The Marshall Spectator
September 6, 2023
In This Issue:
From the Skittles Room New Interim Executive Director: Carlos Chavez King's Kibitzes, by FM Alex King Chess Calendar, by IM Silas Lund En Passant: Chess News Chess Toons Puzzle of the Week, by Alex George
Welcome back, fellow chess players, to this edition of the Marshall Chess Club's fortnightly bulletin, The Marshall Spectator.
After the popularity of our club’s Spring match against the Nairobi Chess Club, the Marshall has organized a slate of matches for the next few months against clubs from around the world. The next match will be against a club in Poland: Klub Szachowy Jelonka! The match, set for Saturday October 14th at 10am, will consist of two games (one each with White & Black), G/30+5. We’re currently looking for players who match these details:
- 2 players with a rating ~2000/2100
- 2 players with a rating ~1800
- 4 players with a rating ~1400/1500
- 2 players with a rating ~1200
Please email us at td@marshallchessclub.org to express an interest in playing!
Our historic club held more than a dozen rated chess tournaments over the last two weeks. Many of our events are selling out, so be sure to register in advance!
We recently hosted a 9 round, round robin norm event organized by nycchessnorms. The 2023 Marshall Chess Club GM/IM Norm Invitational featured 28 chess players who came together in 3 sections to compete for 5 days in a marathon of chess. Results and PGN’s of the games can be found on Chess Results for the GM, IM, and Qualifier sections. There was live commentary of the match by IM Luis Henrique Coelho, which you can watch on his twitch channel here, where you can also see a recap of the events. We will also post the recap of the events on our website as well.
The Rated Beginner Open on September 3 had an even 30 players registered and finished with a tie for first between Jeff Sheng and Emilio Coslovsky, who scored 3 out of 3 and won $187.50 each.
The Saturday Game 50 Open on September 2 had 45 players registered and finished with a two-way tie for first between IM Mykola Bortnyk and Jason Jiang who both scored perfect 4 out of 4 to win $220 each. Alice Chovanec, Leo Shen and Brian Gilbert shared in a class prize, winning $44 each for their 3 out of 4 score.
The Under 2000 Morning Action on September 2 had 35 players registered and finished with a 3-way tie for first place. Anthony Wang, Nasir and Will Nieder scored perfect 3 out of 3’s to win $99.17 each.
The Friday Blitz on September 1 had 30 players registered and was won by GM Aleksandr Lenderman who scored 8 points out of 9 to win the $145 first place prize. IM Michael Song took clear second place with his 7 out of 9 score, winning $73 for his efforts. Neel Yerramilli came in third place, winning $37 for his 6.5 out of 9 score. Christian Goldammer and Nathan Booncharoen scored 6 points to share in a class prize, winning $37 each and Max Kumar and Alexandra Lussie scored 5.5 points to win $18.50.
The Sunday Rated Beginner Open Under 1200 on August 27 had 28 players registered and finished with a three way tie for first. Anderson Chen, Emilio Stone Coslovsky and Logan Mirza scored a perfect 3 out of 3 each to win $112.67.
The Sunday Game 50 Open on August 27 had 40 players registered to play and was won by our very own member of the board, Vladimir Bugayev who scored a perfect 4 out of 4 to win the $234 first place prize. GM Michael Rohde and IM Justin Sarkar scored 3.5 out of 4 each to win $78, while Dazhen Lu and Richardsen Qiao shared in a class prize for their 3 point performance, winning $58 each.
The Sunday Game 50 Under 1600 on August 27 had 23 players registered an was won by Ashton Bellur who scored 3.5 out of 4 to win $132. Daniel Zahzouhi, Kevin Xu and Victor Omilabu scored 3 points to win $51.33 each.
The Saturday Under 2000 Morning Action on August 26 had 28 players registered and was won by Levon Tadevosyan, Sasha Schaefer and Sam Nemiroff who scored 3 out of 3 each to win $81.67. Jeremiah McPadden, Nathan Scott, Michael Italie, Takki Tanaka, Noah Feldman and Lawrence Likhterman scored 2 points out of 3 to share in a class prize, win ning $17.50 each.
The Saturday Game 50 Open on August 26 had 48 players registered and was won by Brian Arthur and Stephen Ye who both finished with perfect 4 out of 4 scores to win $240 each. Alec Choi, Leo Shen, Austin Zhao and Lisa Sun scored an even 3 points to share in a class prize, winning $36 each.
