The Marshall Spectator
February 5, 2025
In This Issue: A Special Message from the Executive Director, Carlos Chavez A Special Message from the Board of Governors From The Skittles Room Endgame Corner, by IM Silas Esben Lund Intermezzo - A Novel Review, by John Towsen Chess Toons En Passant Problems, Problems, curated by Alexander George Editor's Note
A Special Message from the Executive Director, Carlos Chavez
Dear Marshall Members,
It is my pleasure to give you an update on the Marshall Chess Club Oral History Project. The purpose of this project is to document for posterity the memories, stories, and experiences of our long-standing members and to chronicle the history and legacy of the club through the decades as witnessed by its members. Up to this point, I've had the honor to interview club President Emeritus Dr. Frank Brady, GM and nine-time club champion Andy Soltis, former club champion IM Jay Bonin, and FM Asa Hoffman. I encourage everyone to take some time to listen to their stories and experiences as chess players, arbiters, authors, and members of the club. Stay tuned for more great interviews to come and please reach out to me if you would like to recommend a club member for an interview.
I would also like to take this opportunity to promote our print chess library. We have over 500 books in our catalog that are ideal for beginners, intermediate, and even advanced chess players. Some of the topics include openings, middlegame, endgames, tactics, biographies, and famous tournaments like the New York International. You can search by author, title, subject or keyword. We will be adding new books in the coming weeks. You can place a hold on a book through our online catalog and pick it up at the club office. The loan is for three weeks, and you can renew the item up to three times. Browse the library and check out some books!
Finally, I'm excited to tell you that we are exhibiting Spanish artist Nistal Mayorga's lithographs of the World Chess Champions! Come by the front room on the first floor called the Champion's Hall to enjoy the aesthetic vibe of our recently renovated third playing hall. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Board member Beatriz Marinello for introducing us to Nistal and making this exhibition possible.
Special Message from the Board of Governors:
A recent policy was introduced to address the overcrowding during the weekends.
Beginning this month during our three day weekend tournaments, which would be the Marshall Premier (2/7-2/9) and the Monthly U2400 (2/21-2/23), all non-members (including parents and coaches) will only be permitted in the building to help a child settle in to their game 15 minutes prior to the beginning of each round.
Non-members are not permitted in the building any earlier. Once a child is settled in and the round has started, we ask that all non-members (including parents and coaches) leave the building within 10 minutes after that round has started. Non-members should not proceed to the skittles room or linger in the hallway subsequently.
For further clarification:
The skittles room will be reserved for the exclusive use of the players registered and participating in either the Marshall Premier or U2400 tournament at all times for the duration of these tournaments. Any non-playing club member who wishes to visit the club during these tournaments must check in with the TD and must refrain from using the skittles room without the TD’s permission. Such permission will only be granted in limited circumstances for a short duration of time. Permission will not be granted to parents who are non-playing members as that would result in overcrowding. We thank all of our members, non-members and parents for adhering to this policy and following any requests made by TDs with respect to such policy.
Thank you,
Board of Governors
Welcome back, fellow chess players, to this edition of the Marshall Chess Club's fortnightly bulletin, The Marshall Spectator.
Last week, IM John Donaldson visited our historic club to give a lecture about Bobby Fischer and promote his new book, Inside the Mind of Bobby Fischer. Copies of his previous book Bobby Fischer and his World were available for sale and the audience relished his wealth of knowledge of the subject. The presentation featured a wealth of anecdotes, found footage, old photographs and amusing anecdotes. If you were unable to attend the event, you can see it in its entirety here.
In other news, we're excited to share an update to our member highlights. Congratulations to each one of these members for their accomplishments in January, and keep an eye out for showcases of their accomplishments around the club. Good luck to everyone vying for a highlight in February!
Top USCF Rating Gain: Kai Shigemi (350 USCF points gained) Most Active Member: Jay Bonin (11 tournaments attended) Most Active New Member (joined in past year): Dheeraj Prasanth (7 tournaments attended)
Curious to see where you stack up? You can see the full list here.
