#814 Ellner Memorial - Round 1

NM Ken Chieu, Ian Mangion and I lead after 1 round of the KCC's Irving Ellner Memorial Swiss.

Lou Sturniolo, coming off a draw against IM Dean Ippolito, nicked NM Mark Kernighan for a half-point.

Late-entries will be accepted until the start of round 2, provided it leaves with an even number of players. Fill-ins may also be permitted.

4^th Irving Ellner Memorial

Kenilworth, NJ

April 14-28, 2011

3-SS, G/45

No.	Player	USCF	R1	R2	R3	Points
1	Mark Kernighan	2234	D5			0.5
2	Ken Chieu	2194	W6			1.0
3	Ian Mangion	1971	W7			1.0
4	John Moldovan	1811	W8			1.0
5	Lou Sturniolo	1512	D1			0.5
6	Bert Shiffman	1336	L2			0.0
7	Pat Mazzillo	1242	L3			0.0
8	Joe Renna	1196	L4			0.0

Games and 2nd round pairings will follow.

#813 KCC Crew Shines In Ippolito Simul

Members of the Kenilworth Chess Club scored +1-1=5 at IM Dean Ippolito's April 9th simul.

Lou Sturniolo, who notched a draw, reports:

  

There were 91 official entrants. Some opponents, such as family members, did not count for World Record purposes. I think at least 25 players were class A or above. Four were masters.

Despite problems with the Kenilworth contingent (detailed below), Dean beat his share of high rated opponents and had a pretty tactical win over Matthew O’Brien, who is rated about 2130. In the end, he had  67 wins, 4 losses, and 20 draws. That is an 84.6% winning percentage.

The fearsome Kenilworth contingent included Steve Stoyko, Ken Chieu,  Kevin Chen, Ari Minkov, Joe Renna, Max Sherer, and yours truly. Steve handed Ippolito his first simul loss in well over 10 years and 10,000 games and the exhibition was stopped momentarily while the significant victory was announced to the crowd, who responded with rousing applause for both players.

Ken, Max, Kevin, Ari, and I drew. Joe Renna lost after a very tough fight, his game going about 9 hours. So Kenilworth's 7 players (7.7% of the official participants) hit .500 (25% of the IM's losses and draws). while all others batted just .125!

Here is Dean's win over Renna, in java-replay and PGN, which I was asked to annotate for the Around About Peterstown newspaper.

#812 No Virus Or Gremlins

Every upload to my chesscoroner folder has been checked. There are no viruses, spyware, pop-ups or other crap in them.

#811 Ellner Memorial Starts Thursday

4th Irving Ellner Memorial Swiss

Dates : April 14th, 21st, 28th
Site : Kenilworth Chess Club

Format : USCF-rated, 3/SS

Time Control : G/45

Rounds : 8:35 p.m. on 4/14, 8:30 p.m. on 4/21 and 4/28
Entry Fee : $10

Prizes : 80% of entry fees, as determined by the TD (Geoff McAuliffe) and Club President


Register : At site on 4/14 from 8:00-8:30 p.m.

#810 Virus?

A reader has informed me that this blog seems "to be infected with a virus. Every time I visit"... "my anti-virus software gives me a warning. I tried it several times, even just going to the site and leaving (no java replay, no download of pgn) results in an attempted attack."

I removed the Geo-Counter and clock from my sidebar, one of which was causing pop-up ads, but he's still getting the alert.

You may recall I got similar warnings about the Westfield CC site last year.

#809 CZE-USA Update

It's still 1-0 for the Czechs and my foe is still moving at a snail's pace. I hope things pick-up when the clocks start next Saturday on Thursday evening.

IMO, the free time is unnecessary and the 50 days for 10 moves control is excessive. 30 for 10 would be more than enough.

Svitil-Moldovan

E12 Queen's Indian Defense
1.d4 e6 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nf3 b6 4.Bg5 h6

Moldovan-Svitil

D30 Queen's Gambit

1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.cxd5

Crosstable

PGN of all the games

#808 Ippolito To Attempt Record Simul

From the DOCA...

