Maybe it is because the challenger isn’t in the top 10, or maybe it is the style (not talking about the quality) of the one game played so far, but I am much more interested in the US Championship than the concurrent World Championship, featuring current champ Anand vs. challenger Gelfand.
You can watch the games in real-time here, and check out TWIC for good summary coverage.
The US Championship started today at the St. Louis Chess Club. One interesting gimmick (in the good sense of the term) is the ability to create a fantasy team and hopefully win some prizes – a nice attempt to inject some “March Madness” into tournament chess. It is too late to submit teams, but I took the liberty of naming my team vassar-chadwick.com – some free publicity if I end up near the top.
Here’s probably the most interesting game from round 1, Nakamura playing the Evans Gambit!
A 6 round match between Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian is taking place this week. Some may consider this to a closer contested and more interesting match than the upcoming World Championship, as it features a battle between the #2 and #3 players in the world (whereas Gelfand, the WC challenger, is currently #22).
The match features an interesting time control – 40 moves in 2 hours, 20 moves in 1 hour, and then the rest of the game in 15 minutes, with a 30 second increment applied after move 61. Also, if the game ends in a draw before 3 hours have elapsed, the players must play a Rapid game (but it doesn’t count to the overall result, so I’m not clear on what the point of that is).
Monday is a rest day, so look for round 3 action on Tuesday (9am EST, 3pm Zurich time). The official tournament site offers live coverage, and you can also see the games (with internet commentary, for whatever that’s worth) here.
Chessbase has good coverage of the first round.
I try to avoid ‘political’ slants here; this is a chess blog and should be agnostic to political beliefs. But I just have to mention an interesting closed tournament in St. Louis going on right now, featuring a GM from Iran, Elshan Moradiabadi. Given the charged political climate between our two governments, it’s nice to see chess transcend that. It’s a shame this isn’t getting more coverage; a check of Google News right now for “Iran chess” only shows the typical, and banal, comparisons of geopolitical maneuverings to chess, but nothing about an actual chess tournament being held in the US and featuring a chess professional from Iran. Oh well. I guess that’s not as exciting as Hillary Clinton engaging in saber-rattling. Oops, sorry, I promise no more political rants!
The site (linked above) features a live game and video feed, and the 2nd round starts at Noon EST today.
Here is Moradi’s first round game, a nice win vs. the club’s resident GM, Ben Finegold.
Our very own (we are claiming him, riding on his coattails) Jonathan Richman is playing in the very strong Open section of the currently running Philadelphia Open. He did lose in the first round, to FM Teddy Coleman, and as I type is facing NM Justus Williams. Like I said, very strong.
Also playing, the strongest 8 year old in the US, Awonder Liang from Wisconsin (Go Pack!) – who happened to face (and lose) to another (although slightly older) wunderkind, FM Kayden Troff from Utah.
Those of us without titles in front of our names can appreciate this; in the first round an Expert from Wisconsin, Thomas Ulrich, defeated IM Dean Ippolito (rated 2452).
On Youtube I’ve found a user who specializes in video biographies of notable chess players. I’ve watched a couple of them and they are well done. Some of the more recent videos are narrated. One benefit of this is that you get to hear how their names are pronounced, like Max Euwe.
While I did receive some games from the USATE team, but have not got around to importing them into Chessbase, it looks like the main database of games was recently made available. I searched for games from our members, and found the following (sorry, they are not all wins).
[Event "US Amateur Team-ch East"]
[Site "Parsippany,NJ"]
[Date "2012.02.20"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Lawrence, Jeffrey"]
[Black "Richman, Jonathan"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B10"]
[WhiteElo "1940"]
[BlackElo "2125"]
[PlyCount "53"]
[EventDate "2012.02.??"]
