U.S. Open decompression

Back from Madison!  I dropped 42 (!) rating points.  There's some rough justice: I'd been playing poorly & somehow gaining ELO.  At the U.S. Open, I played well enough to have a mediocre event: my opponents did not permit me that luxury.

As for real players: NM Sam Schmakel (right in below picture) was still in contention for the national title in the final round, but lost to IM Mackenzie Molner (left) in yesterday's final round. Schmakel, FM Eric Rosen, and NM William Aramil all finished with 7-2 scores, a full point off the 8-1 score posted by IM Molner, GM Julio Sadorra, and GM Joshua Friedel.


MSA crosstable here.

William Aramil at the U.S. Open

It's really not fair to William and his excellent tournament to show this game: he has five wins and two losses to Grandmasters.

Is prosopagnosia related to "amaurosis scacchistica"?

Prosopagnosia (which Keith Ammann taught me how to pronounce) is a fancy word for "face blindness."  This is my third day at the U.S. Open, and it's embarrassing to me to speak to a new friend for ten minutes while desperately trying to remember who that person is.  So when you come to Middleton, Wisconsin, this week to play in the Open (or just to visit), kindly reintroduce yourself as you shake my hand.  It's not you, it's me, and I'll be grateful.

Amaurosis schacchistica is Dr. Tarrasch's tongue-in-cheek term for "chess blindness."  Wikipedia's definition: "the failure of a chess player, during a chess game, to make a normally obvious good move or see a normally obvious danger."  Well, that summarizes my Round 2.  In the position below, I have a clearly winning position, and managed to lose. 

Bill Brock - Mohammedreza Hajiarbabi
White to Play

My good-natured opponent apologetically showed me the move I missed, and a couple others.

But I'm having fun nonetheless. Immediately after drafting this blog entry, International Master John Watson (whose face I recognized!) sat down next to me in the hotel coffeeshop.  We chatted about this position, Daniel Kahneman's Thinking: Fast and Slow, and ways of thinking about chess positions.

Edit: here's the game.

2013 U.S. Open in Madison

114th United States Open

Chess Championship

27 July - August 4, 2013 · Madison, WI

Location:

Madison Marriott West

1313 John Q Hammons Drive

Middleton, WI 53562

Chess Rate:  $99 UNTIL 12 July 2013 THEN regular rates apply!!!

Hurry and book your hotel rooms now!

Entry Fee: $145 Online by Sunday, July 16, 2013,

$147 if mailed by Sunday, July 16, 2013, or

$150 by phone by Sunday, July 16, 2013

Half-Point Byes:

Must commit before Round 4 and MUST be submitted AT LEAST two hours before the round(s) in question.

Limit of one half-point bye in the last two rounds!

          Number of Half-Point Byes Available:

2000/up:                     Up to 3 half-point byes

1400-1999:                  Up to 2 half-point byes

Under 1400/UNR:      Up to 1 half-point bye

Zero point byes are always available in any round if requested at least two hours before the start of the desired round!

Entry Fee:

          Online: $145 by 6/16, $165 by 7/14, $185 after 7/14

By Mail: $147 postmarked by 6/16, $167 postmarked by 7/14, $187 postmarked by 7/21; DO NOT MAIL AFTER 7/21!

By Phone: $150 by 6/16, $170 by 7/14, $185 by 7/26. No phone entries after 7/26 (close of business at the USCF Office!)

                   Enter by Phone: 1-800-903-8723

At Site: $190

GMs are free, please call or mail-in entry.

All Entries must be made at least two hours prior to your first game played.     

Three different schedules for the first six rounds!:

Traditional: 40/2, SD/1 d5. [7/27] - [8/3] One round daily at 7PM then the final round [8/4] at 3PM.

6-day Option: 40/2, SD/1 d5. [7/30] 7PM; [7/31] to [8/2] Two games per day - one at 12 NOON and the second at 7PM.

4-day Option: G/60 d5. [8/1] 12 NOON, 3PM, 7PM, & 10PM; [8/2] at 12 NOON & 3PM.

