Mechanics' Institute Chess Club Newsletter #500

I'm often asked why I got into professional chess. I always answer in the same way: For the money and the women! Why would I say that? Because, there is no money and there are no women. In other words, it's a metaphor for, I play because the game is everything to me. I know there's no fortune to be had, or cheerleaders screaming in bliss as I push my Rooks down the board. I play because I have to play ... I play because it's in my blood and has become a part of me ... I play because chess makes me happy

.

IM Jeremy Silman



1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News
2) Laznicka wins World Open
3) Russia ready for Olympiad
4) FIDE Election
5) Here and There
6) Upcoming Events


1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News

The Summer Tuesday Night Marathon is coming down to the wire. Tournament leader Hayk Manvelyan drew with NM Romy Fuentes in round 7 which coupled with a win by Jorge Lopez over NM Russell Wong leaves the two Experts tied for first with 6 points with one round to go.

FM Daniel Naroditsky (2403 FIDE) is off to a good start in the GM section of the July First Saturday tournament in Budapest. Daniel, who is aiming for his first IM norm after several half point misses, is 2-2 in the 12 player round robin having drawn IM Pap (2508), lost to GM Ilincic (2455), drawn GM Vera (2513) and beaten GM Varga (2488) for a performance to date of 2491. Erik Kislik, formerly of San Jose but long based in Budapest, also has two points against a field averaging 2421.

The Mechanics' will hold its annual summer chess camp from July 19-23. IM John Donaldson and MI Scholastic Coordinator Anthony Corrales are the teachers for the camp with IM Eliot Winslow and NMs Gregory Young and Evan Sandberg as guest instructors. This is a great opportunity to learn in small groups with lots of individualized attention. Go to http://www.chessclub.org/children/camp.php for more information.

The June 30th Wednesday Blitz saw a tie between George Sanguinetti and Billy Gray at 5.5 from 8 with Sanguinetti the winner in a one game playoff. Joe Urquhart was third with 4 points.

 

2) Laznicka wins World Open

Viktor Laznicka of the Czech Republic scored 7.5 from 9 to win the recently concluded World Open in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to take home $17, 413. Fellow GMs Luke McShane, Ilya Smirin and Pentala Harikrishna shared second to fourth with 7 points, good for $5,028. The top finishing American, GM Alex Lenderman was in a group at 6.5 points which earned just under $800. The odd numbers for the prizes was due to the based on prize fund which kicked in when attendance was less than expected. One can hardly call a turnout of 1051 players a failure but it was down significantly from the past few years (2009 - 1222 and 2008 - 1262).

What the 2010 World Open lacked in numbers it made up for in strength which was not so much the 36 GMs competing but the number of current or former 2700 players. The top prize, which is typically $20,000 is always a lure which the increased strength of the dollar to the Euro has made more attractive but another element seems to be in play. The increased number of strong players in the world means there the bar is now at least 2725 and likely more in the neighborhood of 2750 to get the good invitations. Realistically a rating in that neighborhood is necessary to survive solely playing in tournaments. Laznicka took home the pay day of a lifetime for a week's work and McShane, Smirin and Harikrishna took home a few thousand profit but at the end of the event most GMs lost money on the event not to mention a week's wages.

While the World Open is a rough event for top pros it is a great opportunity for young players on the rise. Conrad Holt had a spectacular start defeating GMs Paco Vallejo Pons and Evgeny Najer on his way to earning an IM norm. The Kansas teenager, a regular in Oklahoma tournaments early in his career, is already the strongest player his state has ever produced.

 

3) Russia ready for Olympiad

The upcoming Chess Olympiad in Siberia may not be remembered as one of the most cosmopolitan venues ever to host the historic event but it will be without question as one of the strongest. The reason is that the host country is able to field three teams. This doesn't mean a lot when the Olympiad is hosted in Italy or Germany, as in recent years, but in Russia it most certainly does as the first and second teams are not all that different and the third team boasts a pair of 2700 players.