Dear Chess Players,

On Saturday April 9, 2011, International Master Dean Ippolito will attempt to break the Guinness World Book of Records for Simultaneous Games of Chess, by playing 136 players rated 1200 and up. You are invited to participate in this unique, historic, free event. Here are the details:

• Play will begin at 10 p.m., at the Saint Ann School in Raritan, NJ.
• Opponents must have an established USCF or FIDE rating of 1200 1000 or higher on the April 2011 supplement. Provisional ratings cannot be accepted.
• Drawings for terrific prizes will be held throughout the day.
• Prizes will be given to anyone who beats or draws Dean.
• A concession stand will be available all day with the proceeds benefiting the Sgt. Basilone Knights of Columbus and Columbiette service organizations.
• Register at www.chessworldrecord.com

Thank you for your time. We hope to see you on April 9th!

Sincerely,
Dean Of Chess Academy Staff
908-534-4318
www.deanofchess.com

IM Ippolito told me he will even play NMs.

#807 Garden State Game

At yesterday's Garden State League match at Branchburg, I defeated Marvin Shumowitz but Summit could only muster a 2-2 draw against the DOCA Knights.

Here's my game:

Moldovan 1811 - Shumowitz 1994

D35 Queen's Gambit

Exchange Variation

Want notes? A deeply annotated version of the above, with 15 quoted games (count 'em) and a pair of TNs, has been uploaded in PGN & Java-replay.

#806 Czech Republic Leads USA 1-0

The Czech Republic drew first blood in the correspondence match with the U.S. by winning on board 18 in just 9 moves:

James Ellis 2075-Rudolf Cvak 2104
A39 English Opening
1.c4 Nf6 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 c5 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.d4 cxd4 7.Nxd4 0-0 8.0-0 Nxd4 9.Qd3?? Nc6 0-1

Here's an update on my games:

Svitil-Moldovan

E12 Queen's Indian Defense
1.d4 e6 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nf3 b6

Moldovan-Svitil

D06 Queen's Gambit
1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4


Days used before April 15th aren't counted but my opponent has taken 17 to my 0.

Crosstable
PGN of all the games

#805 Carrelli Wins Kenilworth Gauntlet

Knockout Section

Don Carrelli defeated Richard Lewis 2-0 to finish with a perfect 6-0 mark.

Wild Card Section

I defeated Kevin Chen 1.5-0.5 to take the 3rd-place prize. Ian Mangion, Max Sherer Lou Sturniolo and Pat Mazzillo were the other match-winners.

Moldovan-Chen

after 8...Qxf6

Final Standings, in tie-break order:

1. Carrelli 6.0 (KO winner)
2. Lewis 3.0 (KO runner-up)
3. Moldovan 5.5 (WC winner)
4. Chen 5.0
5. Mangion 5.0
6. Sherer 5.0
7. Tomkovich 4.5
8. Sturniolo 4.5
9. Mazzillo 4.0
10. Renna 3.5
11. Curran 3.0
12. Azzarello 2.0

13. Mann 2.0
14. Lahiff 0.0

Java-Replay
PGN
Crosstables

The next tournament at Kenilworth CC is our USCF-rated G/60 Quads Irving Ellner Memorial Swiss which will run April 14-28.

#804 Gauntlet Pairings

Pairings for Thursday 3/31 (Final Round):

Knockout Section 

Richard Lewis - Don Carrelli
 
Wild Card Section 

Kevin Chen 4.5 - John Moldovan 4.0
Greg Tomkovich 4.0 -Ian Mangion 3.5

Max Sherer 3.0 - Chris Curran 3.0

Ted Mann 1.0 - Lou Sturniolo 2.5
Pat Mazzillo 2.0 - Joe Azzarello 2.0

Joe Renna 1.5 gets a 2 point bye.

Bart Lahiff 0.0 has withdrawn.

Players listed on the left side of the pairings will have White in the 1st game, Black in the 2nd.

Games will start at 8:30 p.m.

#803 Armageddon Your Pieces USAT Champs

"Armageddon Your Pieces" defeated New Jersey's "West Orange Krush" and "For Whom Azbel Tolls" today to become the 2011 U.S. Amateur Team Champions.

The winners were led by Jeremy Mandelkern and Matt Helfst, who swept on boards 3 & 4.

Java-Replay

PGN 1 icc version

PGN 2 improved version

(names & ratings corrected, - timestamps, + novelty annotation)