Chess Room Newsletter #471

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1) Mechanics Institute Chess Club News
2) Hikaru Nakamura wins BN Bank Blitz
3) Sam Shankland and Jesse Kraai tie for first in Northern California State Championship
4) Here and There

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Top seed NM Michael Pearson defeated tournament leader NM Oleg Shaknazarov and San Francisco high school student Evan Sandberg beat fellow Expert Romy Fuentes to turn the Fall Tuesday Night Marathon standings upside down last night. Pearson and Sandberg now lead with 6 from 7 with two rounds to go. Right behind them at 5.5 are NM Shakhnazarov, NM Andy Lee and Expert Igor Traub.

Arthur Ismakov continued his history of strong performances in the Mechanics' Wednesday Night Blitz series by scoring 8 from 8 to take top honors on November 25. Fellow Experts George Sanguinetti and Joe Urquhart were second and third respectively, with 5 and 4 points.

GM Vinay Bhat turned in a fine result at the Trofeo Iberostar International held in Palma de Mallorca in late November. Ranked number 20 at the start, in a 150 player field with 28 GMs, 26 IMs, and over 60 players rated above 2300 FIDE, Vinay finished equal 5th with an undefeated 6.5 from 9 for a performance rating of 2629. Here is a tense battle from the penultimate round. 1.g3 d5 2.Bg2 Nf6 3.Nf3 Bf5 4.0–0 e6 5.d3 h6 6.Nc3 Be7 7.Nd2 0–0 8.e4 Bh7 9.f4 d4 10.Ne2 c5 11.h3 Nc6 12.Kh1 b5 13.g4 Rc8 14.Nf3 c4 15.Ng3 cxd3 16.cxd3 Nd7 17.a3 a5 18.f5 a4 19.b4 axb3 20.Qxb3 Nc5 21.Qxb5 Na5 22.Bf4 g5 23.Bd2 Nab3 24.Rab1 Nxd2 25.Nxd2 Nxd3 26.f6 Bd6 27.Qxd3 Rc3 28.Qxd4 Rxg3 29.Nf3 Bf4 30.Rfd1 Qa8 31.Re1 Qxa3 32.Ra1 Qb3 33.Rab1 Qa2 34.Rb2 Qa8 35.Rb4 Bg6 36.e5 Rxf3 37.Ra4 Rxh3+ 38.Kg1 Rd3 0–1 Go to http://vbhat.wordpress.com/ to visit Vinay's blog where he discusses his games.

http://blog.chess.com/dpruess/a-beautiful-game2 is the link to a beautiful win in the Muzio Gambit by IM David Pruess over hard to beat Croatian GM Bogdan Lalic. The game was played earlier this fall in France.

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Hikaru Nakamura defeated Magnus Carlsen 3-1 in the final of the BNbank Blitz tournament that took place November 28th and 29th in Oslo, Norway. This event came just after the Tal Memorial Blitz, a mammoth 22-player double round that was won in convincing by Carlsen. One can't help wondering how Hikaru might have done in that event had he been invited. Go to www.hikarunakamura.com/main/Blog.aspx to read Hikaru's take on the BNbank Blitz.

Malcolm Pein is organizing a great event in London that starts in just a few days.

1st London Chess Classic (ENG), 8-16 xii 2009. Cat XIX (2696.25).
1	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2801
2	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2772
3	Nakamura, Hikaru	g	USA	2715
4	Short, Nigel D	g	ENG	2707
5	Adams, Michael	g	ENG	2698
6	Ni, Hua	g	CHN	2665
7	McShane, Luke J	g	ENG	2615
8	Howell, David W L	g	ENG	2597

You can find an interview Hikaru gave to the Pacific Citizen at http://www.pacificcitizen.org/site/details/tabid/55/selectmoduleid/373/ArticleID/417/reftab/36/title/No_Fear_Chess/Default.aspx

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IM Sam Shankland and GM Jesse Kraai shared first at 4.5/6 in the CalChess State Championship, held at a new venue in Santa Clara. Shankland had superior tiebreaks and earned the title for the second year in a row. Still a teenager, "Shanky" now has two adult trophies at home; although in a bit of an irony, he never won the state scholastic championships!

The winners faced stiff competition from IM Ricardo DeGuzman, IM Dmitry Zilberstein and two teenagers: FM Steven Zierk and NM Greg Young. DeGuzman, Zierk and Young tied for third at 4.0/6, with Young claiming top U2300 honors as well. One interesting tidbit: Shankland, Kraai, DeGuzman and Zierk completed a quad amongst themselves, drawing every single game. With a performance over 2600 for his last 12 rated games, Zierk will break 2400 USCF.

The Northern California tournament attracted about 150 players, almost all from the San Francisco Bay Area. Organizer Salman Azhar of BayAreaChess.com paid out 100% of the $8,100 prize fund, even though it was based on 166 paid entries. In a sure sign of the future, at least 60% of the players were kids, including a majority of the prize winners. And here's one unusual sight: a WIM and a FM played *up* in the Expert section!?

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Thanks to IM Anthony Saidy for passing along the fascinating story The Lion and the Tiger by David Edmonds about chess in Armenia. Go to http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/11/the-lion-and-the-tiger/. The article, which was published in Prospect magazine, was the source of this week's quote.

Thanks to the efforts of Mark Turner and Eric Holcomb more of the Washington Chess Letter is available. Go to http://www.nwchess.com/articles/history/WCL/WCL_scans.htm. The 1949 issues have already been added, and the 1950-1952 issues will be added shortly, along with the last three 1948 issues. The WCL, which now goes by the name of Northwest Chess, has been published every month for over 60 years.

Here is a strong candidate for the shortest decisive game played in a US Womens Championship.