All schedules MERGE after Round 6 and compete for the same prizes.

Round 7 [All schedules]: [8/2] 7PM.

Round 8 [All schedules]: [8/3] 7PM.

Round 9 [All schedules]: [8/4] 3PM.

Other National Tournaments at the U.S. Open

For More Information: http://uschess.org/tournaments/2013/usopen/

28 July: U.S. Open Scholastic - G/30 d5

31 July - 4 August: The 2013 U.S. Women’s Open - G/90+30 sec

Open to all female members of the U.S. Chess Federation

Side Events at the U.S. Open

27-28 July: U.S. Open Weekend Swiss - G/60 d5

27 July: U.S. Open Bughouse - G/5 d0

29, 30, & 31 July & 1 & 2 August: U.S. Open Quads - G/30 d5

31 July: U.S. Open G/15 Championship - G/15 d5

3 August: U.S. Open Blitz Championship - G/5 d0

All sections have a 5 second delay, except the Blitz and the Bughouse which have no delay and the U.S. Women’s Open is G/90+30 sec.

Notes:

            The July Rating Supplement will be used.

            Current USCF membership through August 2013 required.

            This year’s U.S. Open will not be FIDE rated.

            Bring a clock - none supplied.

            Sets/Boards supplied for tournament, but not for skittles.

For more information or to register: http://main.uschess.org/content/view/10014/95

Questions: 

National Events Assistant, Ashley Knight: aknight@uschess.org or 931-787-1234, ext. 138.

Not a random shot

Albert Chow was already a strong player in 1979 (he won the Class B prize at the U.S. Open), but he was not yet a match for Erik Karklins. Chow counts on the "fork trick" 6.Nxe5 followed by 7.d4 to regain his piece, but Black has a different fork trick in mind.

Hat tip to Frederick Rhine.

Albert and Angelo Sandrin remembered

Angelina, Albert, and Angelo Sandrin, 1968

For those of you who didn't know Albert, here's a nice introduction.

The 1949 U.S. Open was won by the legally blind Albert Sandrin.  His brother Angelo (a longtime expert who finally made it to 2300 after his retirement) also played in that event. On the rare occasions that Albert played (the 1989 U.S. Open in Rosemont comes to mind), Angelo would attentively monitor Albert's game and keep score for him.

Most Chicago players over age 45 or so will remember Angelo from many events at Jules Stein's Chicago Chess Center. Sometime in the mid-1980s, I was rummaging through a used bookstore in Rogers Park and came across the tournament book of the 1949 U.S. Open.  I bought it and gave it to Angelo.  The next time I saw him at Jules's, he surprised me with a bottle of Courvoisier. (Which my then brother-in-law drank in one sitting, but that's another story.)

I really didn't know Albert as well as Angelo. A couple years earlier (circa 1980-81?), I had played Albert once or twice at the ten-minute Tuesday night tournaments organized by Richard Verber at the old No Exit on Lunt. He was completely blind by this time, but could play blitz "by touch" on a standard set and clock, and beat me handily.  And in the aforementioned 1989 U.S. Open, I played on a board adjacent to Albert in an early round.  My opponent (a strong master) and I didn't pay much attention to our middlegame: we sat slack-jawed for half an hour or so as Albert dismantled his opponent's defenses in the style of Alekhine, and even exchanged a "Don't you wish you could play like this?" glance.

NM Frederick Rhine presented games of both Angelo and Albert in this 2011 post.  And Tartajubow (from whom I cribbed a good deal of this post) points us to this nice collection of Albert's games.

The biggest problem with the 2012 U.S. Open

...from my perspective, was that it was a nine-round event, not a five-round event. I began 4½-½ and made it to Board 3 (temporarily nestled between GMs Seirawan and Gurevich) until the young Oregon state champion Steven Breckenridge punctured my bubble. (And while I'm usually happy to publish my losses, no, I'm not sharing that embarrassment: it's on Monroi.).