Looking ahead, we have a very special guest joining us for a Simul in celebration of Black History Month on February 25. GM Brewington Hardaway will come to our historic club to give a Simul and 20-minute Q&A at 6 pm. There will be pizza and refreshments served.
Further ahead on the calendar, we are excited to share with you that summer registrations are open for our summer camps here. In addition to GM Djurabek Khamrakulov, the summer camps will feature GMs Andrei Maksimenko, Alexander Shabalov, and Oliver Barbosa as instructors, with many other guests to be announced!
We look forward to sharing more details about the camps with you in the coming weeks, including discounts and changes to the camp schedule.
Looking back over the last two weeks, we have had a plethora of events for our members to play in.
The Afternoon G/50 on January 30 had 3 players registered and was won by Brandon Sato, who scored 2 points to win the $15 first-place prize.
The Thursday Action on January 30 had 34 players registered and was won by IM Nico Chasin and Jack Levine, who scored 4 out of 4 to win $106.50 each. Kameliia Sharuda scored 2.5 out of 4 to win $64, while the following 5 players won $25.60 each for their 3 out of 4 scores: Bryan Weisz, IM Kevin Wang, Joshua Block, Jack Yang, and Michael Glick.
The Sunday Quads on January 26 had 49 players registered and a huge number of winners. Alan Stolyarov, Andrew Colwell, Takki Tanaka, Hunter Ku, Grayson Xiang, Akeil Williams, Eden Klein, Abror Abdijalilov, and Shokhrukh Abdijalilov were the first-place winners in their quads, winning $50 each. Jordy Leon, Will Nieder, Mason Zhou, Lucas Lin, Jude Badawi, and Liam Siu won $25 each for their tied scores in their quad, and Roy Ku won $20 for his performance in the small swiss.
The Rated Beginner Open on January 26 had 35 players registered and was won by James Wilson, Nikhil Bapat, Reece Jackson, and Eddie Lopez who scored 3 out of 4 to win $93 each.
The Saturday Game 50 Under 1800 on January 25 had 45 players registered and was won by Dante Mayeno who scored 4 out of 4 to win $270, while Gabe Bencoseme-Lee scored 3.5 out of 4 to win $180. The following 6 players won $22.50 each for their 3 out of 4 performances: Ben Davar, Zachary Gaw, Brian Huang, Joshua Kuruvilla, Dave Vaval, and Dervin Kouyate.
The Under 2000 Morning Action on January 25 had 54 players registered and was won by Daguy Vaval, Jacob Ehrenkranz, David Campbell, and Ivan Levcovitz who scored 3 out of 3 to with $118.25 each, and Jacob Berner scored 2.5 out of 3 to win a $203 class prize.
The Saturday Game 50 Open on January 25 had 43 players registered and concluded with a 4-way tie. FM Leif Pressman, IM Jay Bonin, CM Aditeya Das, and WFM Megan Paragua scored 3.5 out of 4 to win $105 each, while Lucas Lu scored 3 out of 4 to win $126.
The FIDE Blitz on January 24 had 64 players registered and was won by GM Andrew Tang who scored a near perfect 8 out of 9 to win $310. CM Krish Bhandari and Santhosh Ayyappan won a class prize of $78 each for their performance of 6.5 and 6 out of 9 respectively, while FM Bryan Lin, FM Tanitoluwa Adewumi, and FM Jeevan Karamsetty won $77.67 each for their 7 out of 9 score.
The Afternoon Action on January 24 had 4 players registered, and was won by IM Justin Sarkar who scored 2.5 out of 3 to win the $30 first place prize. Arthur Tollefson scored 1.5 out of 3 to win $20.
The Thursday Action on January 23 had 28 players registered and was won by FM Tanitoluwa Adewumi who scored a perfect 4 out of 4 to win the $102 first-place prize, while the following 6 players won $36.83 for their 3 out of 4 performance: IM Jay Bonin, Cameron Hull, WCM Tianhao Xue, Mitchell Stern, Joshua Block, and Shu Chen.
