Can Cats Play Chess?

I like cats and I love chess.  In dreams, my imagination seeks ways to combine these two passions.  Many of my young chess students have heard of my fictional Cat(FM), who actually existed, but did not possess any special talents beyond knocking over all the pieces.

Thanks to my friend NM Dana Mackenzie for introducing his curious kittens to the royal game and videotaping the experience.  The chess segment begins around the 1:25 mark.  Hilarious!  And click for another YouTube video featuring a compilation of chess cats.  (Not to be confused with the Cheshire cat of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland fame.)

Cat lovers may check out (pun intended) Dana's entire YouTube channel dedicated to a kitten named Max and other cute felines.

Poll by Dana Mackenzie

Now that Yian Liou won the K-12 section of the CalChess Scholastics in 6th grade, the logical question is "What next?"

Actually, there is precedent: FM Danya Naroditsky won as a 5th grader and then tied for first last year too. This year, Danya sat out to prepare for the Young Stars of the World tournament near St. Petersburg, Russia (May 8-21).

Fellow chess blogger Dana Mackenzie asked the question and provided five choices. I added two more. Which is most likely?

1. Yian Liou wins seven high school championships in a row.
2. He doesn’t win seven in a row because he graduates early.
3. He doesn’t win seven in a row because 2008 champion FM-elect Steven Zierk gets revenge next year.
4. He doesn’t win seven in a row because, by the time he reaches high school, he is already too good to bother with scholastic chess.
5. He doesn’t win seven in a row because by the time he gets to high-school age, there is some other sixth-grader who is even better than he is!
6. (Fpawn) He doesn't win seven in a row because the three retirees FM Danya Naroditsky, NM Gregory Young or NM Nicholas Nip decide to lay down some smack.
7. (Fpawn) He doesn't win seven in a row because completing a good education takes priority over chess.
   

David Pruess Or Paul Morphy?

(IM David Pruess may show future students some of the tactics in the Cochrane gambit.)

Four rounds have been completed in the Berkeley International. After two rounds, the six Grandmasters in the field had combined for an unimpressive 5.5/12 score, under 50%. They stormed back with four wins in round 3 and two in round 4--more importantly with no defeats. The top two seeds, GM Zviad Izoria and GM Giorgi Kacheishvili (both from the country of Georgia) are tied for first at 3.0 out of 4. Order has returned to the leaderboard.

However, IM David Pruess prefers chaos over order on his chessboard. He no doubt shocked most observers by essaying the Cochrane gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nxf7) in the fourth round. Check out the game on Chess Publisher by clicking on this link. This gambit, which is considered theoretically dubious by most, leads to complications that favor a creative attacker such as Pruess. His opponent, FM Dale Haessel, was unable to cope with the surprising sacrifice and succumbed to checkmate on move 22. The fatal mistake may have occurred quite early; theory suggests a plan of either 5... c5 and 6... Be6 or 5... Be7 and 6... Re8, but not 5... Be7 and 6... c5. Pay attention kids: If your opponent mixes up opening lines in a sharp opening, look for a refutation!

There has been excitement on other boards too. FM Daniel Rensch from Arizona, who appears to be intimidated by nobody, remains tied for first place with two wins and two draws against a daily double of GMs and IMs. He appears to be on his way to an IM norm, and perhaps even a GM norm. The early leader, FM Marc Esserman from Florida, cooled off a bit but remains in contention for both norms because he has already faced four Grandmasters.

Local 13-year old star FM Daniel Naroditsky may be the shortest player in the field, but he stands tall at 2.0/4 with a 2383 performance rating after an impressive win in the Kan Sicilian over IM Sandor Kustar from Hungary. FM Bela Evans (see photo at left), who spends most days working for the Fremont area scholastic organization Success Chess, has collected a hat trick of draws against titled players, including GM Jesse Kraai. In the most entertaining game versus IM Justin Sarkar, Evans demonstrated the power of a pesky knight pair to overcome the deficit of an exchange (R+N vs N+N) in the endgame.

Standings after round 4:

• 3.0 Z.Izoria, G.Kacheishvili, D.Rensch
• 2.5 J.Friedel, I.Krush, D.Pruess, D.Sharavdorj, M.Esserman
  
• 2.0 V.Bhat, J.Sarkar, D.Naroditsky
  
• 1.5 J.Kraai, L.Milman, B.Evans, I.Zenyuk, D.Haessel
  
• 0.5 S.Kustar, S.Shivaji, S.Jahedi

Check out the pairings for the next round daily after 11:00pm. For analysis of some exciting games, please visit Dana Mackenzie's chess blog.

Turkeys Play Chess in Milpitas

(IM Ricardo DeGuzman won all of his games at the Thanksgiving Festival.)

The Bay Area Chess Thanksgiving Festival attracted about 150 players for mental exercises to burn off all the calories from turkey dinner. One IM, one NM and two former masters headlined the field in the top section. The venue at an office park in Milpitas was amazingly comfortable; the higher rated players were distributed throughout several smaller rooms surrounding the bigger main room, each with a door to minimize noise.

