Chess Room Newsletter #371 | Mechanics' Institute

You are here

Chess Room Newsletter #371

Gens Una Sumus!

Newsletter #371, 11/19/2007
"The ‘great game’ of chess is primarily psychological, a conflict between one trained intelligence and another, and not a mere collection of small mathematical theorems."
~G. H. Hardy – A Mathematician’s Apology
1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News
2) Perelshteyn Leads Spice Tournament
3) US Championship News
4) US Olumpiad Qualification Regulations
5) International News
6) Rediscovered Pillsbury Games
1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News
Experts Jules Jelinek and Nicholas Nip defeated Masters Sam Shankland and Igor Margulis to emerge with the only perfect scores after four rounds of competition. This win puts the 9-year-old Nip's rating at around 2130 in his quest to become the youngest ever USCF rated master . He has about 6 months left to gain another 70 rating points.

MI members IMs David Pruess and Josh Friedel have 3 from 4 in a big open in Bad Wiessee, Germany. Top seed Alex Shabalov has 3.5.

Sam Shankland, Daniel Naroditsky and Louiza Livschitz fly to Antalya, Turkey, on Thursday for the World Youth Championships.

This Saturday the MI will be hosting the 7th Annual Pierre Saint-Amant- honoring the great player who served as French Consul in San Francisco during the Gold Rush.
2) Perelshteyn leads Spice tournament
Spice Cup 2007 (November 9-16) Lubbock, Texas

Standings after 6 rounds ( average rating 2527)

1.GM Eugene Perelshteyn 2536 USA 4.5
2-5. GM Julio Becerra 2568 USA, GM Imre Hera 2544 Hungary, GM Kamil Miton 2628 POL and GM Gilberto Hernandez 2536 Mexico 3.5
6.IM Manuel Leon Hoyos 2495 Mexico 3
7-8. IM Irina Krush 2475 USA and IM Dmitry Schneider 2502 USA 2.5
9. GM Boris Gulko 2571 USA 2
10. IM Blas Lugo 2411 USA 1.5

Go to www.monroi.com for live coverage
3) US Championship News
The USCF is proud to announce the 2008 Frank K. Berry U. S. Championship andthe 2008 Frank K. Berry U. S. Women's Championship. These events will beheld simultaneously on May 13th - 21st in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On the weekendfollowing the initial event (Memorial Day Weekend), the two top finishers fromeach event will square off in a championship match finale in Stillwater,Oklahoma.

The US Championship Qualifier Open will be held on March 28th - 30th inTulsa, Oklahoma. This tournament will have several qualifying positions intothe Championship. More details will follow soon on all of the events.

The 2008 FKB US Championship and Women's Championship Organizing Committeeconsists of Frank Berry, Jim Berry, and Tom Braunlich. Special thanks toFrank Berry as the primary sponsor of the event. More details forthcoming.
4) US Olympiad Qualification Regulations
The following rules are presently in effect.

USCF REVISES OLYMPIAD QUALIFICATION RULES

The USCF Executive Board approved the following changes to Olympiad qualification rules at its November 5-6, 2006 meeting. The first paragraph applies to other invitational events as well, and is unchanged except for the revision date.

USCF INVITATIONAL EVENT REQUIREMENTS - (revised November 2005)

The following are the general requirements for USCF national and internationalinvitations. Contact the USCF office for more details. Whenever possible, invitationsshall be issued several months prior to the scheduled beginning of the event. Eligibility for USCF invitations shall be based on several factors including: rating, age (if applicable), activity, and residency. Players must be USCF members in good standing at the time of invitation. Reasonable efforts shall be made to accommodate players with expired memberships who would otherwise qualify for USCF invitations.

RATING
Players shall be ranked by invitational rating, calculated as follows:

3. FIDE Olympiad and FIDE Women’s Olympiad:

For all except one team member, the following method shall be used: Average of the 1) current published USCF rating at time of invitation; 2) current published FIDE rating at time of invitation; 3) average of peak published USCF rating and peak published FIDE rating, both going back 24 months from time of invitation.
After invitational ratings have been calculated for the highest rated players for all but one spot on the team, the following method shall be used to determine the final spot: Average of the 1) current published USCF rating at time of invitation; 2) current published FIDE rating at time of invitation. To this number shall be added the following adjustment points based on the player’s age as of January 1 of the Olympiad year: 5 points for age 25, 10 points age 24, 15 points age 23, 20 points age 22, 25 points age 21, 30 points age20, 35 points age 19, 40 points age 18, 50 points age 17, 60 points age 16 or below.

NOTE: For the 2006 Olympiad only, instead of using published USCF ratings as part of each formula, the latest ratings at uschess.org/msa as of March 17, 2006 shall be used. If any contending players have games played but not yet rated as of that date, they should notify the USCF office of these results by March 22, and the office will adjust the March 17 MSA ratings for invitational purposes based on these games.

BOARD ORDER
Board order for the teams shall be determined by the team captain.

QUALIFICATION OF US CHAMPIONS
Automatic qualification of the U.S. Champions is currently not in effect, but the issue will be reviewed after we have a decision on the date and format of the 2006 U.S. Championship.

ACTIVITY REQUIREMENT
In the 12 months prior to computation of invitational rating, players must have completed at least one FIDE-rated or USCF Grand Prix tournament of 6 or more rounds in the United States. Half point byes are permissible so long as 6 games are actually played, or are unplayed wins. Tournaments rated only by the USCF’s Quick Chess rating system do not count toward the activity requirement. For the 2006 Olympiad only, a FIDE-rated or Grand Prix tournament of 5 or more roundsis acceptable.

ACTIVITY POINTS
During the 12 month period prior to the computation of invitational rating, players should have played at least 30 games against opponents rated 2200 or above (2100 or above for the Women’s Olympiad) in FIDE-rated or USCF Grand Prix events. Foreign tournaments are acceptable. For opponents with no established USCF rating, those with a FIDE rating of 2100 or above (2000 or above for the Women’s Olympiad) are counted. Tournaments rated only by the USCF’s Quick Chess rating system do not count. Unplayed games do not count.
Players who complete all games in the US Open without taking byes are guaranteed a minimum of 6 credits. While unplayed wins are not credited, they are adequate toward having completed the tournament.
Players who do not play sufficient games will have one invitational rating point deducted for each game by which they are short of 30 games.
For the 2006 Olympiad only, the standard shall be 20 games rather than 30. Oneinvitational rating point shall be deducted for each game by which the player is short of 20 games.
5) International News
The second Mikhail Tal Memorial Tournament is being held in Moscow from November 9 to 23, 2007 at the historic Moscow Central Chess Club, which now has a zippier name: "The Central House of Chessplayers, named after Botvinnik". This year the chess festival consists of three major contests: a round-robin classical Category 20 chess tournament, the World Blitz Championship, and an "Advanced Chess" match between Vishi Anand and Vladimir Kramnik – all taking place within the framework of the Memorial. The full line-up for the main tournament is as follows:

1.

You can browse through our archived newsletters using the "next" and "previous buttons".

Want to save this newsletter for reading at a later time? Click here to learn how.

Want to be notified when the next newsletter is published? Join Our Email List →