Diamondback Chess: 2010

Monday, October 11, 2010

Chess Games Of Michael Shahade

IM Mike Shahade on right
Chess Expert Jeremy on left
Rittehhouse Square, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA
Saturday , October 9, 2010

International Master Mike Shahade was just recently spotted on Saturday afternoon October 9, 2010 playing blitz at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania.
(Top Photo above) Mike was giving time odds of two minutes to five minutes to his opponent Jeremy, who is a chess expert.

I was standing right next to this gentleman kibitzing and did'nt even know who he was until another chessplayer whisper to me his name.

Mike is now better known as the father of Greg and Jennifer, but his multi-PA State Champion titles are no accident. A fierce competitor, Mike has also been a contributor to the Franklin-Mercantile Chess Club for many years. Mike was a mainstay of the Philadelphia Quakers phone-league team in the 1970's. He still competes with the "Shahade" team at the US Amateur Team East. He now captains the 21st century Philadelphia Inventors in the US Chess League (started by his son Greg!).

Chessgames Of Michael Shahade

donald_mavrides_shahade_2001.pgn

shahade_cates_2001.pgn

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

English Opening You Tube Video By Jrobichess

Monday, August 23, 2010

Marathon Games At Hamilton 6 man Swiss, Groveville, New Jersey, USA

Here are two marathon games. Marathon game number one was the first round game at the Hamilton Chess Club 6 man Swiss. This game was adjourned on move 63 and played out at around 8:30 PM at the HHC Quads on August 21, 2010 Saturday night at Groveville, New Jersey.

The second marathon game was the third and last round game at Hamilton Chess Club quads in the six man swiss. This game was finished around 8:30PM and then I resumed the adjourned game from the first round.

Also here are some candid shots of the lower quads and some of the amateur chess players at the Hamilton Chess Club Quads on August 21, 2010.

Jim_T_-Diamondback-.pgn

Second Marathon Game

Ferrai_Lou-Diamondback.pgn

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Hamilton Chess Club Six Man Swiss at Groveville, New Jersey USA Saturday , August 21, 2010.

Yesterday I played at the Hamilton Chess Clubs Quads in the Six Man Swiss, the top seed was rated 1400 who I was paired up in the second round as white and was very fortunate to win this game which allowed me take second place in the Swiss event and drive away with some prize money in my pocker.

My opponent was a ten year old rated at 1400 USCF and he had me on the ropes in the middle game but did not find the right moves to finish me off. Instead my opponet allowed some breathing room and I was able to activate my dark square bishop which assisted in a bishop and rook mate pattern to end the game.

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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Free Internet Chess Club Games

Here are some games from the Free Internet Chess Server from various amateurs.

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Experience team fights back with 3-2 win

Courtesy ChessVibes

Rising Stars Official Web Page

In the sixth round of the NH Chess Tournament the Experience team defeated the Rising Stars 3-2. Boris Gelfand had a relatively easy day against David Howell, while Loek van Wely scored his first point for the Experience team in his 16th attempt. Hikaru Nakamura limited the damage for the Rising Stars with a win over Ljubomir Ljubojevic.
The NH Chess Tournament takes place August 12-22 in hotel Krasnapolsky, in the heart of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. As always, the tournament is a confrontation between a team of five young ‘Rising Stars’ and a team of five ‘Experienced’

Ljubojevic vs Nakamura 0-1

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Saturday, August 14, 2010

Rising Stars

Courtesy of Chess Vibes web page

Rising Stars Official Web Page

In the second round of the NH Chess Tournament the Rising Stars team took the lead over the Experience team thanks to a win by David Howell over the luckless Ljubomir Ljubojevic. The other four games were drawn, which resulted in a 3-2 win for the youngsters. The overall score after two rounds is 5½- 4½ in favour of the Rising Stars.
The NH Chess Tournament takes place August 12-22 in hotel Krasnapolsky, in the heart of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. As always, the tournament is a confrontation between a team of five young ‘Rising Stars’ and a team of five ‘Experienced’ grandmasters.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Bobby Fischer interview

A Very Different Bobby Fischer

Donald Byrne vs Bobby Fischer - Game of the Century - Chess Network

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Czech Grandmaster Viktor Laznicka finished at the top of the World Open

The World Open 2010 took place from June 29 to July 5, 2010 at the Valley Forge Convention Plaza.