The Weekly Under 1600 that concluded on January 22 had 18 players registered and was won by Vladimir Lionter, who scored 5.5 out of 6 to win $150. Jonathan Kao scored 4.5 out of 6 to win $90, while Sebastian Konzelmann and Keshav Bhuyan won $60 each for their performance.
The Weekly Under 2200 that concluded on January 22 had 27 players registered and was won by Theodore Pimanoff and Cirprian Solomon, who scored 4.5 out of 6 to win $216.67. Alex Golosovker, Aleksandr Gutnik, Anthony Levin, and George Berg scored 4 points each to win $21.66, while Cameron Hull, Jacob Gordon, and Thomas Lay shared in a class prize for their 3.5 out of 6 performance, winning $43.33 each.
The Adult Rapid on January 21 had 12 players registered and was won by Matt Biancuzzo, who scored 3.5 out of 4 to win $30. Kevin Liu finished in 2nd place with 3 points, winning $15, while Edward Bull and Philip Seidenwar won $7.50 each for their 2 out of 4 performance.
The Marshall Masters on January 21 had 25 players registered and was won by IM Liam Putnam, who scored a perfect 4 out of 4 to win the $280 first-place prize. GM Maxim Dlugy, IM Aaron Jacobson, GM Andrew Tang, and Alan Hiroshi Morris-Suzuki scored 3 out of 4 to win $87.50 each.
The Monday Under 1800 that concluded on January 20 had 17 players registered and was won by Jordan Zamor and Aaron Gonner who scored 4.5 out of 6 to win $99.50 each. Zor Gorelov scored 3 points to win a $57 class prize, while Valery Zajkov scored 2.5 out of 6 to win a $29 class prize, and the following three players won $19 each for their 4 out of 6 scores: Jacob Gordon, Richard Koppenaal, and Leo Paas.
The FIDE Monday that concluded on January 20 had 20 players registered and was won by FM Grant Xu, who scored 5 out of 6 to win the $190 first-place prize. George Berg and Nkosi Nkululeko scored 4 out of 6 to win $95.50 each, while Jack Wen won $64 class prize for his 3.5 out of 6 score. Dzmitry Kharchykau and Robert Li scored 2.5 out of 6 to win a class prize of $16 each.
The MLK Action on January 20 was sold out with 40 players registered and was won by FM Justin Chen, who scored a remarkable 6 out of 6 to win the $320 first-place prize. IM Liam Putnam won the $160 second-place prize for his 5 out of 6 score, while Anthony Li, Jayden Feng, Andrew Beckles, and Daguy Vaval won $90 each for their 4 out of 6 score.
The Monthly Under 2400 that concluded on January 19 had 56 players registered and was won by James Marsh, who scored 4.5 out of 5 to win $934. The following 4 players scored 4 out of 5 to win $222 each: Alan Hiroshi Morris-Suzuki, Daniel Frank Johnston, Aidan Baker, and Moshe Blank. Marcus Farzaneh-Far, Jack Boyer-Olson, and Mr. Jose De Villa scored 3 points to win $93.33 each.
The Monthly Under 1800 on January 19 had 43 players registered and an impressive prize pool shared among top scorers. Marco Ciacci won $700 for his 4.5 out of 5 performance, and Hudson Wong won $280 for his 4 out of 5 score. Ayden Lim and Nikki Chan won a $210 class prize for their performance, while the following 6 players won a $29.17 class prize each for their 3.5 out of 4 performances.
The Rated Beginner Open on January 19 was sold out with an even 40 players registered. The event concluded with the following 5 players winning $100 each for their perfect 3 out of 3 scores: Michelle Huang, Adam Bryant, Aakash Gajendragadkar, Harrison Leese, and Eddie Lopez.