The Saturday Game 50 Under 1800 on August 26 had 22 players registered and was won by Riaan Javeri who scored a perfect 4 out of 4 to win the $126 first place prize. Anthony Zhu scored 3.5 points to win $84, while Kiaan Javeri, Adrian Sommerstein and Sidharth Krishnan scored 3 points to win $21 each.
The $500 FIDE Blitz on August 25 had 47 players registered and was won by IM Nico Chasin, who scored a near perfect 8.5 out of 9 to win the first place prize of $230. FM Gus Huston scored 7.5, winning $115, while IM Maximillian Lu scored 7 points to win $58. FM Andrey Krasnov, Roman Malyshev and FM Sidi Boidiya won $19.33 each, scoring 6 points in the event, while Kiren Nasta and Leandro Nicholas Ulloa Centeno won $29 for the same score. Finally, Will Nieder scored 5.5 out of 9 to win a class prize of $58.
The Steve Immitt Action on August 24 had 40 players registered and was won by IM Yury Lapshun who scored a perfect 4 out of 4 to win $178. FM Justin Chen and FM Leif Pressman scored 3.5 out of 4 points and won $44.50 each. Nathan Booncharoen won a class prize of $89 for his 3 out of 4 performance, while Jeremy Graham, Harper Wallace, Judah Schizer and Aileen Lou won $22.25 each for their 2.5 out of 4 performance.
The Weekly Wednesday Under 2200 that ended on August 23 had 47 players registered and was won by Roman Malyshev and Aleksandr Gutnik who scored 5 out of 6 to win $300 each. Dwight Dans won $150 for his 4.5 performance, while Arabella Fang, Aliya Saldanha-Sur and Joe Arasin scored 4 points and own $50 each.
The Weekly Wednesday Under 1600 that ended on August 23 had 26 players and was won by Bruno Becher who scored 5 points to win $216. 66. Mark Theophilis, Jack Murtagh and Eric Vander Weele scored 4.5 and won $71.11 each. The class prize went to Joseph Rizzo and Daniel Minor who scored 3.5 points $41.66.
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.
New Interim Executive Director: Carlos Chavez
Dear Members,
I am humbled and honored to be working as Interim Executive Director of the Marshall Chess Club. I started working for the club in 2019. It has been a rewarding experience to formerly work as a National Arbiter and meet many great chess players and families.
You all recognize the club as one of the best places to improve your chess and gain experience. I look forward to establishing a rapport with all of you and overseeing the success of the club. You will regularly see me on the premises should you need to communicate with me and I can be reached by email as well. Thank you all for your consistent membership and support of the club.
King’s Kibitzes
Medium Rare
Underpromotion is rare in practice; a recent ICCF correspondence game of mine was the first instance in my almost 17,000-game personal database of a rook promotion, and it was completely gratuitous:
William Perry (2322) - Alex King (2310)
ICCF, 29 Aug 2023
41.h8R+ Bxh8 42.Rxh8+ and the game was later drawn.
The only necessary underpromotion in my personal database is a 2020 blitz game where my opponent avoided mate by promoting to a knight with check:
ThomaSsShelby (2509) - AlexanderKing (2663)
Chess.com blitz, 27 Mar 2020
68.g8N+! and the position is a theoretical draw, although I ended up flagging him.
Rarest of all, or so Sam Copeland claims, is promotion to a bishop. I did this for the first time last year in a Lichess rapid game…
…but of course that’s not what Copeland is talking about - he means a position where the only winning move is to promote to a bishop, and all other promotions are not winning. The only reason for this would be to avoid stalemate.
This theme was first explored in composed form almost two hundred years ago:
White to move and win
Le Palamede, 1836
1.gxh7 Bxe3 2.h8B! 1-0 (But not 2.h8Q? Bd4+! forcing stalemate.)
But what about practical examples? Copeland mentions only two instances he is aware of where a bishop promotion was the only winning move in a real game, and it turns out that one of those might have just been an analysis variation, according to Edward Winter’s research.
Tim Krabbe’s website offers a few additional “real” examples, but I wonder if some or all of these might be apocryphal as well.
