Magnus win TATA Steel

Standings of Tata Steel Masters 2016

		Score	Rating	TPR	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
1	Carlsen, M.	9.0 / 13	2844	2881		½	½	½	½	1	½	½	½	½	1	1	1	1
2	Caruana, F.	8.0 / 13	2787	2831	½		1	½	½	1	1	½	½	0	0	½	1	1
3	Ding, L.	8.0 / 13	2766	2833	½	0		½	½	1	½	½	1	½	1	½	1	½
4	So, W.	7.0 / 13	2773	2775	½	½	½		1	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	½
5	Giri, A.	7.0 / 13	2798	2773	½	½	½	0		½	½	1	½	½	½	½	½	1
6	Eljanov, P.	7.0 / 13	2760	2776	0	0	0	½	½		½	1	½	1	½	1	½	1
7	Wei, Y.	6.5 / 13	2706	2751	½	0	½	½	½	½		½	½	1	½	½	½	½
8	Mamedyarov, S.	6.5 / 13	2747	2748	½	½	½	½	0	0	½		½	½	½	1	1	½
9	Karjakin, S.	6.0 / 13	2769	2717	½	½	0	½	½	½	½	½		½	1	½	0	½
10	Navara, D.	5.5 / 13	2730	2692	½	1	½	½	½	0	0	½	½		½	0	½	½
11	Tomashevsky, E.	5.5 / 13	2728	2692	0	1	0	½	½	½	½	½	0	½		½	½	½
12	Hou, Y.	5.0 / 13	2673	2666	0	½	½	½	½	0	½	0	½	1	½		½	0
13	Adams, M.	5.0 / 13	2744	2661	0	0	0	½	½	½	½	0	1	½	½	½		½
14	Van Wely, L.	5.0 / 13	2640	2669	0	0	½	½	0	0	½	½	½	½	½	1	½

You can play all the games here:  http://www.tatasteelchess.com/tournament/games

WTF Weirdos

Chess is from the devil!

MVCC, ICU, and BCSD teamup

River Shepard plays Coach Porth.  I'm wearing my new Christmas shirt!

The Magic Valley Chess Club and the Blaine County School District Chess Club are partnering to bring southern Idaho more chess events.  To Kick off the new year, the MVCC hosted a Winter Solstice G/15 0d tournament on January 2 and then hosted a Blitz Kickoff on January 12 to begin 2016 with chess excitement. The Idaho Chess Union rate the events using the Rocky Mountain Rating System.  The BCSD Chess Club attended both events and then followed up by hosting a G/15 Sicilian Dragon Theme Tournament on January 14 to recognize National Dragon Day.

2016 Winter Solstice

All the events drew a fair crowd with 18 in all three events, 10 from the BCSD Chess Club.  The Winter Solstice was billed as a round robin event, so organizers divided up players into two sections with similar ratings and abilities to ensure a balanced tournament.  Barry Eacker, MVCC, was chief TD with assistance from Adam Porth, BCSD Chess Club.  Kona Coffee & Cakes donated space to play and the players enjoyed being able to munch on Spam Sammies and Spam Musubi between rounds.

Spam Musubi

Barry Eacker, Dewayne Derryberry, Fred Bartell

Barry Eacker

Dewayne Derryberry and Fred Bartell were winners and each won a book, Weapons of Chess and Taps and Zaps 2, respectively.  Fred handedly scored a perfect tournament (8.0 points) while Dewayne (7.0 points) drew two games against fellow MVCC players.  Barry Eacker drew Dewayne in a technical game and a surprising blunder by Dewayne.  Barry also enjoyed a Philidor endgame position in a game with me. I should have watched this video before the tournament.  Barry (6.5 points) earned second place.  Steve Hinton commented on how difficult the games are against the kids and even chagrined that he should have lost some.  Steve would make a point of showing kids better moves, and Fred spent nearly a half hour providing lessons!

Easy to lose a game like this in a G/15 tournament.  Adam Porth v. Barry Eacker 0-1

It is clear that the younger players learned much while playing all the experienced players and Adam quipped, “These tournaments are important for the older players to pass their knowledge onto the younger generation as these kids will eventually be running clubs like the MVCC after we’re all gone.”  Therefore, sharing and analyzing games for the kids is critical after a match.  And, it must be fun for them.  Despite the solstice actually being over, the new year began the way all chess players want it to.

