End Of The Season
Wednesday August 22, 2007
Well, another chess season has come to a close for me. It is time for me to move on to managing the websites for my other hobby (https://spamfootball.blogspot.com/), but I will return after the football season ends.
Before I go, I wanted to clean up some loose ends. Of course, you can still send in news items or articles during the off-season, and I will email them along to the subscribers. Any games I receive will be stored in my stockpile until next year. You can also join the Colorado Springs Chess News’ yahoo group (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/cs_chess/) to keep receiving chess games all year round.
So, before I finish typing my chess thoughts for another year, I want to thank all the people who sent in games and articles, all the people who took the time to tell me something nice about the newsletter, and all the people who take the time to read this.
Game Of The Year
As I was looking over the past year, I realized things were not as good as the year before. My rating peaked at 1897 before slipping to 1875. My victories over stronger opponents were down and so were the number of prizes I won. But despite the off numbers, I still found myself enjoying the year. Part of the reason was that, over the course of the past year, I began my entry into the world of Colorado Chess Informant contributor. The first time I wrote anything for the Informant was for an interview by Paul Grimm in January 2005. However, I would count that article as more of Paul Grimm’s submission than mine. My first blurb (October 2006) was inspired by Brian Wall’s infamous chess jokes. But it got the ball rolling, as I revised the jokes and added to them in January 2007. My first game-related article appeared in the next issue (April 2007) with the story of my son’s first victory over his dad. I added it to the website as well (https://cschessnews.blogspot.com/2007/04/redemption.html). So, it seemed appropriate to publish my last submission to the Informant (July 2007) as my game of the year since it was about one of my few upsets this year:
Lee's Plea (part 3)
As I was reading the last edition of the Informant (April 2007), I ran across the article “Lee’s Plea (part 2).” I thought to myself, “Ooh, the exciting conclusion to Lee’s Plea (part 1) is finally here!” Of course, I couldn’t remember what part 1 was about or if there was a perilous cliffhanger yet to be resolved. So, I went back through my old Informants looking for the original “Lee’s Plea.”
I couldn’t find it in the January 2007 edition but did find something in the October 2006 issue. In the mailbag section, Lee asked the question, “Is there no one who can topple the great Fort Collins Chess Club in match play?” It is hard to believe they decided to make a sequel out of that comment, but I guess that is the trend these days.
Actually, the trend seems to be to make a couple of sequels and call it a trilogy. In fact, I think every movie coming out this summer is the third in a series.
So, why should “Lee’s Plea” be any different? They seem to be getting better too. The second version was better than the first one as it even contained a cliffhanger this time. At the end of the story, our heroes have suffered their first setback like Luke Skywalker in the Empire Strikes Back. The Fort Collins Chess Club rushed off to face the dark side unprepared and got their hands cut off.
But that is not the end of the story. The story concludes with a hint of the ongoing saga to come: “Gauntlets have been thrown down for a match on March 24th against Colorado Springs at the neutral Tabor Center. Stay tuned next issue for a report on that match!” Of course, without any hands they didn’t have much use for the gauntlets anyway.
And now, another thrilling chapter in the adventures of the Fort Collins Chess Club in team matches.
Typically, in the final installment of a trilogy, the heroes redeem themselves and wrap things up for a happily-ever-after ending. Of course, in real life not everyone is reading from the same script.
Who knew the Fort Collins Chess Club would transform from Luke Skywalker into the Black Knight of Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
In the Mountain States Chess Club Championship Match, the Fort Collins Chess Club started hot with 2 wins on the top two boards, but they could only manage a couple of draws on the lower six boards and fell behind 3-5 at the break.
The good news was that the Fort Collins Chess Club was only two points behind. The bad news was that Fort Collins was luring Colorado Springs into a genuine sense of security with the second round yet to come. The Colorado Springs Chess Club turned the tide on the top boards that round with 3 wins, and they held off any losses with three draws on the bottom five boards and pulled away 11.5-4.5 to claim the Mountain States Chess Club Match Champions trophy!
I was not one of the Colorado Springs team members with a great deal of security in the second round. I had already lost in the first round facing an opponent who was higher rated than myself. I had used up a lot of time trying to get a slight edge in material in the opening and felt the pressure of trying to defend an attack against his queen and rooks with the clock in single digits.
So, I wanted to avoid repeating that kind of scenario in the second round. I was aiming to trade off the powerful pieces and shoot for a draw putting the pressure to win on him. However, I felt things had gone awry when I had to trade off my bishop for his knight leaving him the bishop pair and me with a knight on the edge of the board.