Here is the earliest game in Mega Database with a bishop promotion as the only winning move:
Harry Bogdanor - Bertram Goulding Brown
Chester, 21 Aug 1914
57.Rxg1 fxg1B! 0-1
This example was given in an article by Richard James, along with a more recent example Goldstern-Jasnikowski, Switzerland 1993. I was able to locate two additional recent examples I haven’t seen given anywhere else, which are similar to the Goulding Brown and Jasnikowski games:
Rui Filipe Pereira Marques (1927) - Pedro Filipe Rego
Lisbon, 3 Oct 2003
61.a7! Rh8 62.Rb8! Rxb8 63.axb8B! 1-0
Milutin Kostic (2233) - Dragoljub Veljkovic (2120)
Belgrade, 21 Oct 2018
68.Rb8 Rxb8 69.axb8B! 1-0
James’ article was inspired by a missed opportunity from a GM game, which would have been the greatest practical example yet of this theme:
Johann Hjartarson (2465) - Mads Andersen (2582)
Reykjavik, 8 Apr 2022
In the game White played 54.e7? and later drew.
But instead he could have won with 54.Qf7+! Nxf7 55.exf7+ Kh7 56.fxe8B! +- winning because Black has no queen-desperado stalemate defense. A chance that chess history will long mourn.
To test your newfound underpromotion chops, try solving this exercise, which is the conclusion of a 1982 study by Makletsov:
White to move
And in a final crescendo of “useless esoterica” (as I promised last month), I present without comment one more study, which you can replay and explore here:
G. Slepyan
EG 2006
1.Qg5+ Kf7 2.axb8=B Rxh4+ 3.Bbh2 Nfg3+ 4.Qxg3 Nxg3+ 5.Rxg3 Bxb7+ 6.Rg2 f1=B 7.Bf2 Bfxg2+ 8.Kg1 Ra4 9.Rxa5 Rxa5 10.Bhg3 Rh5 11.Bh4 Kg6 12.Be1 Kf5 13.Bef2 Kg4 14.Be1 Kf3 15.Bef2 Rb5 16.Be1 Rb1 17.Bhg3 Rb2 18.Bef2 Rc2 19.Bh4 Rc1+ 20.Be1 1/2-1/2
Until next month…
FM Alex King, Undersecretary of Underpromotion
The 2024 Chess Calendar, by IM Silas Esben Lund
This article is a presentation of the 2024 Chess Calendar that has 366 daily puzzles throughout the year, all selected and presented by me for SILU Games, the company co-founded in 2018 with my wife Lu Mu. To get a real sense of the Calendar, I present 3 puzzles below, with solutions.
The Chess Calendar has been in production since 2020, and since 2022 it contains positions from Chess Olympiads. Besides the Chess Calendar, SILU Games also sells chess books, educational games, and chess accessories. The 2024 Chess Calendar begins on January 1 st , 2024, and has 366 daily puzzles throughout the year. This year’s edition contains positions from the 1939 and 1950 Olympiads in Buenos Aires and Dubrovnik. The puzzles are graded on 5 levels throughout the week whereas Fridays are reserved for endgames. The approximate rating level is from 700-1600, perhaps higher on weekends where focus is on strategic concepts as well as tactics.
Magnetic Triangle Stand January 1st , 2024!
The 2024 Chess Calendar
Below you will find 1 puzzle from the 2023 Chess Calendar to give a sense of how the Calendar works. Try to solve the positions first, the solution will follow later.
You can buy the 2024 Calendar on Etsy, here is a direct link. Use the promo code MARSHALL10 to get 10% off! The discount goes for all products in our Etsy store.
The solution to the puzzle above is 1.Rxg5! if 1…Rxg5 then Qf8 mate, and if 1…Qxg5 then Qxf5 and White emerges up material.
En Passant
For 37 years, Indian chess has had one unwavering constant: the legendary GM Viswanathan Anand was the hightest rated player from India. With the release of FIDE's latest official rating list on Friday, GM Gukesh D, the 17-year-old prodigy from Anand's home city of Chennai, became the number 1 rated player from India.
The FIDE World Cup was a complete success, as top players fought for spots in the Candidates, both in the open and in the women’s section. Magnus Carlsen and Aleksandra Goryachkina were the winners. As ever, GM Karsten Müller compiled the most interesting positions from the tournaments. Find here five instructive endgames from the open category!
All three top-placed players have qualified for the 2024 Candidates tournament which is due to take place next April in Canada. If Carlsen, who won the world cup, officially declines to take part in the candidates- he has hinted in the interviews that he might not be interested in playing in the event - then Nijat Abasov, who finished fourth, will replace him.
Chess Toons
Problem of the Week
W. Speckmann, 1964
White to mate in 6
Continuing our feast of miniatures, this one should appeal to players too.
---
Solution to Wilson, 1970
1.Qd8+ Kc~ 2.Rc3 mate; 1...Ke~ 2.Re7 mate.
Editor's Note
Have you played an interesting game at the Marshall recently? Submit it along with some light annotations to 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
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212.477.3716
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