Chess Manitoba: September 2012

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. http://www.culturedays.ca/en/2012-activities/view/502919c9-9c6c-4e7d-afde-7ee64c4a89be

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	2365	2173
Kaptsan, Aron	1943	2019

Lipnowski, Sam	2263	2202
Boron, Anthony	2054	1959

Li, Kevin	2238	2097
Moncal, Nilo	2101

Babb, Jeff	2201	2144
Melamedoff, Gustavo	2117	2040

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

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Study of the week

I am going to supplement Cecil's Saturday puzzles with some practical studies.
Here is a recent one that caught my attention. I will provide attribution after you had a chance to look at it for a couple of days.