Russia (main team, men), sorted by rating:
Vladimir Kramnik (2790)
Alexander Grischuk (2760)
Sergey Karjakin (2739)
Peter Svidler (2735)
Vladimir Malakhov (2722)

Russia (second team, men), sorted by rating:
Alexander Morozevich (2715)
Evgeny Tomashevsky (2708)
Nikita Vitiugov (2707)
Evgeny Alekseev (2700)
Ian Nepomniatchi (2695)

Russia ("local" team, men), sorted by rating:
Dmitry Jakovenko (2725)
Sergei Rublevsky (2704)
Ernesto Inarkiev (2669)
Alexei Pridorozhni (2554)
Nikolai Kabanov (2517)


4) FIDE Election

One of the principal entertainments for the players during the Chess Olympiad may be the FIDE elections. Recently the two sides announced their teams and the US has a foot on both sides with candidates in each camp. Either Beatriz Marinello (running with incumbent Kirsan Ilyumzhinov) or Richard Conn, Jr. (running with Anatoly Karpov) will become the highest ranking American in FIDE since Jerry Spann in the 1960s.

Presidential ticket of Mr. Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov:

1.President - Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
nominated by Russia, Argentina and
Mexico,
2.Deputy President - Mr. Georgios
Makropoulos nominated by Greece,
3.Vice President - Mr. Lewis Ncube
nominated by Zambia,
4.Vice President - Mrs. Beatriz
Marinello nominated by Chile and
Brazil,
5.General Secretary - Mr. Ignatius
Leong nominated by Singapore,
6.Treasurer - Mr. Nigel Freeman
nominated by Bermuda.

Presidential ticket of Mr. Anatoly
Karpov:

1.President - Mr. Anatoly Karpov
nominated by France, Germany and
Switzerland,
2.Deputy President - Mr. Richard
Conn Jr nominated by USA,
3.Vice President - Dr. Aguinaldo Jaime
nominated by Angola,
4.Vice President - Prof. Dr. Alisa Maric
nominated by Serbia,
5.General Secretary - Mr. Abd Hamid
Majid nominated by Malaysia,
6.Treasurer - Mr. Viktor Kapustin
nominated by Ukraine.

5) Here and There

Top 40 players, July

1 Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2826
2 Topalov, Veselin BUL 2803
3 Anand, Viswanathan IND 2800
4 Kramnik, Vladimir RUS 2790
5 Aronian, Levon ARM 2783
6 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE 2761
7 Grischuk, Alexander RUS 2760
8 Eljanov, Pavel UKR 2755
9 Shirov, Alexei ESP 2749
10 Radjabov, Teimour AZE 2748
11 Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2747
12 Ivanchuk, Vassily UKR 2739
13 Gelfand, Boris ISR 2739
14 Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR 2734
15 Svidler, Peter RUS 2734
16 Leko, Peter HUN 2734
17 Malakhov, Vladimir RUS 2732
18 Navara, David CZE 2731
19 Nakamura, Hikaru USA 2729
20 Jakovenko, Dmitry RUS 2726
21 Wang, Hao CHN 2724
22 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime FRA 2723
23 Movsesian, Sergei SVK 2723
24 Vitiugov, Nikita RUS 2722
25 Bacrot, Etienne FRA 2720
26 Gashimov, Vugar AZE 2719
27 Almasi, Zoltan HUN 2717
28 Wang, Yue CHN 2716
29 Dominguez Perez, Leinier CUB 2716
30 Morozevich, Alexander RUS 2715
31 Kamsky, Gata USA 2713
32 Jobava, Baadur GEO 2710
33 Tomashevsky, Evgeny RUS 2708
34 Nepomniachtchi, Ian RUS 2706
35 Adams, Michael ENG 2706
36 Onischuk, Alexander USA 2701
37 Nielsen, Peter Heine DEN 2700
38 Kasimdzhanov, Rustam UZB 2699
39 Caruana, Fabiano ITA 2697
40 Fressinet, Laurent FRA 2697

US Top Ten

1. Nakamura 2729

2. Kamsky 2713

3. Onischuk 2701

4. Seirawan 2638

5. Shulman 2636

6. Akobian 2619

7. Hess 2588

8. Christiansen 2585

9. Stripunsky 2579

10.Shabalov 2578

Northwest Chess magazine, which covers chess in Washington and Oregon, celebrated its 750 issue with a special double issue (June-July 2010). The normally monthly journal is in its 64 year of continuous publication!

