Source: http://www.telegram.com
Twelve men and a dozen women will begin the U.S Championships in St. Louis this Thursday, and this year, two of the 24 will be from Massachusetts — Alexander Ivanov, 56, of Newton, and Sam Shankland, 21, an undergrad at Brandeis University and a California native who begins his Samford Fellowship on July 1. Catch this fever at www.uschesschamps.com.
Ivanov was excited about his trip to St. Louis last weekend, as he shared the 23rd Mass. Game/60 title in Marlboro with Mika Brattain, 14, of Lexington, possibly a future contender. There were 89 players in six sections at this one-day event. Other section winners were Tyson Siesnick, Daniel Racine, Michael Yezukevich and Max Bennett. Locals Andrew Liu of Westboro, Alonzo Ross of Shrewsbury and Michael Odell of Worcester also won secondary prizes. More details at www.masschess.org.
A side event was the exciting four-game match where Michelle Chen, 15, of Concord defeated Carissa Yip, 9, of Chelmsford on time, both with seconds left in their final game.
The MACA website also reports that Bharath Heggadahlli, 10, of Southboro won the Celestial Minds New England Junior Open in Nashua, N.H., where 57 Grade K-12 students competed, also last weekend.
Ray Paulson of Lowell and Mike Lally of Leverett split first in the Evert Siiskonen Memorial (36 players) at Fitchburg State University. The club now gears up for the closed championship and open “B” sections to begin Wednesday. Players in the championship and details on the open event can be found at www.wachusettchess.org.
Bruce Pandolfini’s monthly column posted last Wednesday at www.chesscafe.com gave his second “historic” lecture, this from 1983, highlighting one of the most famous games in history (1858), and giving any chess instructor the ability to present this as he did, with prompts of the dynamics, questions to ask students, and advice for most any professional or amateur instructor. One of America’s favorite teachers and authors reveals his group teaching methods.
As of Thursday, round 7 (of 11) of the Renova Group Grand Prix in Zug, Switzerland, (http://zug2013.fide.com) had the two American’s, Gata Kamsky and Hikaru Nakamura, both a point behind the leaders in the 12-player round robin ending Tuesday.
The MetroWest Chess Club closed championship and 74-player open will also end Tuesday in Natick, with live coverage of top board games at www.metrowestchess.org.
The USCF alerted members of a computer upgrade on Friday at www.uschess.org, so one of the world’s top chess sites may now be even better organized to handle its millions of Web pages.
Answer to quiz: Black, Mikhail Tal (1936-92), won this 1974 game in grand style with 1. … Rxb2ch. However to get all the moves, view page 59 of Muller and Stolze’s “The Magic Tactics of Mikhail Tal,” the cover showing Tal’s enigmatic eyes, published by www.newinchess.com.
Fantastic column.