The Marshall Spectator
Jul 12
In This Issue:
From The Skittles Room
Kings Kibitzes, by FM Alex King
En Passant
Chess Toons
Problem of the Week, by Alexander George
Editor’s Notes
Welcome back, fellow chess players, to this edition of the Marshall Chess Club's fortnightly bulletin, The Marshall Spectator.
As always, there are many exciting events upcoming at our club and I encourage you to check out our calendar for the full list here, however, there is one in particular that I am looking forward to this month for its unique connection to chess history and culture. On Tuesday July 25th, we will be hosting a lecture and discussion with IM Yury Lapshun and FM Jon Jacobs on the topic of visiting the final resting places of Steinitz and Lasker. Yury and Jon will give a virtual tour to the graves of the first two World Chess Champions, William Steinitz and Emanuel Lasker, explaining how to get to each gravesite within their cemeteries on the Brooklyn-Queens border. They will also tell how each champion came to live out their final years in New York, and will present a sparkling game that each man won near the end of his life. Snacks, comestibles, refreshments, amuse-bouches and perhaps even a bit of wine will be served.
We would also like to remind you that the popular summer camps at the club, run by our partners, ICN, have begun! Click the below image to register!
In the last few weeks, we have had a plethora of rated chess events at our historic club.
The Rated Beginner Open on July 9 had 51 players registered and concluded with a 4-way tie for first place. Gordon Hui, Brendan Tsang, Roscoe Rich and Skylar Lin all scored a perfect 3 out of 3 to take home $159.50.
The Saturday Under 2000 Morning Action on July 8 had 45 players registered and finished with a 4-way tie for first place between Joseph Otero, Claudio Martin Mariani, Samuel Nemiroff and Timothy Abbot who all scored a perfect 3 out of 3 to take home $98.44 each. Rishan Malhotra won the class prize of $168.75 after finished with 2.5 out of 3 in that event.
The FIDE Thursday Open on July 6 had 32 players registered and was won by Pedro Espinosa who scored 5 points to take home the first place prize of $267. Anand Vaneswaran won second place, scoring 4.5 points to win $160, while there were three players who finished with 4 points: Mikhail Kobanenko won the class prize of $133 for this performance, while George Berg and Nkosi Nkululeko shared the remaining prize funds taking home $40 each for their effort.
The Steve Immitt Action on July 6 had 41 players registered and concluded with a two-way tie for first between IM Yury Lapshun and Jessica Hyatt who scored 4 out of 6 to win $141 each. Aditeya Das scored 3.5 out of 6 win $94, and our very own Miguel Garcia scored 3 out of 6 to win a class prize of $94.
The Independence Day Action on July 4 had 32 players registered to show their patriotism by playing chess, and it was won by IM Yury Lapshun who scored 5 out of 6 points to win the $300 first place prize. There was a 4-way tie between IM Michael Song, GM Michael Rohde, Paris Prestia and Bilgen Sazci who each won $67.50 for their 4.5 out of 6 score. The remaining class prize was shared by Ciprian Solomon, Alec H Choi and Kyle Chan who scored 4 points and earned $30 each.
The Weekly Monday Under 1800 that concluded on July 3 had 22 players registered and was won by Michael Bamford and Mason Zhou who scored 4.5 out of 6 and won $134.50 each for their performance. There was a three-way tie for the remaining prizes between Cameron Hull, Georgios Spiliotopoulos and Artem Alensko who scored 4 points and won $25.67 for their efforts.
The FIDE Monday Open that concluded on July 3 had 28 players registered and was won by Richard Herbst who scored 4.5 out of 6 to finish in clear first place, winning $208 in the process. Alberto Arnedo Ruiz and Wyatt Wong scored 4 points each to win $130 each, while Sergey Nizhegorodtsev won the class prize of $104 and Hema Vikas also won a class prize of $52.
The Rated Beginner Open on July 2 had 35 players registered and concluded as it often does, with a three-way tie for first place. This time the winners were Henry Ororke, Kimberly Duong and Henry Zhou who all had perfect scores of 3 out of 3 and won $146 each for their effort.
