Archive for April 30th, 2009

Later this year Yahoo will close Geocities, which hosts my Checkmate Chess Club & Garden State Chess League sites.

So… my lame designs are in need of a new, preferably free, home. Any suggestions or recommendations?

In #475, I erroneously called Joe Renna’s bi-monthly newspaper the Peterstown Press. The correct name is “Around About Peterstown”.

Also, instead of publishing his USATE win over Kern, Joe opted to use our 2009 Checkmate Championship game.

I have 8 more games from the Ellner Memorial for you – 4 from Round 1 (courtesy of TD Geoff McAuliffe & Fritz 10) & 4 from last week.

Sorry I could only annotate my undeserved win vs. Mike Wojcio. Other games with openings of interest may be addressed at some future point.

1st round : replays PGN
2nd round : replays PGN

Moldovan-Wojcio
after 29.Raf1 -/+

Here are the last-round pairings for the KCC’s Irving Ellner Memorial :

1. Moldovan (2.0) – Kernighan (2.0)
2. Minkov (1.5) – Mangion (1.0)
3. Wojcio (1.0) – Tomkovich (1.5)
4. Mann (1.0) -Sturniolo (1.0)
5. Shiffman (0.0) – Mazzillo (0.5)
6. Renna (0.5) – Balint (0.0)

Games are to begin at 8:45 p.m. but paired players may start earlier, at 8:30, if they need or want to.

The Kenilworth Chess Club Calendar of Events has been updated.

Here is the revised May-early June schedule :

May

5 TUESDAY Garden State match : K. Karpovs at West Orange, 8 pm
6 WEDNESDAY Garden State match : K. Kortchnois at Hamilton, 7:30
7 Garden State match : Maplewood vs. Staten Island, 8:15 p.m.
Quiet skittles for those not playing in the match.
14 Meeting to consider becoming a 501c7 Not-For-Profit Organization
21 Non-league mega-match between the Karpovs & Kortchnois
G/60. No board or rating limit. All KCC members can play.
28 To be announced. Suggestions welcome.

June

4 Garden State match : Hamilton at K. Karpovs, 8:15 p.m.

The Summit-K. Kortchnois match is officially slated for 6/2 in West Orange but I hope it can also be played on the 4th.

That is how Mark Donlan characterises ChessBase Magazine 129 in ChessCafe.com.
He points out as an example of the abundance of content that CBM 129 contains
introductory videos by Karsten Müller and Dorian Rogozenco, and then columns
by Daniel King, Peter Wells, Karsten Müller, Oliver Ree and Rainer Knaak
and much, much more. Buy CBM
129 or read
this review.

We return to this Championship, which had 14 participants and was won, for the third time, by WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan, who scored 11/13 points. Bronze went to eleven-year-old WFM Sara Sadat Khademalsharieh. For those of you who have had enough flawless 2800 play for a while, here’s a big pictorial report by Reza Mahdipour with highly enjoyable chess highlights from the event. Don’t miss it!

With the debate raging over FIDE’s decision to change or not to change the K-factor used in calculating players’ ratings, we are glad to receive an important message from our voice-of-reason grandmaster. Dr John Nunn says “there seems no real evidence that K=20 will result in a more accurate rating system, while there are a number of risks and disadvantages.” His explanation and reader feedback.

“Using the FIDE Laws of Chess terminology, the move has been made, and no takeback is any longer possible.” Polish GM Bartlomiej Macieja is insisting that the decision to increase the K-factor in rating calculations is not just necessary and good in the current tournament situation, it is in fact irrevocable and can only be legally changed by the body that passed it. Open letter.

“If I knew that Garry Kasparov had already made a DVD on the Grünfeld Defence for ChessBase I would never have dared to make one myself,” confesses Alexei Shirov. Needless to say, Shirov is an expert here too, and with his games from the end of the 90s up to 2007 you can relive the development of this opening over the last ten years.
Buy his
Grünfeld DVD or read Bob Long’s
review.