Wednesday, December 24, 2008

#423 Checkmate Ch. Starts January 18th

The 2009 Checkmate CC Championship will start on January 18th. There will be no games on February 15th to accommodate those participating in the USATE.

5th Checkmate Chess Club Championship
  • starts Sunday, January 18th, 2009
  • non-rated
  • 5-SS
  • Rounds : January 18th & 25th, February 1st, 8th & 22nd... all starting at 9:00 p.m.
  • Time Control : G/45+0 or G40 + 4 second delay. Black gets to choose.
  • A player may request a half-point bye for any round but the request must reach the TD 4 hours before the round.
  • No entry fee or prizes
  • To register, send an e-mail to Tournament Director Bob Sherry by January 17th.
More details here.

12/27 - Time control option changed from 40+4 to 40+5.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

#422 Garden State League Founded! Season Starts March 3rd.

The Garden State Chess League will begin play on March 3rd, 2009 with at least 4 teams: West Orange, Kenilworth, Hamilton and Summit. The latter’s player-pool will include members of Springfield’s Checkmate CC.

Other possible clubs include Staten Island & Westfield. Both had representatives present at Thursday’s founding meeting but scheduling again kept Dumont & Newark Sleepless Knights away. Hopefully they are still interested.
Roselle is now unlikely to join. Union County College is a dark-horse.

The entry deadline for clubs/teams is
9 p.m., Friday, February 20th, 2009.
The $10 per team entry fee must be received by Saturday, February 28th, 2009.

Rules changes and additions since the preliminary, December 4th meeting :
  • The time control will be G/80 (rather than G/90).
  • There will be 4 boards per team.
  • The maximum 4-board average will be 1900.0
  • If an unrated player is used, the average of the other players on his/her team must be 1900.0 or less.
  • The 2008 USCF Annual Rating List will determine player ratings for the Winter-Spring 2009 season.
  • Matches will take place at the West Orange CC on the 1st Tuesday of each month & start at 8 p.m. The paired teams have the option of playing elsewhere (within the given-month, if I remember correctly).

For example, if Kenilworth was scheduled to be the road team vs. Summit in the 1st round, they could play at Summit on 3/9 or 3/16, instead of having both teams travel.

Elected officers on Thursday :
  • President - John Hagerty
  • Vice President - John Moldovan

(John H. will be the acting treasurer & John M. will be the acting secretary.)

The next GSCL meeting will be at the USATE tournament in mid-February. Fliers about the league will be distributed there.



P.S. - Pete Tamburro and Steve Doyle’s chess column in tomorrow’s Newark Star-Ledger will mention the new league. Pick up a copy!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

#419 Kenilworth Ch. Starts January 15th

19th 18th Kenilworth Chess Club Championship
  • starts January 15th, 2009
  • non-rated
  • G/90 time control
  • EF: $10 entry fee + $15 dues (KCC membership required) = $25. An anti-forfeit deposit may also be required.
  • format yet to be determined by the TD
  • Rounds will commence at 8:30 p.m. every Thursday night for the duration of the event.
  • To register, seek a club officer (Geoff McAuliffe, John Moldovan, Joe Renna or new KCC Vice-President Ian Mangion) during our 12/18/2008 & 1/8/2009 meetings @ Kenilworth Community Center, 575 Boulevard, Kenilworth, N.J.
Further details will be posted when they become available.

Update 12/27 - A $5.00 anti-forfeiture deposit will be required. That makes the overall EF $30, not $25.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

#417 Games Archive For 2008

I have uploaded my PGN Archive for 2008, which features 291 games but not the STC files from posts #s 372 & 416.

Also available for download is my ChessBase archive for 2006-2008*. 42 of its 609 games have color-graphics & 4 more have multimedia commentary.

* A replacement file with a correction to game 598 was uploaded at 10:45 p.m. on 12/13. If you don't want to re-download, delete the multimedia commentary to White 10th move & insert the comparison after Black's 8th. Sorry for the error.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

#416 Gauntlet Scandal & Zip

Two of the 4 semi-finalists from the 2008 STC Gauntlet's FICS 'A' section (Loucke & whitecharger) were forfeited from the tourney & had their scores set to zero.

I wasn't victimized in the event but a pair of my opponents (GMChessy & StrokerAce) were and I may have recently played one of the offenders (same id, same openings) on another site!


Here is the replay & PGN of that game plus a zipped file with all 188 games from the FICS sections.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

#415 Upcoming Posts & Hiatus

Here's my schedule for December 8th - January 14th :
  • 12/9 or 10 - Upload 2008 Games Archive.
  • 12/12 - Announce 2009 KCC Championship format & upload preliminary 2009 events calendar.
  • 12/19 - Report on the founding of the Garden State Chess League.
  • 12/20 to 1/14 - On hiatus.

#414 Moldovan-Sherry Match

In October, I played a 4-game match against Bob Sherry and was a very fortunate 3-1 winner. As you will see from the replays & PGN, my score could easily have been +0-3=1.

#413 Gauntlet Notes

I'm a day late but the annotated java-replay page and zipped PGN file with all 9 of my Gauntlet games are up.

Friday, December 05, 2008

#412 Gauntlet Finale

My last game was your typical tourney-ending, GM draw :

[Event "STC Gauntlet - FICS Wild Card"]
[Site "FICS"]
[Date "2008.12.05"]
[Round "5.2"]
[White "jmoldovan"]
[Black "StrokerAce"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "D36"]
[WhiteElo "1816"]
[BlackElo "1893"]
[PlyCount "35"]
[EventDate "2008.11.04"]
[EventRounds "5"]
[Source "The Chess Coroner #412"]
[SourceDate "2008.12.05"]

{Queen's Gambit, Exchange Variation}
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 c6 3. c4 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Bg5 Nbd7 7. e3 Be7 8.