The Under 2000 Morning Action on January 18 had 58 players registered and concluded with the following 6 players winning $84.67 for their perfect 3 out of 3 scores: John Silva, Jayden Feng, Kyla McRoy, Matthew Shirvell, J Christopher Flowers, and Dante Mayeno. No fewer than eleven players won a class prize of $19.82 for their 2 out of 3 scores: Charles Huang, Rohan Sehgal, Jia Rui Weng, Gavin Jiang, Gabriel Negussie, Eugene Bang, Samantha Edwards, Matt Schwartz, Taekyum Kim, Milan Greene, and Nevan Sengupta.
We look forward to seeing you at the club soon!
Endgame Corner, by IM Silas Esben Lund
We continue with the treatment of BB versus BN. First, try to answer the question to the diagram below. The solution will be given later when analysing the game. You can play through the positions with annotations here.
Grischuk, A. v. Roiz, M.
White to move. What should he do with the pawns on the kingside?
The following position is from earlier in the same game, and we will see how this position arose.
Grischuk, A. v. Roiz, M.
The rooks have just been exchanged. In the following, White will seize space on the kingside. Black decided to constrain himself with pawn moves as they were liable to become weaknesses that the white bishops could take advantage of. It is often the case, which we also discussed in the last column.
26. f3 Ne6 27. Kf2 Bc6 28. Ke3 Bd5 For now the White King is not able to move forward.
29. a4 f5 30. g3 Kf7 31. b4 a6 32. Be5 g6 33. g4 Bb3 (Black can also capture on g4 with} 33... fxg4 34. fxg4 I will analyze this choice in my next Endgame Column!)
34. gxf5 gxf5 35. a5 Bd5 36. Bd3 Kg6
37. h4 With the idea of h4-h5 to create an imbalance in the pawn structure.
37…h5 38. f4 White's idea is to place the pawns on the same color as his unique bishop. This strategy is double-edged as it demands of White that he doesn't exchange the light-squared bishops at the wrong moment, isolating the dark-squared bishop as a 'bad bishop'. On the other side, with the pawns on the same color as that bishop, they are easily defended from the distance.
38…Bc6 39. Kd2 Bb5 40. Bc2 Of course White should wait with the exchange of bishops. The extra piece on the board gives additional transformation possibilities. (40. Bxb5 axb5 and only Black can try to win.)
40... Nd8 41. Bb3 Be8 42. Kc3 Nc6
43. Bd5 A great moment of transformation. If Black now takes on e5, the same-colored bishop endgame, and later the pawn endgame, will be won for White. That is one benefit behind the idea of placing the pawns on the same color as the unique bishop: if a knight versus that bishop occurs, the BB side is better prepared for the same-colored bishop ending.
43…Bf7 (43... Nxe5 44. fxe5 Bc6 45. Kd4 Kg7 (45... f4 46. Be4+ Bxe4 (46... Kf7 47. Bxc6 bxc6 48. Ke4 drops the f-pawn.) 47. Kxe4 f3 48. Kxf3 Kf5 49. e6 Kxe6 50. Ke4 Kf6 51. Kf4 A deadly opposition.) 46. Kc5 f4 (46... Bxd5 47. Kxd5 Kf7 48. e6+ Ke7 49. Ke5 etc.) 47. Bxc6 bxc6 48. Kd4 White changes plan and goes for the f-pawn, with a similar win as already shown: Kg6 49. Ke4 f3 50. Kxf3 Kf5 51. e6 Kxe6 52. Ke4 Kd6 53. Kd4 (53. Kf5 Kd5 and the resulting pawn race is not a win.) 53... Kd7 54. Ke5 Ke7 55. Kf5 Now White aims for the h5-pawn and wins easily.)
44. Bf3 b7 and h5 are the points to attack in Black's camp, so the bishop is ideally placed on f3. 44…Be6 45. Bc7
Black resigned here. The bishop move protects a5 and prepares b4-b5. Actually, White's threat is 46.b5 axb5 47.a6! when the knight on c6 is hanging. Na7 (threatening ...Nb5+). But after 46. Kd2 Nb5 47. Be5 Bc8 (b7 had to be defended.) 48. Kd3 White's King will invade via c4-c5-b6. 1-0
IM Silas Esben Lund, Marshall Spectator Contributor
John Towsen reviews “Intermezzo” - a novel by Sally Rooney.