The Sunday Game 50 Open on July 2 had 34 players registered and featured a two-way tie for first before IM Yury Lapshun and Justin Sarkar, who won $165 each for their perfect 4 out of 4 performance. Chance Deas scored 3.5 out of 4 to win the remaining $99 prize.
The Sunday Game 50 Under 1600 on July 2 had 12 players registered and was won by Mingrui Ju and Gordon Hui, who scored 3 out of 4 to win $60 each. Henry Arnold and Zachary Nazimowitz shared in the remaining class prize, scoring 2.5 and winning $18 each.
The Saturday Game 50 Under 1800 on July 1 had and even 20 players registered, and was won by Dylan Fountain Yu who scored a perfect 4 out of 4 to win the $120 first place prize. The second place prize of $80 went to Shawn Epelbaum who scored 3.5 out of 4, while Gilberto Astor won the $60 class prize for his 3 out of 4 performance.
The Saturday Game 50 Open on July 1 had 15 players registered and was won by IM Justin Sarkar who scored a perfect 4 out of 4 to take home the $90 first place prize. Dwight Dans, Chase Knowles and Naveen Paruchuri scored 3 points each to share in the remaining prize funds, winning $35 each for their efforts.
The Saturday Under 2000 Morning Action on July 1 had 9 players registered and was won by Levon Tadevosyan and Claudio Martin Mariani who scored 2.5 out of 3 to win $39.38 each.
The FIDE Blitz on June 30 had 24 players registered and was won by GM Michael Rohde who scored 8.5 out of 9 to win $115. Jalen Wang won the $58 second place prize, scoring 7 points, while IM Justin Sarkar won $29 for his 6 out of 9 performance. There was a 4-way tie among Glen Cabasso, Knowles Chase, Luis Ulloa Centeno and Wyatt Wong who all scored 5.5 out of 9 to take home $21.75 each.
The Steve Immitt Action on June 29 had 32 players and was won by IM Yury Lapshun who scored a perfect 4 out of 4 to win the $141 first place prize. Second place went to Vladimir Bugayev who scored 3.5 out of 4 and won the second place prize of $70. Pat Sukhum also won a $70 class prize for his performance, and the remaining class prize was shared by Kole Moses, Max Mottola and George Bugayev who scored 3 points to earn $23.33 each. The upset prize was won by Eli Roane.
There have been no fewer than 25 players who have gained more than a hundred rating points from a single tournament over the last few weeks at our club. To see the full list of biggest rating gainers, click here. At the time of writing, the same name appears at the top of this list twice: Henry Zhou. Henry has gained 218 rating points on June 25th’s RBO, and then a week later gained another 268 rating points on July 2 in that same event. That’s a 486 rating point gain in a single week!
King’s Kibitzes
King’s Kibitzes
New Wine Into Old Bottles
This month’s column is the twentieth article I have written for the Marshall Spectator, and for the occasion I have compiled updates to several of my previous articles, against the advice of Jesus that “no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.” (Luke 5:37, KJV). Not today, Jesus!
* * *
Fearful Symmetry update:
This was my first article for the Spectator back in June 2021. The concept remains as relevant as ever, especially in my online bullet games:
OjaiJoao (2597) - anemih (2461)
Lichess G/1+0”, 15 Apr 2023
37.Kf4! Kg7 38.Ke5 f6+ 39.Ke6 g5 40.f4 Kg6 41.f5+ Kg7 42.Ke7 g4 43.Ke6 Kf8 44.Kxf6 and White won on move 68.
OjaiJoao (2600) - changingiswinning (2677)
Lichess G/1+0”, 14 Jun 2023
41…h5? 42.Nxf6! Kxf6 43.Kf4! Kg7 44.Ke5 Kf8 45.Kf6 Kg8 46.f4 Kf8 47.f5 gxf5 48.Kxf5 Kg7 49.Kg5 f6+ 50.Kxh5 and White won on move 58.
OjaiJoao (2575) - lion2006-45 (2853)
Lichess G/½ +0”, 5 Jun 2023
40…Rxe4 41.Kxe4 Kf6? 42.Kf4! and White won on move 51.
