GM Zierk Wins Mechanics' Memorial Blitz

Due to the COVID pandemic, the Mechanics' Institute organized its annual Memorial Blitz online at Chess.com. This special event honors the memory of three masters who have departed after leaving their mark on the Bay Area chess community: NM Ray Schutt, SM Steve Brandwein and IM Jay Whitehead. In previous years, the large crowd of participants would socialize and munch on snacks between rounds of serious chess.

GM Steven Zierk
(credit: Alberta Chess)

Fortunately, the mandatory move online did little to dampen attendance - 104 players joined, including two Grandmsters, two International Masters, three FIDE Masters and at least seven National Masters. The competition was fierce starting in the first round, when three titled players lost or drew and a fourth overslept. No doubt, Ray, Steve and Jay would have enjoyed watching all of the fighting chess, even while socially distanced.

Veteran IM Elliott Winslow stormed out of the gate for the early lead, winning six straight games. The top seed, super-GM Rauf Mamedov of Azerbaijan, finally reeled him in. After round 7, four players shared the lead with 6-1: GM Mamedov and IM Winslow were joined by GM Steven Zierk and talented 13-year old IM Christopher Yoo.

The two Grandmasters clashed in round 9. Zierk, playing the black pieces, emerged victorious in a theoretical line of the Tarrasch variation of the French, gaining the advantage of two minor pieces against a rook and extra pawn.

Both Zierk and Mamedov held serve in rounds 10 and 11, allowing the local GM to clinch the tournament despite blundering into last round draw by repetition against this reporter. Congratulations Steven!

Final Standings of the Memorial Blitz (full results here)

1. GM Zkid (Steven Zierk) 10.5 out of 12
2. GM Muisback26 (Rauf Mamedov) 10.0
3. FM KyronGriffith 9.0
4. qing29 (Abhinav Penagalapati) 9.0
5. IM ChristopherYoo 8.5
6. NM 2007checkmate (Vyom Vidyarthi) 8.0
7. FM Marty435 (Jason Liang) 8.0
8. IM ecwinslow (Elliott Winslow) 8.0
9. NM jij2018 (Ruiyang Yan) 8.0
10. NM fpawn (Michael Aigner) 8.0
11. Atrozen (Anthony Rozenvasser) 8.0 

The blitz tournament was broadcast on Twitch with live commentary from the multi-talented Mechanics' Institute staff, including GM Nick de Firmian and FM Paul Whitehead. Replay the entire show at your leisure on YouTube! The game Mamedov vs Winslow begins at 1:25:00 while Mamedov vs Zierk starts at 1:48:40. Readers of this blog might enjoy the tense final round match between Zierk and Aigner at 2:20:25.

Schutt Blitz Results and Photos

FM Yian Liou

IM Daniel Naroditsky

NM Daniel Schwarz

Now in its seventh year, the Ray Schutt Memorial Blitz Tournament continues to attract many of the strongest and fastest local players to the Mechanics' Institute.  The 5 double-round swiss (10 games) featured a generous $750 prize fund, augmented by free books for everyone, including multiple signed copies by Bay Area authors.  Even ten days later, the fond memories remain fresh.  Thanks to photographer Richard Shorman and webmaster Kerry Lawless for uploading more than 100 photos on ChessDryad.

6-time US Champion
GM Walter Browne

A blast from the past:
NM Mike Arne

Out of a record 63 participants, 17 were masters, including two Grandmasters and seven International Masters.  The defending champion IM Daniel Naroditsky was poised to three-peat, but he faced stiff challenges in the final two rounds from Italian IM Niccolo Ronchetti (1.5-0.5) and 3-time US Champion GM Nick deFirmian (1-1).  This allowed high school sophomore FM Yian Liou to snatch clear first place by sweeping IM Ricardo DeGuzman (2-0).

Three of my former students finished in the money: Yian, Danya and recent Stanford graduate Daniel Schwarz.  Way to go guys!  All that blitz practice pays dividends!

Final Standings

• 9.0 FM Yian Liou
• 8.5 GM Nick deFirmian and IM Daniel Naroditsky
• 8.0 IM Ray Kaufman, IM Odondoo Ganbold and NM Daniel Schwarz
• 7.5 IM Niccolo Ronchetti
• 7.0 IM Ricardo DeGuzman and FM Andy Lee
• 6.5 GM Walter Browne
• 5.5 NM Michael Aigner

On the day before the blitz, the Mechanics' hosted the 13th Powell Memorial (G/45).  For the first time in four years, Yours Truly ended up victorious!  I beat master Romulo Fuentes and improving expert Aleksandr Ivanov before drawing with National K-8 champion Siddharth Banik.  Most importantly, I finally got off my life master floor!

The Chess Room

Grandmaster RR This Weekend @ Mechanics

This weekend, the Mechanics' Institute hosts one of the highest rated fields in its storied history.  Here's the catch: the Grandmasters will play at a rapid time control.  Read below how chess director IM John Donaldson described it in his newsletter on May 1.

GM Shankland

Thanks to the generosity of Tibor Weinberger, the Mechanics’ Institute will be holding the Third Imre Konig Memorial on September 22-23. The event, which commemorates the 20th anniversary of the death of International Master Konig, the first top rate player to reside in San Francisco, will be held as a seven-player round-robin, featuring a rapid chess time control of Game in 25 minutes, with a 15-second increment from move one. 