Czech Grandmaster Viktor Laznicka finished at the top of the standings with 7½/9, winning $17,413!

Laznicka started the tournament with 6 wins, leaving him a clear point ahead of the field at that stage. Rounds 7 and 8 were fairly peaceful draws while the final half-point needed to take the title was scored in a complex fight against GM Loek Van Wely in Round 9.

Finishing half-point behind the leader were GMs Pentala Harikrishna, Ilya Smirin and Luke McShane, who each won $5028.67 for their efforts.

FM Conrad Holt managed to hold on to score an IM norm despite finishing the event with just half-point in his final 4 rounds. This was achieved thanks to his great start to the event where he scored 4/5, including scoring 3/4 against GM opposition!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Hamilton Chess Quads, June 25, 2010 Groveville, New Jersey USA

Yesterday , I played in Hamilton Chess Quads in Groveville , New Jersey, the most active National Master in New Jersey , Jim West was missing in action on June 25, 2010. at Hamilton Chess Quads in Groveville, New Jersey, USA

Overall the turn out was light about24 players , about six quads , about 20% of the players were Generation Y under the age of ten in all sections bout five players with their parents.

Given the outside temperature of about 90 degrees. the air conditioner unit was barely maintaining in the lower quad sections.

Here is my first round game with Dion a strong class D player unfortunately he had over things on his mind about his family being sick and had to withdraw after the first round in our Quad Section , which was rated under 1350 USCF rating points.

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Here is an off hand game in five minute blitz , that Black was on his opponent like white on rice. This game shows that Blitz in sloppy chess at its best.

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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Masterminds Chess Club , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA

Here are some photos of Masterminds Chess Club located at the Watermark at Logan Square , that I recently visited about three moths ago on a Friday night.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Checkmate With Two Knights

This is second round game that I played at Hamilton Chess Club Quads at Groveville, New Jersey on May 22, 2010, the game score is quite erratic but not the end result of the last three moves.

I will post at a later date a game with more analysis and a more accurate score....diamondback

This is kind of a helpmate which my opponent basically boxed in one of his rooks on the H8 square and keeping his King isolated near the edge of the board, while he had visions of marching his queenside pawns down to queen one of them. Unfortunately he allowed both of my knights and rook to take over the center squares and the center file by my rook.

I am adding this game with tongue in cheek to "addiction to chess" greatest games of chess ever. Or maybe I can ask "Menacing Knights" to add this game to his Favorite Games.

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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Selected Games From Garden State Chess League Season 2009-2010 New Jersey, USA

Garden State Chess League

Note: The web page of the Garden State Chess League is maintained and updated by John Moldovan of the Kenilworthian Chess Club. All the links in this chess blog post point his excellent web page on the New Jersey Garden State Chess League.

This chess blog link above covers the goings-on of the Garden State Chess League for the year 2009- 2010 , which features teams from Hamilton, Kenilworth, Sparta, Summit and West Orange, NJ; as well as Staten Island, NY.

Some of the key features of the blog are links to Standings, Rosters, Schedules , Board by Board results and Games.

Below are selected games in ChessFlash Format. All of these games can be found on the Garden State Chess Blog Site, which is maintained and updated by John Moldovan.

gscl_2009_r1.pgn

Radomskyj-Kernighan.pgn

Thomson-Kernighan.pgn
>

Moldovan-Hueckel.pgn

Hepler-Carrelli_0.pgn

Monday, May 17, 2010

World Chess Championship 2010: Anand vs. Topalov - Game 4

Game 4 Anand and Topalov. Photo © http://www.chessdom.com who are on the spot with commentary, photos and reports.