INTERMEZZO — a “chess novel”
Intermezzo is a 2024 novel by the highly popular and critically acclaimed 33-year-old Irish writer, Sally Rooney. Unlike Queen’s Gambit, it is not a novel about chess competition, but one of its two main characters, Ivan, is a chess player striving for his IM norms and his character development is central to the novel’s storyline. So... three questions:
IS IT ACCURATE ABOUT CHESS?
There have been quibbles online as to its chess accuracy —for example, Ivan studying with a chess book and chessboard rather than with a computer— but I would give it pretty high grades for getting chess play and chess thinking right. There’s not much technical in it, but there’s also nothing embarrassingly wrong. How refreshing! Of course novels have an advantage over movies and tv shows, where everything must be action-packed and fast-paced, as when the Netflix Queen’s Gambit has a high-stakes classical championship game being played at blitz speed, with fans seated ringside, shouting as if they were at a boxing match. Despite Gary Kasparov being a consultant! Oy. Rooney is not a chess player but she got interested in the game during covid when her (mathematician) husband started playing a lot online and watching video tutorials. She enlisted the help of the Chess Society at Trinity College Dublin and gives credit to Seán Doyle, Conor Nolan, and Peter Carroll for their guidance. Clearly she listened to them better than Netflix listened to Kasparov.
HOW DOES SHE DEPICT CHESS PLAYERS?
Ivan is the only chess player we really get to know. He is nerdy and socially awkward, but not what you would call “on the spectrum.” His older brother, the lawyer Peter, accuses him of being impossible to understand because he speaks “international chess English,” but one point Rooney is making is that the slick and successful Peter is actually more of a mess than Ivan. I found Ivan to be a believable and engaging character, and it was nice to see him be able to grow as a human being, while at the same time (spoiler alert) improving as a chess player. As a Marshall member, you might want to say, “Hey, we’re not all socially awkward!” — true enough— but I don’t think you will find that Ivan is in any way a stereotype. He’s a fully drawn and sympathetic character.
IS IT A GOOD NOVEL?
Obviously a matter of taste, but my short answer is yes, very much so. I had read Rooney’s first novel, Conversations with Friends, and though I recognized her writing chops, I was not bowled over by the book. I only read Intermezzo, her fourth novel, because it was partly about chess, so of course I got it as a Christmas present. I was pleasantly surprised. You can find dozens of literary reviews online offering various takes, but suffice it to say there’s a reason she wins so many awards and sells so many books.
John Towsen, Marshall Chess Club Member
En Passant
Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu won the 2025 Tata Steel Masters after beating world champion Gukesh Dommaraju in a blitz tiebreaker. The two Indian stars entered the final round tied for first place and, notably, both lost their classical games on Sunday.
A handshake controversy at the Tata Steel Challengers tournament sparked a heated debate after GM Nodirbek Yakubboev declined Vaishali Rameshbabu's pre-game gesture, citing religious reasons. The incident drew widespread criticism, with many questioning the inconsistency of his actions. In response, Yakubboev publicly apologized and later met Vaishali and Divya Deshmukh, offering chocolates and flowers.
World Chess Plc, the leading chess organization, partnered with global quantitative asset management firm WorldQuant and the Goals House to host a series of chess events in Davos during the World Economic Forum, bringing together world-renowned grandmasters and business and cultural leaders.
Chess Toons
Problems, Problems, curated by Alexander George
G. Husserl, 1986
Color the pieces. (a) diagram; (b) move Rg6 to g7
Coloring problems were invented in the 1960s. The task is to use logic and your knowledge of the rules of chess to figure out what color each piece must be.
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Last issue’s puzzle: Géza Schweig, 1938
Position reached after Black's 4th move. How did the game go?
Solution to Géza Schweig, 1938: 1.Nc3 d6 2.Nd5 Nd7 3.Nxe7 Ndf6 4.Nxg8 Nxg8
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Alexander George
Editor's Note
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!
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