I even converted it in an “UltraBullet” game with only 3.6 seconds on my clock:
OjaiJoao (2150) - gmbmw (2254)
Lichess G/¼+0”, 27 May 2023
38.Rf3 Rxf3 39.Kxf3 Kf6? 40.Kf4! and White won on move 66.
Icelandic FM Ingvar Thor Johannesson, aka “TheChessViking”, even named this endgame after me in a video entitled “The King King and Pawn Endgame” on his YouTube channel.
Marshall member GM Brandon Jacobson won this endgame in the 2022 Chess.com Junior Speed Chess Championship, to the amazement of live commentators GM Daniel Naroditsky and GM Robert Hess, who failed to give me a shout-out, instead referencing Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual, which does not mention this position or anything like it.
* * *
P-K4 - Let’s Wait Awhile update:
My beloved English GM Keith Arkell continues to follow his grand strategy of playing P-K4 as late in the game as possible:
Eric Gardiner (1985) - Keith Arkell (2383)
Daventry Easter Open, 15 Apr 2022
70…e5 71.Bf5 Nd1+ 72.Ke2 Ne3 73.Be6 e4 74.fxe4 Kxe4 75.Kf2 0-1
I outdid him by setting a new personal record for latest P-K4 in my own games:
Mavi_L (2558) - OjaiJoao (2645)
Lichess G/3+2”, 21 Nov 2022
94…e5 0-1
(Full disclosure: I had already played …e5 on move 46 of this game, but then later played …fxe6 and so got to play it again!)
* * *
Organ Pipes update:
I reached the organ pipes formation on my way to beating the “James Canty bot” on ChessKid:
“james-canty-bot” (2200) - Alex King (1240)
ChessKid untimed game, 11 May 2022
19…Bc8 and Black won on move 101.
The organ pipes also scored 2.5/3 in the 2022 Chennai Olympiad, all for Black’s side:
Avital Boruchovsky (2551) - Anish Giri (2760)
Olympiad (4.1), 1 Aug 2022
The game was drawn on move 42.
Baskaran Adhiban (2598) - Samvel Ter-Sahakyan (2625)
Olympiad (6.3), 3 Aug 2022
Black won on move 40.
Surya Ganguly (2608) - Emilio Cordova (2549)
Olympiad (8.1), 6 Aug 2022
Black won on move 37.
* * *
Furniture Removers update:
I reached yet another pawn ending on move 19, in the same opening line as in the original article:
OjaiJoao (2649) - DBMK (2495)
Lichess G/10+0”, 16 Jun 2022
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Bb4 6.Nxc6 dxc6 7.Qxd8+ Kxd8 8.Bg5 Bxc3+ 9.bxc3 h6 10.Bxf6+ gxf6 11.Bc4 Be6 12.Bb3 Ke7 13.Ke2 Rad8 14.Rad1 f5 15.Rxd8 Rxd8 16.Bxe6 Kxe6 17.exf5+ Kxf5 18.Rd1 Rxd1 19.Kxd1
19…Ke5 20.Kd2 b5 21.Kd3 c5 22.c4 c6 23.g3 Kf5 24.f3 h5 25.Ke3 a5 26.h3 Ke5 27.f4+ Kf5 28.Kf3 Kg6 29.Ke4 Kf6 30.g4 h4 31.cxb5 cxb5 32.Kd5 c4 33.Kc5 b4 34.Kxc4 1-0
* * *
Bathtub update:
I managed to mate in the bathtub, although in general those days are behind me:
OjaiJoao (2657) - nhe111 (1820)
Lichess G/10+5”, 22 Jan 2023
* * *
I’ll Take the Check update:
I correctly executed a cook-free mate in 4 beginning with a check provocation:
OjaiJoao (2495) - skravitz (1604)
Lichess G/5+3”, 30 Jun 2023
41.Kg3! h4+ 42. Kf4! g3 43.Ne4+! Ke6 44.d5#!
