Cecil's Saturday Puzzle July 18 2009

from the Saturday Winnipeg Free Press

White to mate in 3 (Loyd)

Simple, but elegant ! I give the toughest line in bold.

1.Ng4+ Kf3 ( 1...Kh1 2.Qh2+ gxh2 3.Nf2# ) ( 1...Kg1 2.Ra8 )
( 1...Kh3 2.Nh2 gxh2 3.Qh8# ) ( 1...Kf1 2.Ra8 ) 2.Qc2 g2 3.Qd3#

Junior Chess Camp - Aug 4 - 7

Click for larger image

July TNT has been rated

July TNT has been rated.

New rating highs achieved by:

Rolando Bince 2086
Igal Raihman 1905 provisional
Ryne Swift 1779
Michael Pang 1612
Leor Wasserman 1750
Keer Keer 1433 provisional
Justin Villeneuve 1306 provisional

Note also that some ratings from the Canadian Open have been adjusted. A few Manitobans got some couple of extra points. Paolo and I had played a provisional player who had an incorrect result reported from a previous tournament, which apparently was corrected, so we gained a few points each.

Canadian Open Photo Story

Chess Canadian Open 2009, focusing on Manitoba players, friends, and former Manitobans. Last few pictures are of the University of Alberta residence, including storm damage to a tree from the night of July 18, 2009. Note, there is a chill music track that will play.
If you want an original photo, leave me a message and I will email it.

Canadian Open has been rated

details at Canadian Open

Gentes +4
Kaptsan 0
Boron +8
Paolo Araullo +34 to new provisional high of 2081
Marlon Araullo +146 to new provisional high of 1742
Ken Einarsson +34 to new high of 1768
Clifford Goodman +48 to a new high of 1678
Aaron Green -39
Jim Green -8
Saul Magnusson -4
Leah -74

Some pics

No time to post them all now, here are a few...

Mickey Adams observing Kovalyov-Ni

Shirov-Ganguly

Manitobans at Canadian Open - Round 9

Final Scores

FM Kevin Gentes 5.5
Aron Kaptsan 5.0
Anthony Boron 5.0
Paolo Araullo 4.5
Ken Einarsson 4.5
Marlon Araullo 4.5
Aaron Green 4.0
Clifford Goodman 4.0
Jim Green 3.5
Philip Santileces 3.5 (he is listed as Winnipeg, but I personally do not know him)
Saul Magnusson 3.0
Leah Green .5

This shows you the injustice that can be dealt to those finishing in the middle of the pack in the Swiss system in an Open. Paolo played very, very strong competition, while I played no one above my rating (although Sillador will have a high rating) and I had a zero point bye. The contrast also applies to me and Aron. Apparently I caught a piece of 4th-5th in U2000 - at least an 11 player tie - perhaps enought to cover my LRT fares and a few Timmies.

Update: Someone (anonymous) has indicated that Marlon tied for first in U1600. Congratulations !

Update: Ken Einarsson tells me he tied for a money placing in the U1800 - Congratulations !

Manitobans at the Canadian Open - Round 8

went 6.5 - 4.5

Gentes moved up to 5.5
Kaptsan continued his steady play with a draw with Black against FM Pechenkin.

Manitobans at the Canadian Open - Round 7

Manitobans scored 5 out of 10 points available (I played Jim Green)
Paolo was finally stopped by a FIDE master, but gets another FIDE rated player in Round 8, to make it his sixth FIDE player this tournament.

Gentes and Kaptsan listed at 35th and 49th
http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5593

Canadian Open

Micah Hughey reports:

Zeljka from Monroi has posted a video of the Canadian Open

Manitobans at the Canadian Open - Round 6

The best round thus far, 7-4.
Paolo Araullo did it again - taking down Canadian Master Andrei Moffatt.
Next he gets an FM - his fifth Fide rated player in the last six rounds.