2016 Barnes & Noble Blitz Kickoff

The following week featured the BCSD Chess Club traveling to Barnes & Noble for a G/5 Blitz round robin tournament, however, organizers switched to a 7-round swiss due to time constraints.  Players here are more concerned with playing a variety of players and maximizing the number of games they can play.  Barry and Adam worked efficiently to keep the rounds moving, but the stacks of books frequently drew players attention in between rounds.

Foreign Exchange Student, Chanisara Tongsiri (Yayee) from Thailand plays Donald Shouse.

2016 Barnes & Noble Blitz Kickoff

More than half of the players were scholastic and there were some new faces.  Peter Clark clearly enjoyed his games and was very competitive - he will return for more games.  David Zaklan made Peter exclaim loudly after a surprise checkmate caught him off guard.  Blitz does that to players!  Each match was actually a double in that players played opponents as white and as black, so there were 14 games total.  WinTD doesn’t work well with this type of format:  2 wins = 1.0 point, 1.5 wins = 1.0, 1 win each = 0.5 points.  In the end it all works out well and Fred Bartell was again on the top (6.0 points).

On January 14, eighteen players visited the BCSD Chess Club for a Sicilian Dragon theme tournament in which a pre-determined opening was played.  White begins after, 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.NC3 g6.   In this tournament, players were granted 15 minutes each (G/15 0d) and instruction by youtube chess teacher, NM Dereque Kelley.  Each player was also provided a handout.  

Sicilian Dragon starting position

                     

                        2016 Sicilian Dragon Theme

2016 Sicilian Dragon Theme

Organizer, Adam Porth also collects data on the success of the openings during theme tournaments.  It is clear that amateur chess players struggle with the Sicilian Dragon Defense as white won 56 times against 29 wins for black.  The fianchettoed bishop has a great diagonal and strong, queen-side attacking opportunities, but I noticed the novice players destroying their defenses once the king was castled by moving their pawns!

Interestingly, the top players were 50:50 as white and black.  Four players each scored 4.0 points and Dylan Porth won 1st place.  Larry Schwartz earned 2nd place but declined his trophy to a scholastic player, Zac McStay.  This allowed Levi Catangcatang the 3rd place trophy. Dave Walters won an 11th ed., Modern Chess Openings book from the Library of Dan Mayers from a drawing and Jasmine Boeddiker, excitedly, won a chess set (she does not have one at home).    

The next tournament will be a Chess960 Tournament at Silver Creek High School in Hailey (Thursday, Feb. 4, at 4 pm) with an away trip for  the BCSD Chess Club to West Jordan, Utah on Jan. 30.  The Idaho Closed will be on February 13-15, at the Shilo Inn, Twin Falls.  There will definitely be more chess news this next month.

Tata Steel Begins

Tata Steel Chess here

Visit the live games here

Here are my picks:

Fabiano Caruana
Wesley So

and most definitely Anne Haast

schedule (Masters & Challengers)

Round	Date
1st Round	Sat, 16 Jan
2nd Round	Sun, 17 Jan
3rd Round	Mon, 18 Jan
4th Round	Tues, 19 Jan
5th (Challengers)	Wed, 20 Jan
5th (Masters)**	Thurs, 21 Jan (A'dam)
6th Round	Fri, 22 Jan
7th Round	Sat, 23 Jan
8th Round	Sun, 24 Jan
Free day	Mon, 25 Jan
9th Round	Tues, 26 Jan
10th (Masters)**	Wed, 27 Jan (Utrecht)
Free day	Thurs, 28 Jan
11th Round	Fri, 29 Jan
12th Round	Sat, 30 Jan
13th Round	Sun, 31 Jan
* All rounds start at 1.30PM, except the last round, that starts at 12:00 noon. ** Rounds in Amsterdam and Utrecht start at 2.00PM Tata Steel Masters 2016 Name Country Rating Position GM Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2844 1 GM Giri, Anish NED 2798 3 GM Caruana, Fabiano USA 2787 5 GM So, Wesley USA 2773 10 GM Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2769 11 GM Ding, Liren CHN 2766 12 GM Eljanov, Pavel UKR 2760 13 GM Mamedyarov, Shakhryar AZE 2747 19 GM Adams, Michael ENG 2744 20 GM Navara, David CZE 2730 25 GM Tomashevsky, Evgeny RUS 2728 26 GM Wei, Yi CHN 2706 37 GM Hou, Yifan CHN 2673 68 GM Van Wely, Loek NED 2640 126 Average rating : 2748 Category : 20 FIDE-ratings of January 2016 Tata Steel Challengers 2016 Name Country Rating GM Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter GER 2679 GM Baskaran, Adhiban IND 2653 GM Safarli, Eltaj AZE 2653 GM Dreev, Alexey RUS 2644 GM l'Ami, Erwin NED 2627 GM Bok, Benjamin NED 2607 GM Sevian, Samuel USA 2578 GM Antipov, Mikhail RUS 2567 GM Abasov, Nijat AZE 2556 WGM Ju, Wenjun CHN 2548 IM van Foreest, Jorden NED 2541 IM Batsiashvili, Nino GEO 2485 IM Admiraal, Miguoel NED 2441 WGM Haast, Anne NED 2391 Average rating : 2569 Category : 13 FIDE-ratings of January 2016