The invited players consist of the top six rated players from the Bay Area, led by Grandmaster Sam Shankland (who by now is nearly 2600 FIDE and top 10 in the country). The last player, Grandmaster Emil Anka of Hungary, pays respect to Konig’s ancestry as an international cosmopolitan who was born in the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Kula, in today’s Serbia. 

• GM Sam Shankland (2597 FIDE)
• GM Jesse Kraai (2514)
• GM Vinay Bhat (2511)
• GM Nick deFirmian (2510)
• IM Daniel Naroditsky (2483) 
• GM Walter Browne (2449)
• GM Emil Anka (2382)

  

  GM Anka

  
  

IM Naroditsky

Konig studied in Vienna and improved his game in its chess cafe milieu, being particularly influenced by Richard Reti. Like the Czech, he earned a reputation as a fine author with his Chess from Morphy to Botvinnik: A Century of Chess Evolution serving as a useful instructional guide to several generations of chess players.

Konig was not only a fine writer, but also an excellent player, who twice represented Yugoslavia in Chess Olympiads. He is fondly remembered by Mechanics’ old-timers for his Old World courtliness and generosity of spirit in sharing his chess wisdom. The Mechanics’ Institute is honored to pay tribute to his memory.

The games will be broadcast on the Chess.com live server, from 10 to 6 on Saturday and 10 to 4 on Sunday.  Each participant plays six rounds and gets a single bye.

GM deFirmian Returns to Bay Area

News from Chess Room Director IM John Donaldson:

The Mechanics' Chess Club welcomes Nick deFirmian as its Grandmaster-in-Residence. This will be a return home for the native Californian and UC Berkeley graduate. Grandmaster deFirmian has a long association with the Mechanics' dating back to his days as an undergraduate, and served as a member of the organizing committee for the M.I.'s "Pan-Pacific" International Chess Tournaments in 1987 and 1991.

The past three decades Nick deFirmian has excelled in many areas of the chess world. A world class player for many years, Grandmaster deFirmian is a three-time US Champion and an eight-time member of the US Olympiad team. He served as the Captain of the US team at the 2002 Chess Olympiad held in Bled, Slovenia.

The author of several books on the games, including three editions of the well-received Modern Chess Openings, deFirmian has also written for such leading chess publications as New in Chess, Chess Life and Inside Chess.

He is well known for his role in helping prepare openings for the IBM computer Deep Blue that defeated World Champion Garry Kasparov in a historic battle in 1997. This was the first time a computer had beaten a reigning human World Champion in a match.

The past decade Grandmaster deFirmian has concentrated his energy on teaching chess to children in New York City. This teaching included working with Public School 130 in Chinatown and Horace Mann, a private school which won the 3rd and 5th grade national championships. He has also coached kids in such events as the World Youth Championships and taught at summer chess camps throughout the country.

Grandmaster deFirmian will focus his energy on the Mechanics' Chess Club's Scholastic Outreach program. He will also be the lead instructor at an expanded number of chess camps held at the Mechanics' and will start a Thursday evening group class for enthusiastic amateurs players.

Additional Links

• USCF Rating = 2573
• FIDE Rating = 2512
  
• Biography
• Chess Games

Additional comment by fpawn This certainly counts as exciting news! The Mechanics' has been without a Grandmaster-in-Residence since 2008, the year when Alex Yermolinsky moved to South Dakota. DeFirmian brings the experience of a veteran Grandmaster who won the US Championship three times and many times represented the country abroad. He also is one of only a few American GMs born in the USA! After the departure of Sam Shankland, Josh Friedel and Jesse Kraai, the Bay Area should embrace the new arrival. Welcome home!

Lecture by GM Nick DeFirmian at Mechanics

(Photo of GM DeFirmian teaching group 2 by Chiiwen Liou.)

Three-time US Champion Grandmaster Nick DeFirmian, rated 2541 FIDE, taught the most recent session of the San Francisco School of Chess on July 12-13. Although he currently lives in Denmark, DeFirmian has strong ties to Northern California, growing up in Fresno and earning a degree in physics from UC Berkeley. For many years, he regularly played at the Mechanics' Institute Chess Club, the venue for the weekend lecture. His claim to fame now lies in editing the encyclopedia "Modern Chess Openings" (better known as MCO).

Over two days, GM DeFirmian shared a number of opening concepts with the students of the School of Chess. He taught the top group (five students and two guests) for nearly four hours on Saturday, advocating a positional approach to understanding the move orders and strategies to play the 6.Be3 line of the Najdorf Sicilian. GM DeFirmian also demonstrated a "refutation" of the Petrov's defense from the game Naiditsch-Kramnik (Dortmund 2008) and showed some theory in the Zaitsev variation of the Ruy Lopez. It was interesting to watch how even an ultra-tactical opening such as the Najdorf could be understood by a calm positional approach.

The Danish-American Grandmaster returned on Sunday to teach groups 2 and 3, each for about two hours. He started out by going back in history and demonstrating an obscure simul game in the Two Knight's defense where Bobby Fischer played like Paul Morphy. GM DeFirmian spent a large portion of the class on the Yugoslav attack in the Dragon Sicilian, a line which every young player should study sometime in their development as a future master.

The San Francisco School of Chess will continue in August and September with lectures by local International Masters Josh Friedel (August 23) and Vinay Bhat (September 7). Both popular 20-something year old masters have the three norms necessary for the Grandmaster title; Josh is merely waiting for his paperwork to be approved while Vinay needs 17 FIDE rating points to reach 2500. A new group of students will be selected for classes starting this fall.