeth Shaughnessy (Berkeley Chess School) and Val Zemitis along with former Bay Area resident John Blackstone of Las Vegas. The three were recently honored by the US Chess Federation for their lifelong contributions to chess.

2) Alejandro Ramirez wins US Open - Daniel Naroditsky ties for second

Costa Rican GM Alejandro Ramirez who is studying at the University of Texas at Dallas was the deserving winner of the recently concluded US Open in Irvine, defeating fellow top seeds Melik Khachian and Alex Shabalov en route to a 8-1 score. Tying for second at 7.5 were Shabalov, GM Varuzhan Akobian and Mechanics' member Daniel Naroditsky. The Foster City youngster, fresh from winning the GM section of the July First Saturday Tournament, turned in another fine result beating strong IM Enrico Sevillano and drawing a difficult last round game with Akobian.

Many players tied for fifth at 7-2 in the 474 player event: GMs Timur Garayev, Melik Khachiyan, Mark Paragua, Dmitry Gurevich, and Larry Kaufman; IMs Andranik Matikozyan, Enrico Sevillano, Salvijus Bercys, Michael Mulyar, Max Cornejo, and Mark Ginsburg; FMs Matthew Beelby, Jouaquin Banawa, and Jim Dean; and NMs Ankit Gupta, Giovanni Carretto, and Bryan Williams Paulsen. The latter six tied for Under 2400 honors. The top Expert, Vanessa West, also scored 7.

3) 2010 US Chess Olympiad Teams

The US Teams for the 2010 Chess Olympiad to be held September 21 to October 3 in Khanty Manisyk, Russia are:

Men (Captain John Donaldson and Coach Varuzhan Akobian)

1. Hikaru Nakamura

2. Gata Kamsky

3. Alex Onischuk

4. Yury Shulman

5. Robert Hess

Women (board order not yet announced) Captain Michael Khodarkovsky, Coach Melik Khachian, Players : Irina Krush, Anna Zatonskih, Tatev Abrahamian, Sabina Foisor and Camilla Baginskaite.

4) Here and There

The Grenke Rapid World Championship took place from 7-8 August 2010 in Mainz, Germany with Gata Kamsky turning in an outstanding performance scoring 10 points from 11 games including defeats of 2700s Karjakin and Kasimdzhanov. Anna Zatonskih turned in a fine result scoring 8.5 points.

A quick look at the standings confirms just how strong an event this was:

1. Kamsky (USA, 2713) - 10

2-4. Gashimov (AZE, 2719), Aronian (ARM, 2783) and Bareev (RUS, 2663) - 9½

5-9. Karjakin (RUS, 2747), Kempinski (POL, 2612), Grischuk (RUS, 2760), Shirov (ESP, 2749) and Naiditsch (GER, 2684) - 9

10-26. Kasimdzhanov (UZB, 2704), Gustafsson (GER, 2643), Bologan (MDA, 2713), Markowski (POL, 2628), Inarkiev (RUS, 2671), Movsesian (SVK,
2723), Howell (ENG, 2619), Tregubov (RUS, 2610), Istratescu (ROU, 2620), Andersson (SWE, 2567), Pelletier (SUI, 2589), Ghaem Maghami (IRI, 2585),
Volokitin (UKR, 2674), Zvjaginsev (RUS, 2656), Berczes (HUN, 2551), Gozzoli (FRA, 2520) and Zatonskih (USA, 2470) - 8½, etc. (701 players).

Ray Robson has bounced back from losses in his first two games and now has 2 points from 5 in the Gyorgy Marx Memorial being held August 5th-16th in Paks, Hungary.

Other participants in the double round robin include Zoltan Almasi, Ferenc Berkes, World Open winner Viktor Laznicki, Peter Acs and Jan Timman. The average rating of the event is 2629.