BCC Super Bowl 2008 Octads

BCC Super Bowl 2008 Octads

Sunday, February 3, 2008

In sections of 8 players 3SS; G/45

Entry Fee: $15, $10 BCC members

Prizes : 50% Entry Fees

Registration: 11:30 to 11:55

Rounds: 12:00 - 2:00 - 4:00

There will be a pizza party and soft drinks to all participants and afterwards coverage of Super Bowl in our new cable service. The club will bring a big TV set for this occasion.

Visitors are welcome and there will be a fee of $5.

All Boylston Chess Club Tournaments

No Smoking, No Computers, Wheelchair Accessible

USCF membership required

Bring Chess Clocks

Boylston Chess Foundation

240B Elm St. Suite B9

Somerville, MA 02144

Telephone: (617) 629-3933

www.boylstonchessclub.org

Tom Brady isn't the only star swamped by fans

Magnus Carlsen, Norway's teenaged chess whiz, is his game's equivalent of a rock star. As fans swarmed around him in the Netherlands on Sunday, hoping for an autograph or photo, Carlsen showed that it hasn't gone to his head.

Magnus Carlsen, from Lommedalen just west of Oslo, is now among the world's top 10 chess players.

PHOTO: FRED LUCAS

Magnus Carlsen in action against Teymour Radjabov from Azerbaijan.

Related stories:
Title dream over for Carlsen - 10.12.2007
Kasparov heading for Norway - 23.12.2004
Young chess master out of world championships - 21.06.2004
Carlsen heads for world championships - 29.04.2004
World's youngest grandmaster - 26.04.2004
Kasparov survives teen chess scare - 19.03.2004
Teenager topples ex-world chess champ - 18.03.2004

"It's okay," was all he had to say about the buzz that surrounded him after he wound up among the world's top 10 chess players over the weekend. He shared first place in the prestigious Corus tournament in the Netherlands, after the world's top two players ended in a tie.

"I'm satisfied with the tournament, but not with the last part," he told Aftenposten when it was all over. On the other hand, he said, the match on Sunday was the best he'd ever played.

He was ranked 13th in the world before Corus and now is probably ninth, said his father after Carlsen shared first-place honors with Levron Aronian. Carlsen has long been ranked the world's best junior chess player (those under age 21) and he's the Nordic country's strongest chess player by a wide margin.

The 17-year-old Carlsen, who travels around 200 days a year, spent two weeks at the tournament in the Netherlands and was due to return to Norway's special high school for top athletes and players (topp idrettsgymnaset) where he studies chess. But he'll soon be traveling to Mexico and Spain for another major tournament.

International chess star Garri Kasparov, who has faced off against Carlsen himself, has said that he worries Carlsen plays too many tournaments and should spend more time training. He later said that maybe the many tournaments are good for Carlsen.

That's what his father Henrik Carlsen thinks. He told Aftenposten that his son starts getting uneasy if too much time passes between tournaments.

Aftenposten's reporter in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands
Alf Ole Ask

Aftenposten English Web Desk
Nina Berglund

Friends don't let friends play chess drunk

Game Of Chess Takes Violent Turn In Greensburg

GREENSBURG (KDKA) ― Police in Westmoreland County are investigating after they say a game of chess ended in gunfire and a bullet nearly hitting a baby.

It happened early this morning in a second-floor apartment along West Otterman Street in Greensburg.

Police say 23-year-old Zachary Luco and another man were drinking and playing chess.

According to authorities, Luco pulled out a gun, and threatened to shoot himself with his 9-month-old son on the floor nearby.

"The victim grabbed for the gun," said Captain George Seranko, of the Greensburg Police Department. "Apparently there was a scuffle, a little bit, and the gun went off. The bullet went down and nearly missed a 9-month-old baby in the kitchen area."

Officials say the victim, identified as Dennis Klein, was shot in the elbow. He continues to recover tonight at a Pittsburgh hospital.

Meantime, Luco is facing several charges including aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and recklessly endangering children.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

BCC January Monday Night Swiss

The first Monday Night Swiss of the new year ended this evening with FM Chris Chase winning with 4/4. He defeated Boston Globe chess columnist Harold Dondis, who still plays a tough game at age 86, while tinkering with the new (to the club) computer, a gift from Jason Rihel. He was trying to get it set up and show Bernardo Iglesias the new features in anticipation of a big turnout at this Saturday's quads.

Adam Yedidia was second with 3/4 - his only loss from having forgotten to come to the club last week. Adam you may recall started 2007 at around 550 and moved his rating up to nearly 1400. In this tournament, he defeated players rated 1810, 1244, and 1614 and so added some more points. He pulled out a striking win over Frank Frazier - while under time pressure in the end game he found a winning rook sac.

