The numbers game

The Chicago Chess Blog, having learned of it elsewhere, reports new functionality at USCF's website.  If you've ever wondered exactly where you or anyone else falls in the sea of active players, you can now find out.  Most of us will have quite some work to do to dislodge Hikaru Nakamura and Gata Kamsky from the #1 and #2 spots, but in any case, a player's ordinal ranking and percentile is now available (including separately among juniors, for younger folks). For ordinal ranking, "(T)" presumably indicates Tie, not Tyrannosaurus (that would be from the dinosaur rating website).

Look yourself up and knock yourself out:
http://www.uschess.org/datapage/player-search.php

IM Marc Esserman loses to a girl

Mar 19, 2011
Boylston Chess Club

Between rounds at the recent $10 Open, IM Marc Esserman entertained the youths with some quick matches: 10 minutes versus 12 seconds with a digital clock -- no delay.

Sabrina Zhang won one when Marc's flag dropped and she got him to sign the surrender document before she and Michelle started texting the news - (to Jenifer Shahade?)

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$10 Open

On Sat, March 19 the $10 Open at the Boylston drew 44 players. 27 used the PayPal option to register, so they paid only $8 for a full four round day of chess.

FM Jacob Chudnovsky

and NM Avraam Pismennyy


shared the top honors in the Open Section (n=21)with 3.5 of 4.

In the U1800 group (n=23) Wallace Hannum won with 4.0.


Nicholas Zhang, David Martin, and Andy Li shared the second place prize.

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Register to vote in USCF elections

I would like to echo the sentiment from this earlier post. There seems to be a very low number of people who have registered to vote in the USCF election, and the deadline to do so is the end of this month (that's like, one week left, you know).

http://goddesschess.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-chess-federation-hijinks-as-per.html suggests (among other things  ;-)  ) that many people may not know about this registration deadline because they no longer get Chess Life magazine, which used to come with paper ballots as a wraparound cover. I do still get the magazine, and I think a recent issue may have come with a wraparound registration reminder, but if it did, I took the wraparound portion off and recycled it. I keep the magazine, which has had some very nice content of late (Larry Evans and Jack Peters material come to mind). In any case, I registered some time back.

USCF's website allows you to see whether a person is registered, so just like the Romper Room host I could sit here and call out names with my Magic Mirror, but let's just say I know some folks in our club, which is but a tiny portion of the USCF membership, hadn't registered to vote when I last checked.

If you don't get Chess Life and don't check the USCF website, you also might not know that USCF is running a sale now on shopworn chess books, at least some of which are pretty good (but brace yourself for clicking a listed title only to be told it's out of stock).  So now that you have a reason to go to their website, register to vote while you're there!

:-)

You can register at https://secure2.uschess.org/voter-registration.php.

Grand Prix #3 this Saturday

Want to play chess for cheap? Thought that even last week's $10 Open was too pricey? Why not play in our Grand Prix tournament this Saturday? Only $7.00 for members and $10 for non-members, this is one of the least expensive ways to get competitive, rated chess games, anywhere.

Remember, the scores are accumulating over 12 Grand Prixs this year, so play early and play often! Modest prizes will be given to the top U2400, U2200, U2000, U1800, U1600, U1400, and U1200 player. These prizes will be equal in value.

One note of clarification-- these are UNDER categories, so you can win in a higher, but not a lower category. However, if you play in the Under 1800 section of the tournament, the highest category you can win is U1800. If you switch around and play in both the Open and the U1800, your total score in all sections will count for the U1800 prizes; however, the games played in the U1800 section only count towards the Under 1800 prize. While the emphasis of these events is on playing cheaply for fun, hopefully this clarification will help normalize the outcome for those who are racking up huge scores in the U1800 section only.

Your category is determined by the rating of your first grand prix entry.

Boston Bar Association Chess Night

photos: Eric Fullerton – Boston Bar Association

Natasha Christiansen sent us some photos from the

1st annual Boston Bar Association Chess Night.

She helped David Goldstone organize a night of chess for Boston attorneys.

At the BBA's First Annual Chess Night,
more than 40 guests of all skills levels met
at 16 Beacon Street to test their skills and enjoy collegiality.