* * *
3+3+1 = 8? update:
At the recent World Open, Marshall member NM Todd Bryant followed Giri’s formula that two bishops and a pawn equal a rook and a knight. Don’t look too closely at the engine’s evaluation - it all worked out in the end:
Jayden Wu (2047) - Todd Bryant (2233)
World Open, 3 Jul 2023
26.g6 Qxd5 27.gxf7+ Qxf7 28.Qh7+ Kf8 29.Rhg1 Bxd4 30.Qxf7+ Kxf7 31.Rxd4 a5 32.Rh4 Bc6 33.Rh7+ Kf6 and Black won on move 55.
* * *
The Human Centipawn update:
Stockfish 16 was released this month, using a new evaluation calibration where +1.00 is pegged to positions where the engine wins against itself 50% of the time (and draws the other 50%). This means that +1.00 is now the dead center of what I call the “indeterminate zone”, where it is deeply unclear whether the categorical evaluation is win or draw. For SF15, I considered this indeterminate zone to span from +1.00 to +2.00; for SF16 the corresponding zone now appears to be about +0.70 to +1.50. So, if you use SF16, you can be definitively sure that virtually all positions evaluated below +0.70 are draws with best play, and positions evaluated above +1.50 are wins with best play. A position evaluated in between those thresholds will still in truth be either a draw or a win, but the engine’s evaluation does not reliably enough (for my taste) predict one or the other.
* * *
The Joy of Cheating update:
I have earned the title of ICCF Correspondence Chess Master! This title requires two norms, the first of which I achieved on 21 Apr 2023 in a tournament which is still ongoing:
My one game win (so far) in this event was my highest-rated ICCF win to date, a fascinating positional sacrifice for long-term compensation. Even after many hours of engine analysis, I’m still not sure what Black’s decisive mistake was.
My second norm was in another ongoing tournament in which I have completed all my games, with no decisive results:
In our current neural-net-engine era, wins in engine correspondence are basically impossible to achieve normally, and only occur when a player makes some kind of move-entry error - essentially a “mouseslip”. Even some participants in the current World Championship final are declaring engine-assisted play “dead”:
I responded to Tansel with my own proposal for the future of engine correspondence:
We’ll see if my idea catches on.
That’s all for now - until the next round of updates!
FM Alex King, Spectator retrospector and prospector
En Passant
In the longest game of the Women’s World Championship match so far, Lei Tingjie surprised Ju Wenjun in the opening. Ju struggled at first, but later got to put pressure on her opponent in the endgame. A fourth draw in Shanghai means the score remains tied in what has so far been a high-quality, tense confrontation.
The SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia 2023 came to a close on Sunday with one clear winner, GM Magnus Carlsen. The former world champion kept up his formidable run and scored 6/9 on the second day of blitz to take his total to 26/36.
Kazakhstan, host of the World Championship match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, has a lively and thriving chess scene and continues to organise attractive tournaments. The Uralsk Open (20-29 July) and the World Schools Team Championships in Aktau (3-8 August) are in the pipeline, but here is a report on the recently concluded Aktobe Open, which took place from 19-28 June and was won by Iranian grandmaster Daneshwar Bardiya.
Chess Toons
Problem of the Week
Bonus Socius, 13th Century
White to mate in 2.
Granddaddy of all miniatures! (A miniature is a problem with seven or fewer pieces.) This problem is an incomplete block: White currently does not have a response to every Black move. What White needs to do is find a move that will result in a complete block (or zugzwang), where no matter Black moves, White will have a mating response. (For some idea of the physical beauty of this book, see some of the illustrations here.)
---
Loyd 1859
Solution to Loyd 1859: 1.Raf2 a4 2.Kd2 a3 3.Ra1 a2 4.Ke1 Bxf2+ 5.Kxf2 mate.
---
Editor's Note
Have you played an interesting game at the Marshall recently? Submit it along with some light annotations at td@marshallchessclub.org and you may win a free tournament entry!
As always, if you have any feedback, comments, or would like to submit an article please contact us directly at td@marshallchessclub.org.
Enjoy, and thanks for reading!
The Marshall Chess Club
23 West Tenth Street New York, NY 10011
212.477.3716