Heath Ledger, the recently deceased actor, had enjoyed chess

Heath Ledger's Passion for Chess
By Christina Tapper

People magazine, Originally posted Saturday January 26, 2008 12:00 PM EST
Heath Ledger Photo by: Jeff Vespa / WireImage

No stranger to the New York Washington Square Park chess world, Heath Ledger found joy by screaming the occasional 'checkmate!' But an observer who watched the actor's matches said Ledger played for the enjoyment, even though he lost some of his chessboard battles. "I saw him a few times, mostly last summer. He seemed like a nice guy," says Earl Biggs, 63, who was a spectator at Ledger's early-morning games. "He'd usually lose. We played for a couple of dollars and he'd lose a few dollars. He just had fun, he loved it."Ledger, who died on Tuesday, played chess since he was a youngster, telling MTV.com, "I've played since I was a kid. I play at least one game a day."The actor, 28, was also a trash-talker, playfully getting into verbal duels with his rivals. "We'd talk trash talk at the chess table ... Oh, you don't want to know what we'd say!" Biggs remembers. "We'd say things to him like, 'How can you make that move! How can you make a move like that!!!' And he'd just laugh." Biggs says park visitors didn't notice the Oscar-nominated Brokeback Mountain star. "Heath would just come around and jump into a game. People walking by didn't bother him," Biggs says. "We didn't talk about anything personal except, "Hey, you owe me five dollars!" There was, however, one opponent Ledger could beat: his father. In one of several heartfelt messages printed in the West Australian on Friday, Ledger's father, Kim, remembers the his chess-loving son. The elder Ledger wrote: "My beautiful boy, so loving, so talented, so independent, so caring, so young ... no more chess games mate ... this is it, couldn't beat you anyway!"

• Reporting by NATASHA STOYNOFF in People magazine.

Maybe we should move the club to France

Check out this photo from the first anniversary party for Philippe Dornbusch's Chess & Strategy blog. Regrettably the BCC Weblog anniversary parties (what parties?) were not so well (or attractively) attended.

Fischer's death, an elaborate ruse?

Less than a week, and already the conspiracy theorists have come out of the woodwork.

Per Ilya's request ... Discuss

Another GM at the BCC

From the Monday, January 21st Chess Notes column in the Boston Globe:

A preeminent player in New England chess and the dominant force in tournaments in this region is [Grandmaster] Alexander Ivanov of Newton. We had not seen him recently, but he suddenly appeared at the Boylston Club for the Sultan Khan tourney. It turns out that this was Ivanov's first appearance at the Boylston's site in Somerville. He scored a clean sweep of the tournament, winning a last-round hair-raiser against [FM and former BCC Champion] Chris Chase on time forfeit, with a second or so left on Ivanov's clock.

Ivanov's absence from local chess is explained by his participation in the World Cup. The latter, won by Gata Kamsky, was held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia, not particularly far from Ivanov's birthplace. Ivanov won against Peru's Julio Granda Zuniga, but was eliminated in the second round by Joel Lautier of France. Ivanov says he received $6,000 for his effort....

Symmetry

Anyone else think it is oddly appropriate that Bobby Fischer died at 64 years of age?

Calling All Chess Bloggers

Goran Urosevic of Chessdom has a request for all you chess bloggers out there. He would like to publish profiles of chess blogs and the people behind them on the site during Corus, when Chessdom receives particularly high visit rates.

If you are interested in having your blog profiled, please send an e-mail to goranurosevic@yahoo.com. The e-mail should include 1) an introduction or description of your blog, 2) a few words about yourself and 3) some discussion on how/why you started chess blogging.

He'll publish anything he receives over the next 5 days or so.

Go West, young man

The Chess Drum recently published a post about Kimani Stancil's chess and professional exploits in the Bay area. Kimani was a frequent player at the Boylston Chess Club when he lived in the Boston area.

Kimani Stancil (left) at the 2004 Herb Healy Open

USCF Executive Board to ask Truong to resign

• New York Times article

• Some additional information at ChessUSA

It seems that the time is fast approaching when it will be appropriate to write the epitaph on the Polgar era of the USCF. Let me suggest a few lines from this little ditty by The Who:

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that' all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war....

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss....

We don't get fooled again

UPDATE (1/16) - Susan Polgar responds to the New York Times article:

This is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. Answers and evidence were submitted to the USCF attorney. I was on the phone with the USCF attorney for a considerable length of time to discuss this matter and to answer his questions. If additional information was needed, we should have been asked. No one asked. I have an email from the USCF attorney confirming that he received the evidence. We were under the impression that everything was fine until last night after the statement has already been submitted to the NY Times....

Ratings Improvement in the last year

2007 was a good year for many BCC members and players who improved their chess. Congratulations on your hard work.

I compared their current ratings with those of a year ago and found many people improved by hundreds or scores of points.

But Sean Ingham tops the list. He started out at 595 and is now 1569. Michael de la Maza, how do you like them apples?

