Archive for November 3rd, 2009

The US Chess League wraps up its regular season Wednesday night with all teams playing, which means a full docket of seven matches on ICC (see the schedule for details). At the USCF website, Arun Sharma offers his “Week 9 US Chess League Recap,” which also summarizes the playoff picture. The NJKOs can gain the best record in the League with a win or draw against the Queens Pioneers. Joseph Criscuolo of the New Jersey Knockouts Blog offers an overview in “Knockouts to Force Queens’ Abdication“:

The Knockouts will have a change of scenery for this match as they will be playing at the Dean of Chess Academy in Branchburg, New Jersey which is owned by the Knockouts’ own Dean Ippolito. The Knockouts’ regular site, Chapel Hill Academy, is closed this week. Because of the location change, the match begins at 8:00 PM Eastern on Wednesday, November [4th]. The time control has changed as well, [to] 75 minutes with 30 second increments. For the season finale Joel Benjamin, Mackenzie Molner, Andrew Ng, and Arthur Shen face off against Alex Stipunsky, Lev Milman, Elizabeth Vicary, and Fritz Gaspard.

As always, I will be analyzing the match and will continue following the team into the post-season.

One of the neater games to emerge from my Collaborative Writing Practices: Game Design course. To play, all you need is a good set of “rainbow” colored markers. If only they made a seven-colored mechanical pen…

The recent controversy between GM Koneru Humpy, the second strongest female chess player in history, and D.V. Sundar, the Hon. Secretary of the All Indian Chess Federation, has brought us a spate of letters by our readers – and a press release of the CPAI, which represents the interests of the players, urging both parties to reach a settlement on all issues. Facts and opinions.