Qc2 O-O 9. Bd3 Re8 10. h3 Nf8 11. O-O-O Be6 12. Kb1 N6d7 13. Bf4 b5 14.
Ne5 $146 Rc8 15. Rc1 a6 16. Nxd7 Qxd7 17. Rhd1 Ng6 18. Bg3 $11 1/2-1/2

Here's the brief
replay.

With a
5.5-4.5 count, I'll likely land in 20th-place when the event ends. For the #14 seed, that's disappointing result but I'm relieved that the season is over and very pleased to have a scored 70.3% with White this year!

I'll post full notes to all of my Gauntlet games sometime tomorrow.

#411 League Meeting Rescheduled to 12/18

The founding meeting for the "Garden State Chess League" (not Essex; as erroneously reported in #408) has been re-scheduled to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 18th at the Kenilworth Chess Club.

Last night, John Hagerty of the West Orange CC and Charles Miller of the Hamilton CC stopped by the KCC for a fact-finding discussion and the following, initial league-framework was agreed to :


1. Play will commence in late February or early March 2009 (shortly after the U.S. Amateur Team tournament) and run thru June.

2. Teams will play 1 match per month unless the later starting date is used. In that instance, an additional match would have to be squeezed into one of the months.

3. The West Orange CC will be the host-site for league matches; as it was for the old North Jersey league.

4. Teams have the option of playing at another venue to reduce travel. For example, if Hamilton was slated to play Kenilworth, they could go there, instead of making the longer trip.

5. Once a player competes for a team, he is bound to them for the season. One could not, for example, play for the West Orange's B team in March & get promoted to the West Orange A team.

6. Games will not be USCF-rated.

7. The time control will be G/90.

8. A club may field more than 1 team.


Items to be finalized on 12/18 include :


- The official name of the league. "New Jersey Chess League" was suggested but while preparing this article I discovered that there is a high-school association using the moniker.

- Admitting charter clubs. West Orange, Kenilworth, Hamilton, Dumont and the Newark Sleepless Knights have expressed serious interest. Roselle is also a candidate. Others will be actively sought in the next 2 weeks.

- Number of boards per match. It will be 4 or 6.

- A per-board rating average for the teams. Perhaps U2000.


Additional topics to address are :


- Choosing league officials & drafting a constitution.

- Entry fees for trophies and/or administrative costs.

- Pairing format. For example if there are 8 teams, would there be a 5-round swiss or two 4-team divisions?

- Roster Size/Protected Lists. Would we have teams designate the 4-6 boards plus 4-6 substitutes and let all others in a club sign elsewhere as free agents?

- Setting deadlines for submitting rosters & making schedules.

- Deciding if the team entry-window should be extended to Presidents' Day 2008.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

#410 STC Gauntlet - Round 5, Game 1

Last night I got a good opening with the ...Qd7 Winawer, dropped a pawn at move 17 and should've lost but my opponent made mistakes at turns 25 & 26 to let me escape with a draw.

Here's the lightly annotated PGN...

[Event "STC Gauntlet - FICS Wild Card"]
[Site "FICS"]
[Date "2008.12.03"]
[Round "5.1"]
[White "strokerace"]
[Black "jmoldovan"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C16"]
[WhiteElo "1897"]
[BlackElo "1806"]
[Annotator "Moldovan,John"]
[PlyCount "56"]
[EventDate "2008.11.04"]
[EventRounds "5"]
[Source "The Chess Coroner #410"]
[SourceDate "2008.12.04"]

{French Defense, Winawer Variation} 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 Qd7 5.

Bd2 Ne7 6. Nf3 b6 7. a3 Bxc3 8. bxc3 Qa4 $146 9. Bd3 Ba6 10. Qe2 h6 11. O-O O-O 12. h3 c5 13. Qd1 Nbc6 14. dxc5 Bxd3 $6 (14... bxc5 $15) 15. cxd3 Qxd1 16.
Rfxd1 bxc5 17. Be3 d4 $2 (17... c4 18. dxc4 dxc4 $11) 18. cxd4 cxd4 19. Bxd4
Nxd4 20. Nxd4 Ng6 $2 (20... Rfd8 21. Nf3 Nd5 $14) 21. Nc6 $1 $16 Rfc8 22. Rac1
Rc7 23. Rc4 Rac8 $6 24. Rdc1 Kf8 25. Nxa7 $2 (25. Ne7 $1 Rxc4 26. Nxg6+ fxg6
27. Rxc4 $18) (25. g3 $18) 25... Rxc4 26. Rxc4 $2 (26. dxc4 Rc5 27. Rb1 $16)
26... Rxc4 27. dxc4 Nxe5 28. c5 Ke7 $44 1/2-1/2

...&
java-replay.

The rematch/final game is Friday at 8:15 p.m. EST.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

#409 Meeting Postponed


Due to the ridiculously short notice, resignations at 2 clubs, a lack of communication and some apparent dis-information, there will be no official meeting for the proposed chess league this Thursday.

Presidents of the interested clubs are still welcome to visit the KCC this week (for an unofficial discussion) and attend our Dec. 18th holiday party.

#408 League-Founding Meeting At KCC

There will be a founding meeting for the "Essex Chess League" at the Kenilworth Chess Club this Thursday night, starting at 8:15 or 8:30 p.m.

Despite the very short notice, I hope the presidents of all interested clubs can attend.