But it suddenly dawned on me that there are three ways to guarantee a victory over a higher rated opponent, and I will reveal one of those secrets to you now. As I thought, “How do you beat a higher rated player?”
I realized you just had to get a winning position and wait for him to resign.
When I had read “Lee’s Plea” originally, like most people, I completely dismissed it as the insane ramblings of a chess nut. However, I now appreciate the effort it took to get the ball rolling on these team matches. With four matches under their belt, the Fort Collins Chess Club has shown themselves to be a force that cannot be easily dismissed. Of course, the insane ramblings part is still up for debate, as the “great Fort Collins Chess Club” seems to topple more often than a game of Jenga.
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| White to move |
Game Of The Year IV
[Event "CSCC vs FCCC Club Match"]
[Site "https://cschessnews.blogspot.com/"]
[Date "2007.03.24"]
[Round "2.1"]
[White "Anderson, Paul"]
[Black "Petters, Markus"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "E70"]
[WhiteElo "1895"]
[BlackElo "2028"]
[PlyCount "63"]
[EventDate "2007.03.24"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 O-O 5. e5 Ne8 6. f4 d6 7. Be3 c5 8. dxc5
Qa5 9. Nf3 Nc6 10. Qa4 Qxa4 11. Nxa4 dxe5 12. fxe5 Nxe5 13. Nxe5 Bxe5 14. O-O-O
Bg4 15. Rd2 Ng7 16. Bd3 Nf5 17. Bxf5 Bxf5 18. b3 Rfd8 19. Rhd1 Rxd2 20. Rxd2
Kf8 21. g3 Ke8 22. Bd4 Bc7 23. Nc3 Rd8 24. Nb5 Ba5 25. Bc3 Bxc3 26. Nc7+ Kf8
27. Rxd8+ Kg7 28. Nd5 Ba5 29. Rb8 e6 30. b4 exd5 31. bxa5 dxc4 32. Rxb7 1-0
This Week In Chess
On August 14th, the CSCC had 14 members in attendance. In the USCF-rated ladder game (G60), Buck Buchanan butchered Josh Bloomer.
Most of the participants played in the club-rated ladder games (G15). Each player faced an opponent similar in rating in a 2 game match and then chose other willing opponents for additional matches. Here are the results:
Player Win Loss %
Jeff Fox 4.5 1.5 75.00%
Renae Delaware 3.0 1.0 75.00%
Mike Filppu 2.0 2.0 50.00%
Bill Whinemiller 1.0 1.0 50.00%
Paul Anderson 1.5 2.5 37.50%
Dean Brown 1.0 3.0 25.00%
Lucas Bundy 1.0 3.0 25.00%
New Photos From The Pikes Peak Open 2007!
By Fred Eric Spell
10 new photos on the Yahoo! Group by Fred Eric Spell at:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/cs_chess/
Comments From Email
DuWayne Langseth, Monday, August 13, 2007 7:37 AM
It was good to see you at the tournament. Since I played Doykos and he was about the same rating as me, maybe there is hope that we'll eventually get to play.
I hope you do an email of your game with Shaun. I love endgames, so it was real interesting. Here is a web site that you may like that uses tablebases.
http://www.lokasoft.nl/uk/tbweb.htm
You can set up any endgame position with 5 pieces or less and it will tell you who wins or draws and the number of moves to checkmate. Just add or remove pieces on the board and click submit. You can follow different lines of perfect play. It's great for mastering the basic endings.
If you happen to have Shaun's email address, please forward this to him too along with my congratulations for a great tournament.
DuWayne
[I don't know about an email of Shaun's game. I stopped thinking about that one somewhere in the middle of it. But I will post it to the Yahoo! Group (along with my other rook ending nightmare).]
Lost Sunglasses
By Renae Delaware
If you left a pair of sunglasses on the bench at the Acacia Apartments August 7th, please contact the club.
Thank you!
Renae
Upcoming Events
8/25 CU Rapid V, BCC
8/29 Poor Richard's Book Store August Open Final Round, CSCC
9/1-3 Colorado Open, CSCA
9/5,12,19,26 Poor Richard's Book Store September Open, CSCC
9/11 Fort Collins 2nd Tuesday September, CSCA
9/15 2nd Annual Regis Jesuit Grand Prix #1, CSCA
Colorado Springs Chess Club: CSCC (http://springschess.org/)
Denver Chess Club: DCC (http://www.denverchessclub.org/)
Boulder Chess Club: BCC (http://www.geocities.com/boulderchessclub/)
Colorado State Chess Association: CSCA (http://colorado-chess.com/)
Wyoming Chess Association: WCA (http://www.wyomingchess.com/)
Kansas Chess Association: KCA (http://www.kansaschess.org/)
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