#491 Geocities Closing

Later this year Yahoo will close Geocities, which hosts my Checkmate Chess Club & Garden State Chess League sites.

So... my lame designs are in need of a new, preferably free, home. Any suggestions or recommendations?

#490 Correction To Post #475

In #475, I erroneously called Joe Renna's bi-monthly newspaper the Peterstown Press. The correct name is "Around About Peterstown".


Also, instead of publishing his USATE win over Kern, Joe opted to use our 2009 Checkmate Championship game.

#489 More Ellner Games

I have 8 more games from the Ellner Memorial for you - 4 from Round 1 (courtesy of TD Geoff McAuliffe & Fritz 10) & 4 from last week.

Sorry I could only annotate my undeserved win vs. Mike Wojcio. Other games with openings of interest may be addressed at some future point.

1st round : replays PGN
2nd round : replays PGN

Moldovan-Wojcio
after 29.Raf1 -/+

turning point

#488 Last-Round Pairings

Here are the last-round pairings for the KCC's Irving Ellner Memorial :

1. Moldovan (2.0) - Kernighan (2.0)
   
2. Minkov (1.5) - Mangion (1.0)
   
3. Wojcio (1.0) - Tomkovich (1.5)
4. Mann (1.0) -Sturniolo (1.0)
   
5. Shiffman (0.0) - Mazzillo (0.5)
   
6. Renna (0.5) - Balint (0.0)
   

Games are to begin at 8:45 p.m. but paired players may start earlier, at 8:30, if they need or want to.

#487 KCC Calendar Update

The Kenilworth Chess Club Calendar of Events has been updated.

Here is the revised May-early June schedule :

May

5 TUESDAY Garden State match : K. Karpovs at West Orange, 8 pm
6 WEDNESDAY Garden State match : K. Kortchnois at Hamilton, 7:30
7 Garden State match : Maplewood vs. Staten Island, 8:15 p.m.
Quiet skittles for those not playing in the match.
14 Meeting to consider becoming a 501c7 Not-For-Profit Organization
21 Non-league mega-match between the Karpovs & Kortchnois
G/60. No board or rating limit. All KCC members can play.
28 To be announced. Suggestions welcome.

June

4 Garden State match : Hamilton at K. Karpovs, 8:15 p.m.

The Summit-K. Kortchnois match is officially slated for 6/2 in West Orange but I hope it can also be played on the 4th.

#486 Tonight's Pairings

The Ellner Memorial pairings for tonight are :

1. Kernighan - Mangion
2. Tomkovich - Minkov
3. Moldovan - Wojcio
4. Shiffman - Mann
5. Mazzillo - Renna
6. Balint - Sturniolo

The round starts at 8:30 p.m.

#485 Checkmate KO Tourney Starts 5/10

The Checkmate Chess Club in Springfield will run a Knock-Out Tournament starting May 10th. Details here.

#484 Ellner Memorial - Round 1

NM Mark Kernighan, Ari Minkov, Ian Mangion, Greg Tomkovich, Mike Wojcio & I won the opening round games at the 2nd Irving Ellner Memorial Swiss in Kenilworth.

A java-replay page & a zipped PGN file with full annotations to Mark's win over Ted Mann & my victory vs. Lou Sturniolo have been uploaded. More scores will likely follow.

Sturniolo-Moldovan

after 33.Qxd5

Black to win

#483 Revised GSCL Annotations

I have tweeked the notes  to my Garden State League games & posted the full score of last week's Agress-Bliznikas. See posts #472 & 479 for the replay & PGN links.

#482 USATE Annotations

Annotations to my 2009 USATE games have been posted.

Java-replay   PGN

#481 STC Open

One of my USATE teammates, Arunas Simonaitis (aka knightrunner), tied for 16th place in the recently concluded STC Open on ICC. 

Here are the round by round links to his games, which featured 2 Philidors (rounds 2 & 5), a Grand Prix Sicilian, a Pirc & a KI Attack :

• replays - 2  4  5  6  7.
  
• PGN - 2  4  5  6  7.

#480 Kortchnois Edge West Orange 2.5-1.5

On Tuesday night, the Kenilworth Kortchnois got wins from Yaacov Norowitz & Ari Minkov plus a draw by Bill Sokolosky to beat West Orange 2.5-1.5.

The Kortchnois next Garden State Chess League match will be against Hamilton.

more GSCL news :

4/11

• replay & PGN from the W. Orange match uploaded (1 game)
  
• Ed Selling reports Staten Island-Summit was drawn (see comments)

4/13

• Marty Sobin reports : Hamilton 3 Sparta 1
  

#479 Karpovs Beat Maplewood 3-1

Don Carrelli & Ziggy Bliznikas won on boards 3 & 4 to lead the Kenilworth Karpovs to a 3-1 Garden State Chess League victory over Maplewood last night.

Mike Patrucker (who should've beaten Ian Mangion) & I had draws for the losing club.

Here are 3 full games from the match (including the fully annotated Moldovan-Massey) + 1 partial score in java-replay & PGN.

The Karpovs' next opponent will be West Orange (5/5).

#478 GSCL Match Tonight

The Kenilworth Karpovs go for their 2nd straight Garden State Chess League win tonight when they play host to Maplewood at 8:30 p.m.

The visitors narrowly lost to Kenilworth's other entry last month but face a much tougher task this time around as the bottom half of their lineup will be out-rated by 1102 points, instead of 193!

The board by board pairings :

1. Moldovan (M, 1800) - Massey (K, 2209)
2. Mangion (K, 1839) - Patrucker (M, 1717)
3. Agress (M, 1134) - Bliznikas (K, 1819)
4. Carrelli (K, 1715) - Cole (M, 1105)
   

#477 Quads Wrap-Up

To close out my coverage of the recent Kenilworth Quads, here are 7 more games from the event in java-replay & PGN. Thanks to TD Geoff McAuliffe for annotating 5 of them.

#476 Ellner Memorial Swiss

2nd Irving Ellner Memorial Swiss

Dates : April 16th, April 23rd, April 30th

Site : Kenilworth Chess Club

Format : USCF-rated, 3/SS
Time Control : G/45

Rounds : 8:40 p.m. on 4/16, 8:30 p.m. on 4/23 & 4/30

Entry Fee : $10

Prizes : Cash; based on the number of entries... 80% of entry fees returned

For example, if there are 8 players, there would be a $64 prize fund with 1st place getting $29, 2nd place $15, 3rd place $10, U1800 $5, U1500 $5.

Register : 4/2 & 4/9 from 8:15-10:00 p.m. (or later), 4/16 from 8:15 to 8:30 p.m.

Late entries accepted until the 2nd round is paired (0 pt. bye awarded for round 1)