John Hillery, a driving force in Southern California chess for several decades, has been at the helm of it's magazine, Rank and File, for over a dozen years and is very likely the longest serving editor in American chess.


We wrote about the late Ivars Dahlberg in Newsletter #125. Sadly the story of Dahlberg, who died in 2002, is all to common. A player devotes his life to the game but if he passes away with no instructions of how to dispose of his archives they are typically thrown out in the trash. Sometimes one gets lucky as in the following two games of his rescued by chance from a Chess Set Futurity played in 1980. Jack Peters and David Strauss tied for first in this round robin event with 11.5 from 13 while Dahlberg was third at 9.5.

Dahlberg,Ivars A - Lindsay,Fred [A42]

Hollywood (6)1980

1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.e4 e5 5.d5 Nd7 6.Bd3 Nh6 7.h4 c5 8.h5 f6 9.hxg6 hxg6 10.Nge2 Ke7 11.Ng3 Nf7 12.Rxh8 Qxh8 13.Qf3 Nf8 14.Be3 Qh4 15.Nf1 Bd7 16.a3 b6 17.b4 f5 18.Qg3 Qxg3 19.fxg3 Nh7 20.bxc5 bxc5 21.Rb1 Kd8 22.Nd2 Nf6 23.Nf3 Ng4 24.Bd2 Bf6 25.Ke2 Kc7 26.Nb5+ Kc8 27.Rh1 a6 28.Nc3 Kd8 29.Rh7 Ke8 30.Nh4 Bxh4 31.gxh4 Kf8 32.h5 g5 33.exf5 Nf6 34.Rxf7+ Kxf7 35.Bxg5 Rg8 36.Bxf6 Kxf6 37.Ne4+ Kxf5 38.Kf3 Be8 39.g4+ Rxg4 40.Nxd6+ Kg5 41.Nxe8 Rd4 42.Ke3 Kxh5 43.Ng7+ 1–0

Dahlberg,Ivars - Pilnick,Carl [A84]

Hollywood (4) 1980

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 f5 4.Nf3 c6 5.Bf4 Ne7 6.e3 Ng6 7.Bg3 Nd7 8.h4 Bb4 9.h5 Ne7 10.h6 g6 11.Rc1 Nf6 12.Be5 0–0 13.Qb3 Bd6 14.Bd3 Bxe5 15.Nxe5 Ng4 16.Nxg4 fxg4 17.Qd1 g3 18.f4 dxc4 19.Bxc4 Nf5 20.Qf3 Kh8 21.Ne4 e5 22.Ng5 exf4 23.Qxf4 Qe7 24.0–0 Bd7 25.Nf7+ Rxf7 26.Bxf7 Rf8 27.Bb3 Re8 28.Rce1 g5 29.Qf3 Qd6 30.Qh5 Qxh6 31.Qxh6 Nxh6 32.e4 Bg4 33.d5 Kg7 34.d6 Re5 35.Re3 Bd7 36.Rxg3 g4 37.Re3 c5 38.Ree1 b5 39.Bd5 g3 40.Re3 Nf5 41.Ra3 Nxd6 42.Rxg3+ 1–0


John Henderson writes:

Recently on Chess Talk with IM John Watson on ICC's Chess.FM was a a two-part special with GM Yasser Seirawan, who was talking on his latest book for Everyman, Chess Duels: My Games with the World Champions.

This show is one of the six regular weekly shows aired on Chess.FM for ICC members. We have made this Chess Talk special free for non ICC members to listen to and enjoy. Please click on links below.

http://web cast.chess club.com/W atson/2010 _06_15/Wat son_Chesst alk.html

http://web cast.chess club.com/W atson/2010 _06_22/Wat son_Chesst alk.html



6) Upcoming Events

Scholastic Championship - July 10
Charles Bagby Memorial - July 17
Vladimir Pafnutieff Memorial - August 7
Bernardo Smith Memorial - August 21-22
Howard Donnelly Memorial - September 18
J.J. Dolan Memorial - October 9
Carroll Capps Memorial - November 6-7
Pierre Saint-Amant Memorial - November 20