Players of all skill levels had a chance to play.

Many of the games were competitive -- all in good fun, of course.

Event organizer David Goldstone (Goodwin Procter) thanked the crowd
and looked forward to making Chess Night an annual event.

With the quad format, players also had a chance to get to know one another.

Concentration is key to making the right move.

Master lecture: GM-elect Sam Shankland - Mar 16

GM-elect Sam Shankland spoke with an appreciative audience of 19 chess players about reaction to adverse situations.



He worked through two games - one in which he faltered after making mistakes, and the second, against GM Jaan Ehlvest, one of the top players in the world, in which he dug in and redoubled his efforts to find a win. Both were fascinating examples of the importance of maturity and psychological toughness in high level games. If one faces a setup back, and then can overcome the disappointment and self-anger, it is often possible to save a point.




His analysis was fluid and creative and he engaged the audience very naturally to find candidate plans and defenses, if not the complete calculations -- which he himself in long thinks over the board did "to the end of the game" from various middle game positions.






After the talk, he played 6 people (including the host and organizer, BCC president Jason Rihel) in a game/20 simul. Past presidents Vigorito and McIntyre enjoyed the talk also.

Rihel said...

For the record, Sam went 5.5 out of 6. Max Lu took a draw after Sam made an early pawn blunder. Max probably should have played for a win, but getting a draw was probably too tempting.

I was crushed in a miniature.

March 17, 2011 4:59 PM

Reminder-- GM elect Sam Shankland at Boylston on Wednesday!

The Boylston Chess Club Presents

The 2011 Master Lecture Series


Wednesday, March 16, 7 pm

GM-elect SAM SHANKLAND

on

“Overcoming Adversity on the Chessboard

International Master (and Grandmaster-elect) Sam Shankland is the current Junior Champion and one of the top young players in the United States.

His chess career took off when he tied for first in the World Under-18 Championships in Vietnam.

Last fall on Board 1, he led the hometown England Nor’easters to the 2010 United States Chess League Championship.

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He will lecture on how to fight back from worse positions.

A simultaneous exhibition will promptly follow the lecture.

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WHERE: Boylston Chess Club, 240 Elm St. Room B9, Somerville (Davis Sq)


ADMISSION:

• Lecture: FREE for Boylston members, $10.00 for non-members


• Simul: $5.00 for members, $10.00 for non-members.

Grand Prix Standings

Here are the standings in the BCF Grand Prix after Jan and Feb tournaments:

$10 Open --- Sat., March 19

$10 Open

Entry fee:

How much is the entry fee for the $10 Open?
I know this sounds like a setup for a joke, but, it depends:

• If you pay with ten dollar gold coins from the 19th or early 20th century,

it costs about $300,000 - $500,000.

• $8 by 3/17 if paid by PayPal:

http://www.masschess.org/asp/DOFE /DOFE_Payment_PayPal.asp?Payment_Event_ID=3039

• $10 if received by 3/18;

• $17 to Boylston Chess Foundation members on site on Sat on March 19
  

• all others $27, on site on Sat on March 19
  

When

• Sat, March 19, 9am – 5pm

Where

• Boylston Chess Club (map)

Description

• 2 Sections: Open and Under 1800 (at least 6 in each section, otherwise there will be one section)
  
• 4 Rounds (Swiss System Pairings)
  
• Time Control: 60 minutes for the entire game
  
• Prizes based on entries
  
• Registration 9:15 – 9:55 AM
  
• Rounds: 10, 12:40, 3:00, 5:10

NM Christopher Gu

Congratulations to Christopher Gu, who moved to 2209 after the Eastern Class in Sturbridge, thus attaining the National Master title.

Christopher lives in Rhode Island and recently joined the Boylston club.

Post hoc, propter hoc? I'm just saying....

March Quads

Twenty players played in the Boylston Quads for March, including a visiting expeditionary force from MIT, who took two of the quads. As usual, the tournament was ably TDd by Bernardo Iglesias.

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Daniel Grazian of MIT (club president I think) split the first group with Emmanuel Mevs.

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Club president Jason Rihel took his group.

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Eric Emer of MIT won with 3 of 3.

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Mateos Sahakian swept his group also.

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Andy Li had a good day as well.

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