Archive for September 9th, 2009

Here’s a really strange factoid for you to ponder…

I have drawn my only games against the 2009 New Jersey co-champions, Tom Bartell & Dean Ippolito, but have lost my last 2 games vs. the U1300 champ Joe Renna!

Swaminathan – Matlin
Black to Play and Win

Friedman – Bartell
Black to Play and Win

The New Jersey Knockouts racked up their second match victory in a row last night by beating the Philadelphia Inventors, 2.5-1.5. I have analyzed the games and posted them online (also see PGN file.)

All of the games were close and came down to some critical endgames, including two King and Pawn endings (see diagrams above). GM Joel Benjamin also played a nice minor piece ending to finish the night off and secure the win for Jersey. The big surprise of the night was Anna Matlin on bottom board who got the job done and won a critical game.

Related Links

• Inventing a Path to Victory by GM Joel Benjamin
  Benjamin annotates his victory over Kudrin.
• Knockouts Patently Infringe Inventors by Robert N. Bernard and Joseph Criscuolo
• Philadelphia Inventors blog
• US Chess League website
  Announced that Anna Matlin won upset victory of the week.

It was a memorable experience for all involved, and an auspicious one too:
Durban Chess Club was celebrating its 116th birthday! World
Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand visited the Kwazulu Natal Province of South
Africa on a good-will tour, arranged by his sponsor NIIT.
Speeches, dinners, lectures, simul – the World Champion was in his element.
Big illustrated report by Desmond Rooplal.

On August 28 Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang blasted off into space, on the 128th mission of NASA’s Space Shuttle program. He conducted a seven-hour space walk at the International Space Station, and also continued his chess game against the readers of a Swedish newspaper. Both the astronaut, who has a tough position, and his opponents have lovely prizes waiting for them.

What an unusual tournament: at halftime we note that there has been just one undecisive game (drawing average 16%!). Today Sergey Karjakin defeated the tournament leader Alexander Grischuk, while Levon Aronian beat Alexei Shirov with the black pieces to join Grischuk in the lead, both now having six Bilbao points. Illustrated round three report.

In the tournament of “Experience” versus “Youth” in Amsterdam the position
in the diagram came up in the game Nakamura – Van Wely after 37. … Rc1+.
Which route would you have chosen for your king here? 38.Kb4 or Kd3?
The analysis by our CBM endgame expert GM Karsten Müller will tell you
whether you made the correct choice.

The game Nakamura-Van Wely

Endgame DVDs by GM Karsten Müller