Sunday, September 30, 2012

2012 Culture Days

Cecil Rosner reports:
"We had a steady stream of visitors to our afternoon(September 29) chess workshop at Garden City mall, part of Manitoba Chess Association's Culture Days activities. 

Some kids and families came to learn, and quite a few more came to
challenge me and Blair Rutter, and each other, to a game."
 

 

2012 October TNT starts Tuesday October 2

Rated by CFC and FIDE 

$ 20 entry fee  -   Prizes will be based on entries
CFC membership required (see below)

Location:
Lab: 1M21 (Manitoba Hall)
Main floor - east side, approx mid-way
http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/maps
5 rounds - October  2, 9, 16, 23,3 0 - (This is not a knockout tournament, players will play all 5 rounds)
Please note that we intend to start the first round at 7:00 p.m. sharp.

Tuesday Night Tournaments are held every month of the year, (except for November and December when things are organized a little differently).

There is one game per week.

All of the TNTs are Swiss (pairing) style tournaments with a time control of G /110 minutes [Each player has 1 hour 50 minutes  to complete their moves, the game will be be 3 hours and 40 minutes maximum]

One game for each consecutive Tuesday in the month).

Start time is 7:00 pm and the TD will confirm costs
$20 entry for the tournament -
All players in the tournament must be Chess Federation of Canada members.

CFC Membership information: (membership can be purchased at the tournament site)
Former/returning members:
$ 20 for a one-tournament membership or $ 49 for 12 months, Juniors - one tournament membership $ 10, $34 for 12 months.
 New members pay only $ 16 for a one-tournament membership or $ 36 for 12 months, Juniors - one tournament membership $ 10, $24 for 12 months.

Registration for tournament -Tuesday, October 2  - approximately 6:35 pm to 6:50 pm

Registration will be cut off at 6:50 pm. (If you think you may be late, please send an email to
chessmanitoba 'at' gmail.com) before 5 pm (you can try later, but the wireless access at the U may be problematic)

Location: University of Winnipeg - Rm 1M21


Saturday, September 29, 2012

2013 Manitoba Championship Qualifying

Manitoba Closed 2013 format : 8 player knockout 

Qualifiers -
Qualifiers must play 10 standard rated games (somewhere in the world) during calendar 2012 in order to qualify. In order of preference - if the qualifying player did not want to participate or the qualifier is redundant, we continued down the list until there were 8 willing participants.

     1. Previous Year's Champion (TREVOR VINCENT)
     2. Winner of the Reserve (2012 Albert Boxer Memorial, October)
     3. MB Junior Champion (if rated above 1900)
     4. Top Manitoban in AY Memorial (Fletcher Baragar, but currently only 5 games played)
     5,6. Top 2 finishers in the Tournament of Champions (Nov-Dec)
     7. Player with the best MTPPS (Modified Tournament Performance Point Score) s
     8. Player with the 2nd best MTPPS (Modified Tournament Performance Point Score)
     9. 2nd Manitoban in the AY Memorial (Jeff Babb, Jason Repa)
    10. Player with the 3rd best MTPPS 
    11. Player with the 4th best MTPPS 
    12. etc.from the MTPPS

MTPSS -  Modified Tournament Performance Point Score
MTPPS is calculated as follows:
A Loss = 0 points
A Draw = the rating of the opponent
A Win = the greater of [your opponent's rating + 200] or [your rating]

The top ten performance scores for each player are counted
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The current top MTPPS scores are as follows:
(Tournaments scored included all Manitoba CFC Standard rated tournments, Canadian Open, Canadian Youth, Canadian Junior, US National Open.) If you believe a result has been missed or is incorrect, please contact me.

Name
MTPSS lowest score # of games included
Kevin Li
23604 2253 10
Jeff Babb
23234 2248 10
Aron Kaptsan
22476 2196 10
Leor Wasserman
21991 2069 10
Nilo Moncal
21979 2147 10
Jason Repa
21435 1987 10
Rolando Bince
21323 2039 10
James Currie
21298 1949 10
Les Mundwiler
21294 2045 10
Myron Kernetsky
21230 2040 10
Anthony Boron
21140 2050 10
Samuel Lipnowski
20896 1720 10
Aaron Green
20822 1988 10
Ryne Swift
20803 1924 10
Trevor Vincent
20520 2037 9
Steven deGroot
20512 1911 10
Sam Cleto
20080 1886 10
Theo Wolchock
19287 1778 10

Friday, September 28, 2012

2012 September TNT has been rated by the CFC

See the crosstable here

Congratulations to the following who achieved new peak ratings:

Michael Pang 1904
Jamie Campbell 1668
Cody Baron 1746
Phil LeDorze 1703
Derek Ma  1738
Bruce Leaden 1567

and first ratings for
Gautam Sharma 1358
Tony Dykman 1213

Chess Workshop at Culture Days Saturday, Sep 29

Chess Workshop at Culture Days

The Manitoba Chess Association will be hosting a chess workshop for beginners, to be held from from 1:00 to 4:00 on Saturday, Sept. 29 at the Garden City Shopping Centre in Winnipeg.   All beginners and novices are welcome to join us to learn to play or to improve your chess-playing skills.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Cecil's Saturday Puzzle - September 22, 2012

from the Winnipeg Free Press
White to mate in 2 (Morse)
1. Ka7

Friday, September 21, 2012

2012 Manitoba Chess Championship

The 2012 Manitoba Chess Championship has a winner - but before we get into that, let's review the selection process, the candidates, and finally the matches.

