Category: Chess Tournaments

SGVCC member “Wandering Knight” (aka Randall Hough) sets an early blazing trail with four straight wins against international Daily Club competition. Not beginners luck! Randy has more chess experience than most of us put together: National Master, National Tournament Director, International Arbiter and more. But what made him into the “Chess Cuisinart” of Daily Play? Let’s look and learn:

Black opts for the ultra sharp Najdorf Sicilian defense and White plays a theoretical novelty (TN) on move 10 with f4, opening dark square weaknesses. Black hops on these weaknesses with 13)…Qb6!, Qa7, and follows with b5, then b4, picking up a pawn. After 20)…Nf2+ (again a dark square!) picking up more material and leading to the exposing of Whites’s king. A satisfying mate on g2 ends the game. Well done Randy!

UPDATE

Please, use the following link to register:

https://caissachess.net/online-registration/index/819

Standings at: https://caissachess.net/live/819 

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We are pleased to announce our first 5 round event starting August 7th and concluding on September 4th.

Entry is free and rounds will start each Friday at 7:10 p.m. The games will be 25 minute + 10 sec. with two games against the same opponent per round. Chess.com will be the playing site and chess.com’s rapid ratings will be used.

We will also have a Prize Fund! Overall 1st-3rd is $60/40/30. Best Junior (u16), Senior (60 and over) and Best Female player are all $25 each. Registration ends on August 7th at 5pm. So sign up early!

To join, use the Contact Form to send a message with your full name, USCF ID, and chess.com username before 4pm on Friday, August 7th.

Games will start Fridays at 7:10 pm. To play, please log into the Chess.com Live server a few minutes before the start of the round, and challenge your assigned opponent to a G25+10 game. After the game is finished, play a second game with reversed colors. Finally, download the PGN for both games and email them to [email protected] Mention the round, players, and result in the subject.

After coasting to victory last week in Round 6, SGVCC needed heroic efforts in our match versus the Club from Ayer, Massachusetts. It all came down to the final two games on Boards 2 and 3, where Chris Stychinsky and Richard Reid had to overcome very difficult potions to help us win 4.5 to 3.5, by just a single game.

It seemed we were coming from behind the entire match.  First, John Wright on Board 1 went down quickly losing both games. But then @Capital2 on Board 4 got us back even with strong play, taking both games. Chris had lost his first game and Richard had won his, so the match was tied at 3 points each going into the last two games.

But no sooner did we get a reprieve we were fighting for our lives again.  Richard was Black against the London System and White had broken through on the Kingside, first by sacrificing a piece, then getting the piece back plus all three of Black’s Kingside pawns! Chris was White against the Black Lion Defense and the “Lion” was roaring! Our opponents meet at a pool hall and it looked like they were going to run the table! Later computer evaluations have both our hero’s lost, but it’s people–not machines–that finish chess games.

In a time scramble Richard was able to create his own passed pawn and the players agreed to a draw with seconds remaining. At that point, the match was still tied and it was all up to Chris. Appropriately, we have made this our featured game this week:

If you look at White’s position after Black played #33…Rh8, it is hard to see how White avoids getting checkmated in short order. Chris’s solution on move #34 seemed to rattle Black, who was still winning, but likely frustrated by White’s stubborn resistance. And “Nimzotech” was starting to make some threats of his own too.  Sure enough, five moves later Black dropped a piece and the Lion had been tamed!