Photo: Eileen Schmakel

I told Seirawan that the last time I played in a tournament with him, I had hair and he had an Afro. (There's a Lionel Ritchie-esque version of the Yasser-do in Al Lawrence's Chess Life Online article).

Gurevich-Mulyar

From left: USCF Executive Director Bill Hall, GM Dmitry Gurevich, GM Manuel Leon Hoyos, FM John Bryant

Dmitry Gurevich takes down IM Michael Mulyar in the style of Capablanca: classical minimalism.

I congratulated Dmitry not only for his fourth Open win but also for the great result of his student Zhaozhi (George) Li, who tied for second Expert. (In most years, 6½-2½ would be sufficient for the first expert prize, but a 2199-rated player from British Columbia scored 7-2.) I told Dmitry (who, as always, gave all the credit to his student and portrayed his own role as minor) how George (a sixth-grader!) explained move-order subtleties in the 4.e3 Slav to me.  Dmitry replied, "I know, George is already teaching me stuff, too...."

A must-win game

In round 8 (just finishing now), Dmitry Gurevich won with the Classical Sicilian. You can find this and many other games from the U.S. Open on the Monroi website. Tomorrow's final round begins at 3 p.m.: once again, the top boards (and the games of a few fish) will be broadcast live on Monroi.

Equalizing is only the beginnning

NM Sam Schmakel of Whitney Young High School reaches a completely equal middlegame against former US Champion Alexander Shabalov. Sam tries for a little bit more than equality, and gets punished...this time.

U.S. Open, round 7 update

It's been a great weekend for Mexico in the Olympics, so perhaps it's appropriate that GM Manuel Leon Hoyos is leading the U.S. Open with two rounds to go. Nice coverage by Al Lawrence at Chess Life Online.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: you really don't want to defend a drawish endgame against Dmitry Gurevich.

At 6-1, Dmitry needs to pick up half a point in the last two rounds to contend for the qualifying spot in the U.S. Championship.

Travel photos and woodpushing

FM Michael Langer of Austin, Texas (the grandson of Lev Abramov, who captained the Soviet team in the famous USSR vs. World match in Belgrade) drove me to Mount St. Helen's on Tuesday. I was amazed that the devastation wrought by the 1980 eruption is still so evident: a dozen miles away, the remains of entire forests effaced by the eruption indicate the direction of the lateral blast. Closer to the volcano, stumps remain where the rest of the tree was vaporized.

The blast zone, many miles away:
everything in the valley was devastated on May 18, 1980

As bad as 1980 was, the Mount St. Helen's eruption was small potatoes compared to prehistoric volcanic eruptions in the Cascades.  One doesn't want to be around when Crater Lake blows again. (I've always wondered what Strangelovian continuity-of-government plans are in place for the Yellowstone Caldera "event": but we chess players do tend to be paranoid.)

Oh yes, chess.

Sam Schmakel equal third at Denker

Our high school representative, Sam Schmakel of Whitney Young, also did Illinois proud.  The final crosstable is here, and Chess Life Online has a nice feature on the winners of the Denker and the Barber.

Sam has a perfect score in the early rounds of the U.S. Open (six-day schedule), and will be playing "behind the ropes" against GM Alexander Shabalov.  You should be able to follow the action at monroi.com: action begins at noon Pacific, 2 p.m. Chicago time.

Both Sam and Sean Vibbert of Indiana (who also had a great event) came out swinging in the following game from Round 5. As often happens in Golden Gloves, they neutralized each other without doing damage.

Checkmating the queen

On Tuesday night at the U.S. Open, Dmitry Gurevich made it look easy.

Greetings from Vancouver, Washington

Looking west from the I-5 bridge: Columbia River and Mt. Hood

The US Open might as well be in the Loop: I keep running into Dmitry Gurevich and Harold Winston.  Former ICA President Al Losoff (whose Sears Tower office used to be around the corner from mine, and who lived across the street from my brother-in-law before moving to Nevada) is working the event, as is Wayne Clark.