Manitoba Closed 2012 format : 8 player knockout 

Qualifiers -
In order of preference - if the qualifying player did not want to participate or the qualifier is redundant, we continued down the list until there were 8 willing participants.

     1. Previous Year's Champion (TREVOR VINCENT)
     2. Winner of the Reserve (2011 Albert Boxer Memorial)
     3. MB Junior Champion (if rated above 1900)
     4. Top Manitoban in AY Memorial
     5,6. Top 2 finishers in the Tournament of Champions (Nov-Dec)
     7. Player with the best MTPPS (Modified Tournament Performance Point Score) s
     8. Player with the 2nd best MTPPS (Modified Tournament Performance Point Score)
     9. 2nd Manitoban in the AY Memorial
    10. Player with the 3rd best MTPPS 
    11. Player with the 4th best MTPPS 
    12. etc.from the MTPPS

Note that the concept of the MTPPS was introduced.

MTPSS -  Modified Tournament Performance Point Score
This is a change from the previous qualification through rating.  The rating provision did not properly recognize activity or recent results of relatively inactive players. It also did not recognize any non-CFC events.  So, the MTPPS is calculated as follows:
A Loss = 0 points
A Draw = the rating of the opponent
A Win = the greater of [your opponent's rating + 200] or [your rating]
The top ten performance scores for each player are counted
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The qualifiers were:
1. Previous Year's Champion (TREVOR VINCENT)
2. Winner of the Reserve (2011 Albert Boxer Memorial)  (KEVIN LI)
3. MB Junior Champion (if rated above 1900)  (KEVIN LI)
4. Top Manitoban in AY Memorial (Trevor Vincent, JEFF BABB)
5,6. Top 2 finishers in the Tournament of Champions (Nov-Dec) (KEVIN LI, JONATHON ZACZEK)
7. --> Players with the best MTPPS
 
Here are the top qualifiers for the Manitoba Championship according to MTTPS scores.

Player/                       Top Ten MTTPS scores  / Minimum
Trevor Vincent 23690 2091
Jonathon Zaczek 23254 2284
Gustavo Melamedoff 22812 2141
Kevin Li 22770 2239
Samuel Lipnowski 22706 2261
Aron Kaptsan 22520 2185
Anthony Boron 22416 2113
Nilo Moncal 22226 2102
Les Mundwiler 22180 2146
Jeff Babb 21975 2060
Carl Pottinger 21504 2035

Trevor Vincent, Jonathon Zaczek, Kevin Li and Jeff Babb all qualified through placings in tournaments, so the other four that got invites to the eight man knockout were:
Gustavo Melamedoff, Samuel Lipnowski,  Aron Kaptsan, and Anthony Boron.
(Zaczek passed on participating as has been in Poland most of the year, thus Moncal became the final invitee)

Let's review how the MTTPS worked.  I  devised it to a) identify those players who showed they could compete with the highest rating players, b) test a better method than qualifying through rating. Under the old system, as high enough rated player could qualify perpetually by playing just well enough not to lose many rating points. Below are performances by the MTTPS qualifiers against the other qualifiers that contributed to their placing.

Melamedoff - wins (Kaptsan, Boron, Vincent, Babb(x2),Li)
draws (Babb, Kaptsan)

Lipnowski - wins (Moncal,Boron)
 draws (Zaczek(x2)

Kaptsan- wins (Boron (x2), Melamedoff(x2), Moncal)
draws (Li(x2), Melamedoff, Zaczek)

Boron-  wins (Zaczek, Moncal,Kaptsan(x2))
             draws (Li (x3), Babb)
Moncal wins (Li,Babb)
                 draws (Li)

So, it is clear (to me at least), that the MTTPS qualifiers were capable of competing with the other qualifiers.

The eight qualifiers were then ranked by CFC rating with # 1 matched against # 8, # 2 against # 7, etc.

CFC average ratings (at time of rating -July 1, 2012) 2170, median 2160; compared to 2159,2137 in 2011; 2164, 2187 in 2010.

The matches were: (with CFC and FIDE ratings listed as of Jan 1)

Vincent, Trevor 23652173




Kaptsan, Aron 19432019











Lipnowski, Sam 22632202




Boron, Anthony 20541959











 Li, Kevin 22382097




 Moncal, Nilo 2101












 Babb, Jeff 22012144




 Melamedoff, Gustavo 21172040

Li                  Moncal


Melamedoff      Babb

Vincent
Kaptsan
Lipnowski
Boron
Vincent., Lipnowski, Li, and Babb emerged after the first set of matches.

Vincent then defeated Babb, while Li rebounded from a first game loss to beat Lipnowski in the tie-breakers.
Li and Vincent played 2 draws at the G/90 + 30 second time control, but Trevor prevailed in the rapid playoff.
Trevor Vincent wins his fifth consecutive Manitoba Championship  !

Game file is here.
http://www.chessmanitoba.com/viewer/MyChessviewer.php?pgn=2012_MB_Champ.pgn

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Cecil's Saturday Puzzle - September 8, 2012

from the Winnipeg Free Press
White to mate in 2 (Bartolovic)
1.Qh4