The playing schedules included options for 1-day (Friday only), 2-days (Saturday and Sunday) and all 3-days. The 1-day swiss saw 77 juniors compete for trophies in five sections ranging from U1400 to U500. Another 63 players chose the adult tournament, with about 2/3 choosing the faster 2-day schedule (three games of G/60) over the leisurely 3-day option (all six rounds at 30/90, SD/60). The organizer paid out about $1900 in prizes, 64% of the advertised amount. Smaller side events included a scholastic blitz tournament on Friday afternoon and scholastic quads on Saturday.

The competition in the Master/Expert section went according to form with the top five rated players finishing in the money. Top rated International Master Ricardo DeGuzman (2430) was never seriously threatened all weekend, sweeping the field with an impressive 6-0 score. Your humble reporter, NM Michael Aigner (2272), took second place at 4.5. Check out the game viewer for the game that decided the top honors.


Five players shared third place and the U2200 prizes at 3.5 points. Former masters Mike Splane (2196) and Dana Mackenzie (2120) combined for a solid 5.5/6 against lower rated juniors but only could score one draw in four games against the two masters. Teenage expert Evan Sandberg (2030) also tied at 3.5 after a disappointing last round draw.

Kudos to the two juniors who shared the U2200 honors: Brian Wai (1755) of Saratoga High School and 7-year old Samuel Sevian (1833). Wai (see photo at right) calmly defeated three of the top five Bay Area prospects under age 12 (all rated between 1830 and 1950), drew with Mackenzie and lost only to IM DeGuzman and this writer. After this 2150+ performance, his rating shot up nearly 100 points to 1850. Sevian, already rated #1 in the nation for age 7&under, joined the big tie at 3.5 by vanguishing two young A-players and drawing with expert Sandberg.

• Rating report for adult tournament (2-day and 3-day)
• Rating report for scholastic swiss (Friday only)
• Rating report for scholastic quads (Saturday only)
• More photos in Flickr album
  

The following list shows the winners of each section at the Thanksgiving Festival plus the player with the largest rating gain (excluding provisional ratings).

Master/Expert

• 1st = IM Ricardo DeGuzman, 6.0/6
• Most rating points = Brian Wai (+95)
  

Class A/B

• 1st = Rahul Desirazu, 5.0/6
• Most rating points = Rahul Desirazu (+93)
  

Class C/D

• 1st = Julian Michael Lin, 6.0/6
• Most rating points = Daniel Chen (+204)

Star Section

• 1st = Binjih Lin and Richard Yi, 3.0/4 each
• Most rating points = Binjih Lin (+85)

Elite Section

• 1st = John Guiragossian, 4.0/4
• Most rating points = Rohan Kasiviswanathan (+150)

Champ Section

• 1st = Anish Yakkala, Nathaniel Sauerberg and Udit Iyengar, 3.5/4 each
• Most rating points = Nathaniel Sauerberg (+142)
  

Premier Section

• 1st = Steele Langland and Michael Sandler, 4.0/5 each
• Most rating points = Michael Sandler (+173)
  

Booster Section

• 1st = Akash Thiagarajan, 5.0/5
• Most rating points = Akash Thiagarajan (+127)
  

Thanks to organizer Salman Azhar (see photo at left) of Bay Area Chess for organizing and the Pakistan-American Culture Center for hosting the festival in Milpitas. The tournament staff included CalChess President Tom Langland, Leo Lo, Paul Steiner, Gajanan Chinchwadkar and David Lee

Perhaps the greatest disappointment of the weekend was the complete lack of participation by Bay Area adults. Only a dozen of the 63 players in the main tournament were over the age of 18. Where did all of the Bay Area adults go and why would they skip a slow time control event?

While the decline in local adult chess may be traced to the natural advantage of juniors at the popular G/45 and other fast time controls, this reasoning certainly doesn’t apply to a leisurely event at a 30/90, SD/60 time control. In fact, the four adults in the Master/Expert section (out of 17 players) combined to score a lopsided 10.5 out of 11 against the lower rated kids! And while a junior won Class A/B, four out of the six adults in the section still gained rating points. If there was an event for adults to match wits against the talented juniors, then seemingly this was it.

Gobble Gobble from Milpitas!

Fully stuffed with turkey on Thursday afternoon, I consider myself adequately fed to play all weekend in the Bay Area Chess Thanksgiving festival in Milpitas. Unfortunately, the entries are really disappointing with only four players rated above 2000, but perhaps someone else will sign up for the 2-day schedule on Saturday morning. On the bright side, I hope to play each master or expert, including top seed IM Ricardo DeGuzman. In fact, I am currently 2-0 after defeating former master and fellow blogger Dana Mackenzie (2120) this evening as white in an unusual (and perhaps unsound) Trompowsky.

I expect to add more photos to my Flickr album on Saturday.