Thursday, January 31, 2008

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



Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Tom Brady isn't the only star swamped by fans

Aftenposten Nettutgaven

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.)

Monday, January 28, 2008

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.

Friday, January 25, 2008

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.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Monday, January 21, 2008

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....

Friday, January 18, 2008

Symmetry

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

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

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

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

USCF Executive Board to ask Truong to resign

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....

Sunday, January 13, 2008

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

Thursday, January 10, 2008

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?

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

My nominations for next year's judges

While I'm more than happy to continue to stay on the sidelines and let others slog it out over the Kenyan election results, errr... I mean the USCL Blogger of the Year contest, there's no reason not to repost some of the complimentary comments others have made about our coverage here at BCC Weblog:

"I don't agree that BCC is any poorer simply for not having video. The written word is still the most supple medium of communication, and DG wields it well. His coverage and analyses were superb." - Tom Panelas

"I thought BCC was excellent too, and I may have picked them over Liz..." - Braden Bournival

"The BCC blog didn't make the final. I think it should have." - Matt Phelps

Thanks guys.

Sunday, January 06, 2008