Alexander Shabalov is running away with the Frank K Berry US Championship in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Yesterday he scored his fifth consecutive win, beating Gregory Kaidanov. Shabba started out with wins over Sarkar, Gurevich, Ibragimov, and Nakamura. In today's sixth round he faces defending champion Alexander Onischuk, who is one of the chasing pack of six players on 3.5/5. Shabalov has been doing it with both colors and every which way on the board. Apparently he doesn't want to wait until 2013 to win the title he took in 1993 (shared with Yermolinsky) and 2003.
The level of fighting chess has been excellent so far as the dozen top contenders slug it out for the top five spots that mean passage to the FIDE World Cup. (The $12,000 first prize wouldn't hurt either.) It didn't take long to notice that the rule on no short draws (under 30 moves without arbiter approval) was in effect again this year, which was confirmed from the tournament press center by Jerry Hanken. There have been quite a few very good games so far and I hope to have time to take a closer look now that Mtel is ending. It looks like we have enough for a $1000 Daily Dirt Reader 1st brilliancy prize, a $500 2nd prize, and a "whatever is left over" 3rd prize. I'm sending a note to the folks at MonRoi to get the announcement there. Rock on.
Yermolinsky may have lost on time against speedster Nakamura in round five. The final position is wonderfully tricky and worth playing on. 34..Rc1+ 35.Kg2! e2 36.Bf2 Be3 37.Bg3 Rg1+ 38.Kf3 Rxg3+ 39.Kxe2 Ke7 with chances. Time forfeit seems a little unlikely considering the 30 second increment that is in effect now that the new clocks have arrived. We know that thanks to Michael 'fpawn' Aigner, who is posting reports from the site, perhaps at the expense of his results in the tournament so far. I hope he keeps it up because it's the only reporting so far that includes information you can't get from the games. The news items at the official site and at uschess.org are just result recaps with a few game notes. There was a blitz tournament after the fourth round, no word on the winner yet.
Speaking of Aigner's info, he was one of several people to let us know that the hotel is far better than the horrific web reviews I quoted would have us believe. Thank goodness! But what about the foosball tables?! A player or two should help out the new management of the Stillwater Quality Inn and post some new reviews!
I took a day off from my blog but am working on an entry for today. To answer a few issues raised by Mig in his post today:
1. Jerry Hanken mentioned the ChessNinja prizes in an announcement before round 5 yesterday.
2. Yes, there is a 30 move draw rule in effect. You might have noticed the high number of 30 and 31 move games. I am proud to say that I have neither offered nor accepted a draw yet. My one drawn game was a forced perpetual check.
3. Julio Becerra won the blitz tournament ahead of Alexander Ivanov, Varuzhan Akobian and Melik Khachiyan. In perhaps the most important pairing, I defeated Sam Sloan 2-0.
4. I officially suck at chess. It has been a while since I've had an A player performance rating! Maybe Eric Moskow should have played instead of me, and I operate the website.
Hello:
I have played a tournament with the Berry brothers at the current site. The Berrys started the OCF after a hostile takeover of the state Association. The hospitality shown by these Oklahoma organizers is excellent. The site is surprising good considering where they are. Stillwater is a small town, but pleasant. Frank's middle name is Kim, in reference to one of Mig's jokes. I enjoy the OCF tournaments so much, I will be playing in Tulsa, OK May 25-29. I encourage anyone who enjoys good chess to play in OK! (And I'm from Chicago, IL)
Don't worry, Michael, it's a rough event. The problem is the field is too small to provide cover for you! When I played my first event in seven years in the open section of the World Open a few years ago I lost to far weaker players but still didn't have the highest rating in my horrible point group thanks to the big field. There's almost always someone doing worse at an event like that, which provides some consolation.
Was he blitz a KO? How many players?
Thanks all. Anyone find out what happened at the end of Nakamura-Yermolinsky? Is the published score incomplete, time forfeit, a somewhat premature resignation?
Hey Michael,
I respect that Bird you played in round 5. Even though you aren't doing as well as you may have hoped, I still enjoy your games and I am still rooting for you.
Who doesn't love a good underdog?
mike, keep ur head up, in fact your in spirational, you deserve your spot more than I ever could of. Keep pushing do not despair before progress comes failure. Your obvious issues could of led you in tow directions you choose grit and effort, in life you achieved more than any stup tournament in oklahoma. be proud we are all proud of you eric d moskow m.d. and family winner never quit quiters never win.
Is it just me, or has the MonRoi site become insanely sluggish in Round 6?
Yah, they've got serious server capacity issues with this traffic, it seems. I don't think they've ever done an event with this much traffic, at least not that I can recall. So it's a test. Yesterday I couldn't get the updated moves for the last hour plus. Even now, five hours after the start of round 6, it takes several minutes for a game to load. At least to me most of the scores are frozen and say in progress, which can't be the case. It's a very nice viewer page, but it appears to be very server intensive. It shouldn't be a bandwidth issue. It can also be wonky on the client side. My Firefox Flash plugin gave me several warnings that a script on their site was using too many resources and recommended it be shut down.
The only results I can see on the official site now are Onischuk-Shabalov 1-0 and Ehlvest-Nakamura 1/2. Just about everything else still says live, but there can't be more than a handful of games still going, if that. Weird.
MIG, HOW WOULD GARY LIKE TO DO A BIG US FUNDRAISER, IF INTERESTED EMOSKOW23@AOL.COM.
Raising funds for what? He's pretty swamped these days and his schedule runs deep into 2008 already. He'll be here on an east coast book tour for "How Life Imitates Chess" in October, with at least one quick visit before that. If you have something in mind give me a ring.
Okay, they are feeding the moves in now so the results and games should be up in a little while. I wonder what happened.
MIG, CALL ME i GAVE 1 MILLION TO A TEMPLE THEIRS A BLACK TIE GALA SOME MAJOR CELEBRITIES AND POLITICIANS, i AM SURE WE CAN SUPPORT HIS EFFORTS CALL ME 954 935 1477 EXT 208 LOST UR NUMBER. ERIC
Yeah, I'm pretty down on myself. I don't mind losing, but I do get angry when I miss multiple wins in the middlegame and then pathetically lose an endgame that is drawn by perfect play by my opponent. I've never been in last place by a full point, and already having played everyone tied for the next spot up! Ouchies.
Sorry, I had trouble with my internet this morning when I wanted to upload my blog entry. Then I had to prepare for the Qd6 Scandinavian. I just uploaded the blog and it should be up on the ICC website in a few hours.
Yermolinsky was low on time and RESIGNED against Nakamura. I guess now we know that Yermolinsky;s first name is not Fritz.
Michael,
Maybe you've been posting too many blogs. Playing and reporting on chess simultaneously is usually not the best combination.
Oh... play 1.f4 man. What's up with all those unorthodox openings you're playing... like 1.e4? (smile)
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