Sean Ingham

Adam Yedidia

Seth Lieberman

Jimmy Wang

Benedict Smail

Lname	Fname	change	rating-1/08	rating-2/07
Ingham	Sean	974	1569	595
Yedidia	Adam	549	1384	835
Lieberman	Seth	548	1521	973
Wang	Jimmy W	477	1666	1189
Smail	Benedict	419	1686	1267
Liou	Carter Lee	391	575	184
Arun	Siddharth	367	1299	932
Miller	Jake Samuel	363	1687	1324
Sahakian	Mateos G	358	1202	844
Angermeier	Danny	336	1318	982
Smith	Benjamin H	320	1846	1526
DiNosse	Anthony D	311	1130	819
Lin	Benjamin	309	579	270
Bisson	Franz M	307	1516	1209
Friedlander	Henry	307	647	340
Chen	Laurie	280	925	645
Ghosh	Arnav	279	1056	777
Pellows	Bennet	270	2146	1876
Moon	Kyle	263	1534	1271
Neogy	Chirantan	262	959	697
Shih	Alex	262	762	500
Nair	Ashvin	250	1677	1427
Xu	Winber	238	1741	1503
Yao	Jeffrey	235	1498	1263
Chen	Jifeng	221	1708	1487
Swafford	Clayton	213	1903	1690
Lung	Christine	207	1163	956
Scali	Anthony	205	1319	1114
Palnati	Varun P	200	1199	999
Zhu	Larry	192	1551	1359
Heller	Jake	191	763	572
Brattain	Mika	190	1704	1514
Wiegand	Max	176	1303	1127
Raphael	Michael	174	1704	1530
Hu	Alexander J	167	1730	1563
Lunetta	Richard A II	160	1621	1461
Veksler	Aleksander	158	1805	1647
Levine	Jeffrey	157	1918	1761
Buxamusa	Yusuf	155	285	130
Ma	Kevin	153	1950	1797
Wang	Andrew	152	2024	1872
Hall	Jeffrey S	144	1635	1491
Altschuler	Jason	143	2015	1872
Zhang	Sabrina	143	1095	952
Ter-Ovanesyan	David	141	1456	1315
Wuorio	Jim	141	1101	960
Fedunov	Danil	139	1918	1779
Lung	James	135	1889	1754
Ding	Andrew F	135	1489	1354
Kaden	Gregory	132	2132	2000
Plotkin	Nicholas	127	1126	999
Zhang	Nicholas	125	1452	1327
Chen	Eric	123	884	761
Wang	Michael Li	119	1423	1304
Lee	Matthew R	119	1064	945
Dellecese	R.J.	118	1745	1627
Jaleel	Zaroug	115	1889	1774
Zaroug	Jaleel	115	1889	1774
Trieu	Nicholas	113	1512	1399
Saidel-Goley	Isaac	112	2069	1957
Yuksekkaya	Seyhmus	107	1314	1207
Lin	Embert	106	1739	1633
Kwong	Robert	106	1430	1324
Robinson	Andrew	105	1126	1021
Chen	Michelle	102	1697	1595
Smith	Nathan	100	2001	1901
Garbarino	Jake R	100	1940	1840
Yasinovsky	David	99	1784	1685
Yang	Felix	97	1817	1720
Shiva	Vikas	97	1717	1620
Fischler	Matthew R	95	2063	1968
Theil	Carey M.	91	2109	2018
Lee	Joshua C.	90	1784	1694
Lung	Timothy	89	1527	1438
Kim	Michael	84	1080	996
Buxamusa	Mustsafa	83	1616	1533
Jiang	Fangru	83	1601	1518
Njugana	Nicodemus	82	964	882
Finney	Stuart	82	1998	1916
Massimo	Richard	82	1689	1607
Foye	Edward	78	1654	1576
Ding	Darwin	76	1619	1543
Williams	NM Christopher	73	2278	2205
Kwong	Eric	71	1488	1417
Vadlamudi	Sandeep	70	863	793
Point	Gary	65	2020	1955
Han	Richard	57	1330	1273
Fletcher	Adam W	56	1610	1554
Petrella	Michael S	54	1849	1795
Jaillet	James	53	1061	1008
Rozhansky	Lior	52	1861	1809
Goldberg	Benjamin	50	2111	2061
Huang	Winston	50	1866	1816
Caplan	Scott	47	1958	1911
Nicholas	Jesse	47	1710	1663
Sun	Alexander	46	1280	1234
Neel	Seth	45	1897	1852
Turcotte	M. Jon	45	1199	1154
Neogy	Rupayan	43	797	754
Vigorito	IM David E	43	2467	2424
Prilleltensky	Malan	40	2096	2056
Lafferty	Edward	40	1307	1267

The Latest in Chess Fashion

Hat Tip: Peão Dobrado

Want to win more local tournaments? Move!

According to this list posted on the Lansing Chess Club blog, I would be the 33rd strongest active tournament player in the state of Michigan, if I lived there. Obviously, I'm nowhere close to this rank in Massachusetts.

This got me thinking about where I would need to move to in order to be in the top 5 or 10 rated players. Wyoming, maybe? Idaho? West Virginia? Montana? New Mexico? North Dakota? Alaska?

Is there any state where a marginal Expert/A-player would be a strong contender for the State Championship?