Christmas Blitzkrieg and Santa's Bughouse Pictures

Tyson's Senior Project

Silver Creek Chess Tournament

December 10th & 17th

Christmas Blitzkrieg & Santa’s Bughouse

Tyson Spellman

Christmas Blitzkrieg & Santa’s Bughouse

It was a winter wonderland in the Wood River Valley where students from area schools competed in Blitz and Bughouse tournaments.  Silver Creek High School, Hailey, Idaho, housed two chess tournaments on December 10th and 17th.  Both are usually hosted by the BCSD Chess Club but instead this year they were directed by Silver Creek High School student Tyson Spellman as a senior project. This was the eighth year of the K-12 Christmas Blitzkrieg tournament  where 17 players played Blitz, or very fast chess.  Games were only 5 minutes for each player!  First, Second and Third place all received trophies and prizes the prizes are as follows:  First place prize was a brand new 22 inch wooden walnut/maple chess board (>$100 value donated by the PowerHouse), second place was a green and red chess set, and third place was a book “from the library of Dan Mayers” on the King’s Gambit.  The former Blitz Champion, Desmond Porth, failed to defend his title as he was graduated and not qualified to play. SCHS Senior Levi Catangcatang grabbed the title with force. Levi played a perfect tournament with 8 wins.  Second place was Wesley Brimstein (6.5) and third place was Dylan Porth (6.0).  Organizers gave the top elementary student a first place ribbon and second place ribbon, Darwin Porth and Dave Walters, respectively.

On December 17th , the  K–12 Santa’s Bughouse Tournament was played. There were 18 players and 9 teams total.  The team names were created by the players:  Unknown, The Pigs, Qfins, Weeping Angels, Lightning, Master Dragons Da-na-na-na, Shell Shockers, Greasy Bag Tie, and The Dish Rags.  The former champions were Wesley Brimstein and Andre Murphy. They successfully defended their title and are Bughouse Champions for the second year in-a-row, despite missing the early showing of Star Wars in order to finish the tournament!  The Shell Shockers (Wesley and Andre) were first.  The Second Place team was Dylan Porth and Otto Olsen, aka The Dish Rags.  Third Place team was River Shepard and Tyson Spellman, aka Greasy Bag Tie.  First and Second place received trophies as well as new chess sets and books “from the library of Dan Mayers,”  Winning With The Kalashnikov, by Neil McDonald.  

Tyson Spellman learned how to play chess only a month ago and has been a chess addict since.  He goes over historical games, plays himself, and plays nearly every day in the classroom with friends.  His first and only tournament was in West Jordan, Utah with the BCSD Chess Team in November.  He said, “The tournament was an awesome success and everyone had a fun time and many new kids decided to join the local chess club because of the tournament which is incredible and invaluable [to a growing program].”  Tyson sported a red tie and dress shoes. “He was probably the best dressed TD I have ever seen, but this indicated his efforts to be as professional as possible,” said mentor, Adam Porth.   Tyson also gave all participants candy kanes and a free ice cream coupon (Snowbunny Drive-Inn) which he secured from local businesses.  Tyson also exclaimed, “Tournament Directing and organizing isn’t as easy as it looks.  There are many rules and regulations you have know and have readily available for whenever a player asks a question or has a disagreement.  You also have to learn how to use a program called Win TD, which crashes much of the time and to top it all off, you have to do a bit of public speaking.  Public speaking  isn’t the worst thing in the world but not easy either.  I would do it again because all in all it was a great experience and it allowed me to do something you don’t normally get to do every day and that is, inspire kids with chess.”  
submitted to Northwest Chess Magazine, 1/8/2016

Not much you can say . . .

Sicilian Dragon Theme Tournament Flyer Link