Anand - Topalov World Championship Game 4
Mark Crowther - Thursday 29th April 2010

After the draw in game 3 it was Anand who is looking to make progress with white in game 4. Anand opened with the Catalan as Kramnik did in his match against Topalov in Elista.

Anand played a novelty with 10.Na3 which led to a long think from Topalov. It may be Topalov had studied this position but not for a while. But in the end he played 10...Bd7. So the big question was if Anand's preparation could cause serious problems for Topalov.

The answer was an emphatic, yes. Topalov's pieces gradually got tied up on the Queenside and far away from his king. Anand needed no second invitation to go for a sacrificial attack which he prosecuted with no problems at all.

Now it is up to Topalov to strike back with white on Friday. This has been a match where the white pieces have dominated (three wins and a draw so far) but Topalov will have some recovering to do after this loss.

topalov_anand_2010.pgn

Game 4 of 2010 World Chess Championship at Chessgames.Com

Apr-30-10 CharlesSullivan: Instead of 22...Rad8?, with 22...f6 23.Rc4 h5! Black seems to reach a defensible position; for example: 24.Ne3 Rad8 25.Qc3 Ba8 26.Bh3 Qe7 27.Rcd4 Nc6 28.R4d2 g6 29.Qc4 Nc7 30.Qxa4 e5.

Material is even and Rybka3 rates this as about +0.60 for White.

Apr-30-10 CharlesSullivan: Instead of 23...gxh6, Black could try 23...Kh7, but 24.Ng4 f6 25.Qf4! Be8 26.e5 f5 27.Ne3 Qe7 28.Qc4 gives White a large advantage:

Rybka3 rates this as +2.41 for White, Zappa says +2.07. There is obviously a lot of play left, but with accurate play, White wins.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Powerless Queen versus Two Connected Pass Pawns

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White to move and stop Blacks' Connected passed pawns

Second Chess Diagram is complete playable game score.

Here is an interesting game that I kibitz on ICC, Saturday May 12, 2010. In this game White skewers Black's Queen in the middle game and has a queen, and rook versus Black's two rooks and a bishop.

Blacks' king tries to shelter himself in a fortress of his center pawns and he has connected passed pawns. White forks Blacks king and rook, which wins Blacks rook but White still has to contend with Blacks' connected passed pawns.

Unfortunately , White forfeits on time in the ten minute blitz game. If anyone out there in the chess blogosphere would like to comment if White can stop blacks' advance connected passed pawns with a continuation , this may be helpful to the Amateur Chess player in this endgame play.

I will try to followup in some endgame analysis later this Sunday....Diamondback

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Thursday, May 13, 2010

South Jersey Open Chess Championship May 15, 2010 Cherry Hill, New Jersey USA

Directions by Google Maps

Registered Players For South Jersey Open

30th South Jersey Open Set for May 15th
By Stephen Arnold Dick
May 4, 2010
CHERRY HILL, NJ-The South Jersey Open (SJO), established in 1956, is one of America's longest running open chess tournaments. This year's event is being held at the the Holiday Inn in Cherry Hill, New Jersey on May 15th.

The South Jersey Open not only awards 1st through 5th place finishers with more than $1000 in cash prizes but it also awards the prestigious Hoffman Trophy to the top player who resides in Southern New Jersey. Players who live in South Jersey are able to win both, a cash prize and the trophy.

More than 80 players attended last year's SJO including world class players GM's Alex Lenderman and Michael Rohde and IM's Dean Ippolito and Bryan Smith. Lenderman and Rohde tied (3.5/4.0) for first place while Andrew Shvartsman (2.5/4.0) took home the Hoffman Trophy.

Pre-registration ends May 7th. However, anyone who pre-registers by May 3rd will be entered to win a eNotate electronic scorekeeper courtesy of Sevan Muradian and the North American Chess Association. For tournament details or to register now please visit www.atkmchesssets.com/sjopen.