1. e4 {Table 50, board 1, #132 Connecticut Knights with Power vs. #81
Vassar-Chadwick.com} 1… c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Ne5 a6 5. d4 Nf6 6. c3
Bf5 7. Qb3 Qc8 8. Be2 e6 9. Nd2 Bd6 10. f4 O-O 11. O-O Nc6 12. Ndf3 b5 13. Nxc6
Qxc6 14. Ne5 Qc7 15. a3 Rfc8 16. Be3 Rab8 17. Rfc1 Qb7 18. Qd1 h6 19. Qf1 a5
20. Kh1 Rc7 21. Kg1 Bf8 22. g4 Be4 23. g5 hxg5 24. fxg5 Ne8 25. Bg4 Nd6 26. g6
f5 27. Qh3 1-0
[Event "US Amateur Team-ch East"]
[Site "Parsippany,NJ"]
[Date "2012.02.19"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Johnson, Ernest"]
[Black "Bliznikas, Zigmant"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A53"]
[WhiteElo "2022"]
[BlackElo "1800"]
[PlyCount "67"]
[EventDate "2012.02.??"]
1. d4 {Table 61, board 2, #81 Vassar-Chadwick.com vs. #139 GM Yuda Man} 1… d6
2. Nf3 Bg4 3. c4 Nf6 4. Nc3 c6 5. e3 e6 6. Be2 Be7 7. h3 Bxf3 8. Bxf3 d5 9. b3
O-O 10. O-O Nbd7 11. Bb2 Rb8 12. e4 dxe4 13. Nxe4 Nxe4 14. Bxe4 Nf6 15. Bd3 Qd7
16. Qf3 Rfd8 17. Rad1 b5 18. Bc3 b4 19. Bb2 Rbc8 20. Rfe1 Qc7 21. Bb1 c5 22. d5
exd5 23. cxd5 Qb7 24. Bxf6 Bxf6 25. Qf5 Kf8 26. d6 Qd7 27. Qxh7 g6 28. Re7 Qxe7
29. dxe7+ Kxe7 30. Rxd8 Rxd8 31. Bxg6 Rf8 32. Bd3 Bd4 33. Qe4+ Kd6 34. Bc4 1-0
[Event "US Amateur Team-ch East"]
[Site "Parsippany,NJ"]
[Date "2012.02.19"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Antonucci, David"]
[Black "Hulse, Laurie G"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B20"]
[WhiteElo "1786"]
[BlackElo "383"]
[PlyCount "25"]
[EventDate "2012.02.??"]
1. e4 {Table 66, board 4, #88 Knights Strike Back vs. #221 No Hulse Barred}
1… c5 2. Bc4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Ng8 5. Nf3 Be7 6. O-O Nh6 7. d4 O-O 8. Bxh6
gxh6 9. dxc5 Bxc5 10. Qd2 Nc6 11. Qxh6 Nd4 12. Ng5 a6 13. Qxh7# 1-0
But I did snap some photos in rounds 1 and 3 of the currently running Dutchess County Chess Championship. You can see them here. And you can always find more pictures off the club site, under the Gallery link.
Because I can’t think of anything else to add, but hate to make a one sentence post, I might as well point out the basic philosophy between posts added here (to the blog) and posts placed on the main club site. My thinking is that the club page is for club business (tournament results and standings or information pertaining to club members), or chess tournaments of interest to club members. This blog is for anything else (so long as it has something to do with chess). You may ask why I didn’t put this post on the club site, since it (the first part at least) refers to the DCC. Well, stop asking so many questions.
The USCF is starting a new project, and I think it’s a great idea. Masters and above constitute the top 1% of all chess players, and I think there is a problem when a national organization devotes 99% of its time to showcasing those elite when the vast majority of its paying members will never see such heights. There needs to be more coverage of state level tournaments and recognition of players who have done well, even if they aren’t 9 year olds sporting a 2300 rating. Faces Across the Board appears to be an attempt to do just that; people can nominate themselves or fellow patzers for recognition in Chess Life, because of performance milestones they have accomplished or other chess-related activity.
If you wish to be considered or to suggest someone to us, please send a brief supporting statement to faces@uschess.org. Include your email address, phone number, and a high-resolution photo (head-and-shoulders or profile picture required). If we find your story intriguing you will be contacted by Al Lawrence who will be writing this column for us. Lawrence is currently president of the Chess Journalists of America, is a frequent Chess Life contributor, and is a former executive director of the USCF.
Although the tournament has not been officially rated yet (which is to be expected given the 1300 participants), the NJ State Chess Federation site (which hosts the tournament) has posted the wall chart results. Here’s our “A” team:
