Gata Kamsky of New York won his fourth U.S. Championship title after defeating fellow GM Alejandro Ramirez in a two-stage playoff. Both had 6.5 of 9 points in the 24-player, 10-day event in St. Louis. Irina Krush of New York finished 8-1 and won the women’s championship round robin, defending her title, her fifth in all dating back to 1998.
Ramirez, Timur Gareev and Alexander Onischuk, who took second, third and fourth, all are from Texas. Of the New England players, Larry Christiansen of Cambridge tied for sixth and Sam Shankland, a student at Brandeis, tied for 12th. Others with ties to the region included Robert Hess (student at Yale), tied for 14th, Alexander Ivanov of Newton, and Jorge Sammour-Hasbun of Rhode Island, both tied for 20th, with 3-6 in the ultra-strong event.
Two changes were announced last week to the USCF rating system, effective this weekend. One affects the number of effective games for players below 2355 (99 percent) to enable ratings to go up or down more quickly, changing the K factors for various skill levels. The second only affects higher rated players in fast time controls, now that play is rated in four ways, based on time controls and correspondence games, each with separate ratings.
Carissa Yip, 9, of Chelmsford, has qualified for the www.chessKid.com 2nd Online National Championship, June 14-17, sponsored by www.chess.com. The sections were doubled from two to four this year, and each will be an eight-player round robin, Carissa in the under-age-10 group. ChessKid.com offers a free chess curriculum download suitable for both classroom and informal instruction of youngsters by parents.
The 82nd Mass. Open will be next weekend at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlboro, with six rounds, two each on Saturday through Monday. On each day there will be a scholastic side event, all detailed at www.masschess.org. Also on the site this week is a statement by Richard “Doc” Kinne, the incoming editor of Chess Horizons, announcing his new format and publication dates and deadlines.
Results of Norway’s “supertournament” that ended yesterday can be found at www.norwaychess.com. Two Americans, Kamsky and Hikaru Nakamura, are next competing in the FIDE Grand Prix in Greece, Tuesday until June 4 (www.fide.com).
David Vigorito of Andover won last weekend’s 42-player Beantown Open in Braintree, and Jesse Nicholas of Newton won the Boylston Chess Club of Somerville’s May Grand Prix. Carissa Yip was clear third, gaining about 50 rating points.
Answer to quiz: Black wins big time with 1. … Na5 and white’s queen is trapped. The game from 2011 at the Metrowest Chess Club of Natick is presented in the www.tacticstime.com e-book of 1,000 positions, which will be available in print later this year at www.newinchess.com.
Source: http://www.telegram.com
Good column!