"I've played ...a6 and ...h6, I must be winning..."

Our Illinois representative, NM Sam Schmakel, won his first two games in the Denker Tournament of High School Champions, then lost to #2 seed SM Atulya Shetty of Michigan.  The game is featured on Chess Life Online.  (Denker standings are here.) 

Sixth-grader George Li has an even score in the Barber Tournament of K-8 Champions and is paired against a fellow expert: no easy pairings in either scholastic event!  Barber standings are here.  Thanks to both George and Sam for representing our state so well.

Oh yes, the US Open.  Here are the standings after round two.

I had an excellent adventure last night: almost got mated twenty different ways, fianchettoed my rook, and was offered a draw while I was an Exchange and pawn up.  It didn't take me more than a minute to accept....

Game-30 event at North Shore Chess Center (and blogger travel) tomorrow

Details here.

I won't be there, as I'm flying to Portland tomorrow morning and playing in my first U.S. Open in twenty-three years! (Let's see, I played in the 1974 Canadian Open (11 rounds, Montréal, Place Bonaventure), the 1979 U.S. Open (12 rounds, Chicago, Palmer House), and the 1989 U.S. Open (9 rounds, Rosemont, O'Hare Expo Center). So this is only the fourth one-game-per-day event I've played in 45 years of tournament chess.

 The host city is Vancouver, WA, within striking distance of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helen's, Multomnah Falls and the Columbia River Gorge, Powell's City of Books, and the dream of the 90s....


And yeah, I know I'm staying at a Hilton in the burbs, with the I-5 bridge between the chess players and Portlandia....

2012 U.S. Open Championship in Vancouver, Washington

The 9-round event happens August 4-12; if you can't afford that much time off work, shorter schedules are available.  Vancouver, Washington, is a suburb of Portland, Oregon.

Info here!

Brilliant win by Dmitry Gurevich

If you play either side of the Catalan, you should pay attention to this game!  The main line of the Open Catalan begins with 7.Qc2.  Black's reply 7...b5!? has been played before, but it's been considered an unimportant sideline.  In almost every previous game, Black met 8.a4 with 8...c6, with less-than-satisfactory results.

As Eric Rosen explained to me a couple weeks ago, Alexander Shabalov revived 7...b5!? against Sam Shankland in this year's U.S. Championship.  Shabalov's primary contribution seems to be the realization that after 8.a4, the critical move is 8...b4!

Dmitry is Eric's teacher, so I suspect the two of them have been working on this line together.  The engines tell me that in yesterday's game against six-time Dutch champion Loek Van Wely, Gurevich was better after 14 moves and simply winning after 16...Bf6!  Dmitry finished the game in style with a bishop sac and a rook sac. Impressive preparation and play against a super GM!

Know your rook endings

There are two rook plus pawn vs. rook positions that every player should understand: the Philidor position and the Lucena position.

You will sometimes get positions very close to either the Philidor or the Lucena: in many (most?) cases, your job is to try to convert to the Philidor (as defender) or Lucena (as attacker).

In round one of the U.S. Open, Sevan Muradian handled the ending much better than his young opponent, but made one slip that could have thrown away the upset win. Very nice game!

Eric Rosen knocks off his first grandmaster

Fedorowicz-Rosen

Black to play and win

Eric Rosen, a 15-year-old student at Niles North High School, had an OK summer as a chess player.  He won the U.S. Junior Open, earned the National Master title, and beat his first Grandmaster in the final round of the 2009 U.S. Open.

GM John Fedorowicz introduced a risky-looking but basically sound opening novelty, which Eric managed to neutralize.  Even GMs can make mistakes: in the above position, Fedorowicz has just played his king from d2 to c3.  White would have been perfectly OK after 16.Kd2-c1!, but Black could have forced a draw.  (For full analysis of this game, see the September Illinois Chess Bulletin.)

But after 16.Kd2-c3??, Black has a quick kill.  Can you find it?