This is an All the King's Men Chess Center Event. Contact Stephen Arnold Dick at 856-582-8222 for information. Also see a recent PR on a big money scholastic tournament coming to Cherry Hill on June 12-13.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

World Chess Championship Games 2010 Sofia

Official World Chess Championship 2010 Page

Wikipedia Info On 2010 World Chess Championship

Chessdom Coverage World Chess Championship 2010

tpl_andRd4.pgn

and_tplRd3.pgn

tpl_andRd2.pgn

and_tplRd1.pgn

Kosteniuk Beats Judith Polgar

Kosteniuk vs Gaponenko Commented Game Sicilian Dragon

Chess Queen Beats Magnus Carlsen

Chess Queen Beats Vishy Anand

Sunday, April 25, 2010

World Chess Championship Game One Video

Courtesy Chessvibes.com

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Topaolov Draws First Blood In World Chess Championship 2010

Courtesy New York Times Chess Blog Gambit

Game One Replay

April 24, 2010, 2:18 pm
Topalov Wins First Game of Title Match
By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN
Win
Veselin Topalov

Loss
Viswanathan Anand
Replay the game with analysis»
Veselin Toplaov of Bulgaria got off to a great start in the world championship match as he won Game 1 after Viswanathan Anand of India, the world champion, blundered. The game was barely out of the opening stages when Anand erred in a dynamically balanced position. Facing checkmate, he resigned after only 30 moves.

Chess Games Of Vaselin Topalov

2005 World Championship Photo

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Robert James Fischer 1943-2008 | Reaction Veselin Topalov

Veselin Topalov interview (chessdom.com)

M-Tel - Topalov Blind Game

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

A volcanic trip – with the Lord of the Rings

The Mercedes Sprinter that transported the World Champion's team to Sofia

Report from www.chessbase.com

Link to Chessbase Article on April 21, 2010 below:
article copyrighted by Chessbase. 15% of article posted in this blog
to call attention to article posted by Chessbase.

A volcanic trip – with the Lord of the Rings

21.04.2010 – On Thursday Vishy Anand embarked on a trip from his house in Madrid, Spain, to the World Championship match. He got as far as Frankfurt, Germany, and was stopped by the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland. Frantic planning followed, and on Tuesday morning, after a 40-hour drive, he arrived with his team in Sofia, Bulgaria. A team member has sent us this remarkable report.

A volcanic trip – with the Lord of the rings
How World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand travelled to Sofia
Five countries, 2000 kilometres, about a million potholes, an unexpected ferry and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. A report of a crazy road trip through Europe. – A team member reports

Months of careful planning for the chess world championship in Sofia by the Anand team were disrupted by a volcano in Iceland, located under Eyjafjallajökull, one of the smaller glaciers of the North Atlantic island. Tens of thousands of people were stranded on airports in Europe. One on them was Viswanathan Anand, who had travelled with his wife and manager Aruna from Madrid to Frankfurt on Thursday April 15th. They planned to continue their journey to Sofia on Friday April 16, together with three other travellers. Two more seconds were to fly from other airports in Europe to the Bulgarian capital on Friday to join the team there.

Arriving in Sofia in the early hours of the morning

Monday, April 19, 2010

Top Chess Player Almira Skripchenko Receives Poker Award

Almira made it to the through to the final table (nine players) and finished third. The prize pool for the event was more then 600,000 Euros, with 152,580€ going to the winner, 93,200€ to the runner up and 59,100€ to her – slightly more than female players win at chess events.

The 2010 France Poker Awards designed to reward the best players of the year 2009. The awards ceremony was held during the European Poker Tour in the Casino Barriere de Deauville. The trophys were awarded by a jury and Internet votes. In the end chess player Almira Skripchenko won the prize as "best lady".

