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| CalChess Women on Roll in San Diego: Baginskaite Stuns Nakamura
Posted by fpawn on Monday, March 06 @ 01:32:05 CST |
WGM Camilla Baginskaite (from U.S. Champ website) |
The U.S. Championship in San Diego has been turned upside-down by upsets, including two in the third round by local women. Batchimeg Tuvshintugs continued her hot streak by crushing GM Boris Kreiman in merely 27 moves. She has played three Grandmasters so far, losing only to GM Yuri Shulman. Way to go!
Surprisingly, this impressive result represented merely the second biggest upset involving a local player. Congratulations to WGM Camilla Baginskaite for stunning the reigning U.S. Champion GM Hikaru Nakamura. Baginskaite, who won the U.S. Women's Championship in 2000, showed no fear of her talented opponent and captured first one pawn and then another. The resulting endgame was just a simple matter of technique.
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| Batchimeg Tuvshintugs Defeats GM in Round 1 of US Chess Championship!
Posted by fpawn on Friday, March 03 @ 13:57:19 CST |
Batchimeg Tuvshintugs (from U.S. Champ website) |
By NM Michael Aigner
San Diego California
Local teenager NM Batchimeg Tuvshintugs started out the 2006 United States Championship with a bang. She defeated GM Alex Fishbein of New Jersey in a marathon game that lasted 70 moves and 6 1/2 hours. The U.S. Championship website reports this was her first victory against a Grandmaster in a tournament. Congratulations!
Four local players are participating in this year's U.S. Championship in San Diego. Grandmasters Alex Yermolinsky (GM-in-Residence at the Mechanics' Institute) and Walter Browne (6-time U.S. Champion) are joined top women WGM Camilla Baginskaite (2000 U.S. Women's Champion) and Tuvshintugs. Several other players, including FM Alan Stein and GMs Larry Christiansen and Nick DeFirmian, have local ties but no longer live in the area.
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| Local chess players gamble in Las Vegas
Posted by fpawn on Sunday, January 01 @ 21:30:47 CST |
U2200 champion Drake Wang |
By NM Michael Aigner
A large number of northern Californians fly or drive to Las Vegas during the last week of 2005 for the North American Open. This event has become a West coast cousin of the annual World Open in Philadelphia, complete with high entry fees and a correspondingly large prize fund. Of course, this was Las Vegas, Sin City and the gambling capitol of America! A total of 658 players showed up to play in the "Goichberg lottery" (named after organizer Bill Goichberg).
The 105 player Open section featured 20 Grandmasters and a large number of International Masters. Your reporter had the honor of playing (and losing to) GM Jaan Ehlvest. Moreover he was paired with two GMs, two IMs and two untitled players rated around 2400 USCF. Another famous player in attendance was GM Alexandra Kosteniuk. This was one tough tournament!
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| Naroditsky and 9th graders win in Houston!
Posted by fpawn on Thursday, December 08 @ 13:05:26 CST |
Saratoga High School team |
By NM Michael Aigner
Basking in warm weather at a spacious convention center, hundreds of young wannabe Kasparovs transformed the Houston convention center into a veritable chess heaven on earth. 1575 players from 40 different states competed in sections ranging from Kindergarten to Collegiate at the 2005 National Grade Level Championship on December 2-4. Roughly 20 of those children hailed from Northern California, with the vast majority playing in the 9th and 10th grade sections. This author made the pilgrimage to coach a team of eight players from Saratoga High School.
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| Reno in Retrospect..a TD report
Posted by eric h on Wednesday, November 02 @ 06:56:16 CST |
Jerry Weikel |
Jerry Weikel posted the following to his website.
Also he posted a zip file containing games from all the non-master sections featuring many bay area players including Hans Porshman, Nicholas Nip, Dana Mackenzie, Batsai, and many others.
For your convenience you can view the games here using the pgn viewer. Simply click the read more link and then scroll down to the bottem of the article to get the link to open the game collection.
We are the only website in the country to allow easy uploading and viewing of pgn games!
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| Western States Open in Reno
Posted by fpawn on Wednesday, October 19 @ 10:13:30 CDT |
By NM Michael Aigner
Each year in October, Grandmasters and amateurs alike travel to Reno, Nevada for both a chess tournament and a mini vacation. The 23rd annual Western States Open on October 14-16 at the Sands Regency Hotel & Casino combined both chess and fun. The tournament itself is organized and directed with the chess players in mind, meaning coffee and cake before the rounds and a spatious well-lit ballroom to play the games. The seven hour time control provides each player with plenty of time to contemplate their moves and still have a chance to relax before the next game. Of course, there also is plenty to do between rounds in Reno, including sightseeing and gambling. Over 350 chess players, parents and friends showed up for this year's tournament.
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| The Polgar and Denker tournaments
Posted by elizabeth on Thursday, August 25 @ 19:02:24 CDT |
By Elizabeth Shaugnessy
In Phoenix last week two wonderful scholastic events took place, the Polgar and the Denker tournaments. For those new to scholastic chess, both these tournaments are essentially playoffs for the national high school champions from among the high school State Champions. Both tournaments are USCF
tournaments and have six rounds. The Polgar is sponsored by the Susan Polgarfoundation and the Denker is named after the late GM Arnold Denker who sponsored it through many years. |
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| Local kids win at National Open!
Posted by fpawn on Friday, June 17 @ 17:21:07 CDT |
The Riviera on the Strip. |
By Michael Aigner
National Open at the Riviera hotel on the Las Vegas Strip is the largest annual adult chess tournament west of the Rocky Mountains with about 700 entries, and 2005 was no exception. The open section featured 10 Grandmasters and several more International Masters while the class sections featured adults and kids, sandbaggers and overrated players alike. Most people attended with two goals: to have a good time and perhaps to win part of the $50,000+ prize fund.
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| USCF Election Faces Snag
Posted by eric on Friday, June 17 @ 09:59:38 CDT |
Cal Chess Pres. Elizabeth Shaugnessy with Kasparov |
By Eric Hicks
The upcoming election for USCF Executive Board Members is underway. All current USCF members must decide four seats of the leadership of the new USCF. This has tremendous consequences since right now Northern Claifornia has representation in Cal Chess President Elizabeth Shaugnessy and she is up for re-election this session. |
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