The Sexcenchessial

Game Of The Week

This week's game comes from the March Quad.  I was 3 games away from my 600th over-the-board, USCF-rated game, and the final round of the Quad was going to be the one that hit the milestone.

I was having a hard time adjusting from G90 to G30, and this game was no different.  I kept getting good positions from my openings.  However, I was having a hard time finding the best plan to finish off my games, often losing all my advantage.

In this position, white has the choice of saving his Rook or taking the black Rook.  I found the best move but played a weaker continuation.  Sometimes it is better to go with a worse line you understand than to spend all your time trying to find all the best moves.

When I hit 500 games in 2009, I finally broke the expert level and set my peak rating (2003).  I was so thrilled to have crossed that barrier that I took a break to lock in a published rating and get my 1800 floor.  I celebrated the occasion by coining a new chess term for playing 500 games:  The Quincenchessial (https://cschessnews.blogspot.com/2009/06/the-quincenchessial.html)

However, I quickly dropped a ton of rating points and have spent the past 3 years and 100 games trying to get back to expert.  Now that I am at the next milestone, The Sexcenchessial, I wanted to look back and see how the past 100 games went for me.

I have won about 68% of my games.   However, two of my biggest ratings benefactors over the years have become a lot more stingy.  Buck Buchanan and Jeff Fox are #1 and #3 respectively on my benefactors list, but now they seem to have made it their mission to knock me back to Class A.

Despite the ratings dive, it has not been all bad news in the past 100 games.  I did finally win the Colorado Springs City Championship (2010) after 14 years of trying.  And the club did make me one of the three Officers who run things.  It is kind of like we have 3 Presidents of the chess club.   So, I've got that going for me.

Wins/Games Played, Player, Ratings

67.5/100 Anderson,Paul 2002
3.0/7 McGough,Mark 1821
3.0/6 Fox,Jeff 1843
3.0/5 Kondracki,Kurt 1882
3.0/4 Buchanan,Buck 2002
2.0/4 Evans,Julian 2012
1.0/5 Loving,Jason 1794
1.0/3 Langseth,Rhett 1764
1.0/3 Carson,Anthea 1744
1.0/3 Powers,James 1608
1.0/2 Cacas,Alex 1800
1.0/2 Doykos,Ted 1796
1.0/2 Serna,Jeffrey 1757
1.0/2 Torres,Alejandro 1582
1.0/1 Wall,Brian 2207
1.0/1 Tedla,Shravan 2093
1.0/1 Duesing,Tim 2084
1.0/1 Seidler,Kevin 2001
1.0/1 Irwin,John 1990
1.0/1 Samuels,Joshua 1990
1.0/1 Morrow,Hans 1920
1.0/1 Al-Mutlaq,Omar 1501
0.5/6 Brown,Dean 1572
0.5/2 Fox,Shannon 1780
0.5/2 Martinson,Timothy 1760
0.5/1 Neri,Gerardo 1743
0.5/1 Chase,Zachary 1302
0.0/3 Wise,Katie 1815
0.0/3 Martinez,Isaac 1666
0.0/2 Rountree,Brian 1781
0.0/2 Freeman,Alex 1580
0.0/2 Lucas,Gene 1502
0.0/1 Covington,Paul 1921
0.0/1 Telinbacco,Anthony 1881
0.0/1 Alexander,Charles 1863
0.0/1 Langseth,DuWayne 1840
0.0/1 Reynolds,Randy 1700
0.0/1 Hoffacker,Dan 1699
0.0/1 Brennan,Timothy 1696
0.0/1 Neri,Geraldo 1673
0.0/1 Lasley,Alexa 1548
0.0/1 Foster,Cory 1534
0.0/1 Brown,Richard 1469
0.0/1 Swan,Peter 1427
0.0/1 Isacoff,Robert 1327
0.0/1 Nastri,John 1300
0.0/1 Bram,Pret 1190
0.0/1 Chase,Tyler 1116
0.0/1 Umana,Zach 1108
0.0/1 Novik,Elena 1053
0.0/1 Kaaoush,Kevin 1049
0.0/1 McEnany,Rian 1004

White to move

The Sexcenchessial

[Event "March Quad"]
[Site "https://cschessnews.blogspot.com/"]
[Date "2012.03.13"]
[Round "3.3"]
[White "Anderson, Paul"]
[Black "McEnany, Rian"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A41"]
[PlyCount "79"]
[EventDate "2012.03.13"]
[TimeControl "1800"]

1. d4 d6 2. c4 f6 3. e4 e5 4. d5 b6 5. Bd3 c5 6. Nc3 Na6 7. Nge2 Nb4 8. O-O Nxd3 9. Qxd3 Qd7 10. f4 Be7 11. Qg3 g6 12. Be3 Ba6 13. b3 O-O-O 14. a4 f5 15. fxe5 dxe5 16. exf5 gxf5 17. Qxe5 Nf6 18. Bf4 Kb7 19. Rad1 Qd6 20. Qxf5 Qd7 21. Qd3 Bd6 22. Ne4 Nxe4 23. Qxe4 Rde8 24. Qf3 Rhf8 25. g3 Bxf4 26. Nxf4 Qg7 27. d6+ Kb8 28. d7 Rd8 29. Ne6 Rxf3 30. Nxg7 Rxf1+ 31. Kxf1 Bb7 32. Ne6 Bf3 33. Nxd8 Bxd1 34. Nc6+ Kc7 35. d8=Q+ Kxc6 36. Qxd1 Kb7 37. Qd7+ Ka6 38. Ke2 h6 39. Kd3 Ka5 40. Qb5# 1-0

https://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-replayer.php?id=61445

This Week In Chess

On March 13th, the Colorado Springs Chess Club held a Quad event.  The participants are split into groups of 4 players for a round robin tournament (G30 for USCF-rated and G20 for unrated).  Jeff Fox and Alex Torres went unbeaten to claim their quads.  Here are the results:

Score, Player

USCF Quad

3.0 Jeff Fox
2.0 Paul Anderson
1.0 Mark McGough
0.0 Rian McEnany

Unrated Quad

3.0 Alex Torres
2.0 Buck Buchanan
1.0 Sherry McEnany
0.0 Arin McEnany

Colorado Springs Open Crosstable

By Buck Buchanan

Score, Player

4.5 Eric Montany
4.0 Brian Wall
4.0 Pierre Julien
4.0 Katie Wise
3.5 Zach Bekkedahl
3.5 Anthea Carson
3.5 Mark Schlagenhauf
3.5 Brian Walker Sr
3.5 Sean Scott
3.5 Gary Bagstad
3.0 Josh Samuel
3.0 Adam Masek
3.0 Rhett Langseth
3.0 Brian Tate
3.0 Ron Rossi
3.0 Ryan Swerdlin
3.0 James Powers
3.0 Brian Walker Jr
2.5 Barry Hepsley
2.5 Justin Alter
2.5 Isaac Martinez
2.5 Peter Grigg
2.5 Alexander Cacas
2.5 Scott Swerdlin
2.5 DuWayne Langseth
2.0 Gideon Bob
2.0 Robert Carlson
2.0 Dean Brown
2.0 Robert Ramirez
2.0 Gene Lucas
2.0 Mike Madsen
2.0 Steve Stevenson
2.0 Victor Huang
1.5 Alexander Freeman
1.5 Alex Stiger
1.5 Daniel Herman
1.5 Robert Rountree
1.0 Peter Swan
1.0 Robert Hodge
1.0 Victor Creazzi
1.0 Kathy Schneider
0.5 Ray O'Dell
0.5 Gregg Ford