Biography of Almira
Skripchenko

Poker Rating of Almira Skripchenko

Chess Games of Almira Skripchenko

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Unsound Sacrifice At Cherry Hill Quads, New Jersey , Saturday March 13, 2010

Yesterday , I played in the under 1600 Quads at Cherry Hill Library, at Cherry Hill , New Jersey. Despite the heavy rain and high winds there was a decent turnout of about 15 players or so. After arriving 20 minutes late because of the heavy rains for the first round game and completely razzled by the driving conditions, I hung a piece on move six or so but decided to play on to about 20 more moves.

Only the diehard chess fanatic would come out in hurricane gust winds and monsoon rain conditions to play in Cherry Hill. New Jersey.

The TD Dan Hermann passed judgement at this Quad when some younger players wanted to switch up in the round << pairings by playing the third round pairings in the second round and vice a versa, rather strange, I might say but I have seen stranger things in my lifetime>>> in the lowest quad , the under 1600. Dan's ruling was the pairings stand as was paired up at the start of the Quad.

My excuse, for driving in windswept rains and playing in this quad was I just got a wild hair up my ass and decided to drive across the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia towards Cherry Hill in South Jersey, at the last minute. Not a smart thing today with winds knocking down trees and Admiral Wilson Blvd, and Highway 30 East being flooded out and having to back track to Camden and crossing over the Ben Franklin bridge to Philadelphia that way.
Because of this poor judgement in deciding to drive from Philadelphia, Pennsyvania USA to Cherry Hill, New Jersey in this latest Nor'Easter I am placing myself on a chess tournement time out for thirty days.

My second game was with the White pieces and my last round game that I played was with the Black pieces and my opponent decided to play the Caro Kann Exchange. My opponent decided to sacrifice the exchage on move 24, even though I lost that game, I am showing that the sacrifice exchange was unsound and Black can play to a draw.

More detail games of the Caro Kann Exchange can be found at chessgames.com.

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Some Analysis

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Youngest Ever Published Chess Author

14 year old FM Daniel Naroditsky

Here is a link to FM Daniel Naroditsky that samples some of the pages of his first chess book of many to come.

Mastering Positional Chess

John Saunders, British Chess Magazine:
"You would never guess that he was so young when he wrote it as it is imbued with a great deal of understanding of the game and expressed in good, plain English."

Game Collection of FM Daniel Naroditsky

Biography of FM Daniel Naroditsky

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Redux: Atomic Patzer Trumps Diamondback

Atomic Patzer AKA Saint Thomas

Diamondback aka Saint George

Here is a first round game between Tom and I at the February 27, 2010 HCC Hamilton Chess Quads at Groveville, New Jersey. Atomic was the top seed rated at 1498 USCF class C in the under 1500 six man swiss Swiss, which was part of the Quad event for that day. Selected games from that HCC six man swiss can be found in my previous post Hamilton Swiss Clear First Winner

I tried for Black's 14th..... Nxe4 sac the exchage but it backfired in an endgame rout.

This first chessflash game shows Fritz 6 analyzing this outcome after blacks14.....
Nxe4

Dmdbck3.pgn

The second chess flash game shows the real game up to Black's 14th move.

Atomic_Patzer-Dmdback2.pgn

The previous post on this game does not include the second chessflash analsysis which is for Black 14......h6. So I decided to repost this battle of the chess bloggers again with both chessflash game analsysis.....diamondback

Atomic Patzer recommends for Black 14.... Re8 to hold the Center, Fritz 6 in Chessbase Light 2009 analyzes from point on, but looks like Black is busted as shown in this Chess Flash game below:

AtmDmd.pgn

Frtiz version 6 analysis after Blacks's move 14.....h6

AtmDmd2.pgn

Saint George

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Part Two, USATE 2010 Games

Dragan Milovanovic

This is part two of some master and expert rating level games of the recent United States Amateur Team East in Chess Flash format.

Wright-Milovanovic.pgn

Milovanovic-Fogle.pgn

Milovanovic-Hidalgo.pgn

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

USATE 2010 Games

Here are a few games from the higher players rated above 2000 USCF. All of the games are unannotated, so if anyone wants to make some comments about the games posted, just leave a comment. Thanks.....diamondback

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