And in the "they should use 'team pairing rules for small contingents' department, I am paired with Jim Green in the 7th round. There are only 43 (!) players with 3 points, and we get paired. Earlier in the night, in the skittles room. Jim joked that it could happen. I said - they wouldn't do that to us. What do I know ?

(Also, in an early round Saul Magnusson played Leah Green.)

Manitobans at the Canadian Open

Round 5 resulted in a 5.5-5.5 result for the Manitobans.

The highlight so far would have to be Paolo Araullo's results.
Last night he beat a Dutch FIDE rated player to move to 3.5. Tonight he gets another FIDE rated player. So for FIDE rating purposes, Paolo now has a 'result' (scoring at least 1 from 3 games in one event[one point is required for the first set of games; after that .5 is sufficient]), and will have at least 4 games towards the 9 eventually required for a FIDE rating.

(I have clipped the following from Stephen Wright's BCCF E-MAIL BULLETIN #168)http://chess.bc.ca/)

"Returning to Edmonton for the sixth time in forty-six events, the Canadian Open has attracted just over two hundred entrants, including nine grandmasters: Alexei Shirov, Hua Ni, Michael Adams, Surya Ganguly, Victor Mikhalevski, Eugene Perelshtyn, Anton Kovalyov, Mark Bluvshtein, and Xue Zhao. After five of the nine rounds there is a log jam at the top with nine players tied on 4.5: GMs Shirov, Ni, Adams, Ganguly, Mikhalevski, Bluvshtein, IM Edward Porper, and FMs Vladimir Pechenkin and Theo Hommeles. Currently the top B.C. player is FM Ian MacKay, tied with fifteen others a half point back; additional B.C. leaders include FM Jack Yoos, Lucas Davies, and Edward Tang (all 3.5), and IM Leon Piasetski, Ben Daswani, Tanraj Sohal, Vlad Gaciu, Richard Huang, and Dezheng Kong (all 3.0).

All aspects of internet coverage, including pairings, standings, games, and photos, are being handled by Monroi - www.ed.chess.ca is the tournament-specific address. Some of these materials are finding their way to the Chessbase site; to date there have been two reports:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5580

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5585

Apart from allowing access to a PGN file which includes all the available games, Chessbase has also commissioned GM Alexander Shabalov to write annotations for the top five or six games from each round. "

Manitobans at Canadian Open - Round 4

By my count, the Manitobans scored 5 out of 10.
The highlight was Paolo's draw with Jeff Reeve. A very good result !

I saw the following game at monroi.com; I am guessing that Tyler Longo owns a monroi unit.

Manitobans in Rd 3

Another tough day - 4.5 - 5.5

Paolo joins Gentes at 2-1
Aron keeps steady at 1.5

I am predicting 6-4 for the fourth round !

Round 3: IM Krush vs. FM Kevin Gentes

Round 3: Kong vs. Van Heirzeele

With Gentes the only Manitoban with more than 1 point, I thought it would be interesting to also track young Dezheng tonight.

Manitobans in Round 2

Went 3.5-6.5,
led by FM Kevin Gentes second straight victory.
Tonight he has Black against IM Irina Krush on Board 13.
There should be monroi coverage - tune in at 7:00 p.m.

Former Winnipegger Dezhong Kong has 1.5 after drawing a young master

FM Raja Panjwani - Paolo Araullo

Round 2 game - I believe Panjwani has at least two IM norms.

GM Ni (2700) - Kaptsan 1-0

You should be able to see a link to Monroi's transmission of Aron's game below -
(I notice that the game transmission seems to get hung up at times; if so refresh the browser.)

I am not sure what it will look like after the game concludes.

Canadian Open 1 - Day One

A tough day for the Manitobans as most of them were paired well up.

However, FM Kevin Gentes, Aron Kaptsan, and Paolo Araullo, who were paired down, all won.
Aron's reward is to play Black against GM Hua Ni on Board 2 tonight ! Paolo gets FM Raja Panjwani on Board 20.

Cecil's Saturday Puzzle - July 4, 2009

From the Winnipeg Free Press

White to Mate in 2 (Eaton)
1. Rb3