Some of the games demonstrate the dangers of falling behind in development. A subset of these games feature kings stuck in the center. Artem and Gerald found themselves in a very challenging and educational rook and bishops of opposite colors endgame. Artem was kind enough to annotate their game for us.
Enjoy the games:
Pairings and standings can be found here:
https://caissachess.net/live/960
I would like to thank Gerald, John, and Artem for annotating some of the games.
Gerald and John played on board one. Enjoy the game and the winner’s insights:
The other games with annotations can be found here:
Standings and pairings can be found here:
https://caissachess.net/live/960
19 players signed up for the Rubinstein open. That is a new record for our online tournaments. As some of you may have noted we are running a Swiss tournament with accelerated pairings. As a consequence we saw highly competitive pairings in round 1 already.
This time I got help from John Wright with the game annotations. Here is his game against Larry Stevens
The rest of the games are annotated by John or me. You can find them here.
If anyone would like to annotate their game or any other game please let me know. We all can learn from each other.
I will post the final pairings for the next round tomorrow night. Just keep an eye on our tournament website:
https://caissachess.net/live/960
As you may have noticed this link is the same throughout the tournament. I just posted preliminary pairings. Unless I get a bye later today or somebody else joins the tournament the pairings won’t change.
Congratulations to Raymond Armagnac for winning the second edition of the Sierra Madre Open. Starting with three wins it was enough to draw the last two games to cruise to first place. Lawrence Stevens, Arthur Shao Zhang, and Arturo Armagnac tied for second and thus giving us an exciting tiebreaker this Friday.
As in our last tournament we have cash prizes for the top two players overall ($50 and $30) and the top two players under 1800 ($30 and $20).
The battle for second prize will decide how many under 1800 prizes will be available. If Arturo Armagnac repeats his fantastic blitz performance Rafi Andranigan will clinch first in the under 1800 category and Artem Aleksenko second.
Make sure you all sign up for the blitz arena:
https://lichess.org/tournament/KaTMtSlb
The password is: sgv
It might be a good idea not to wait till the last minute for sign up. I might not be there for the start of the arena to help out. It might also be a good idea to read the rules for the arena, if not you might be surprised why some people only get half of the time playing you.
Here are the annotated games from round 4:
And here are the games from round 5:
The pairings for the next round, standings, and results can be found here:
In round two we were treated to a couple of miniatures and some topsy turvy games. You can play through all the games below. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to annotate all the games. But I had a closer look at Timothy Bogan vs John Wright and Russel Keating vs Artem Aleksenko. Both games are very instructive.
The pairings for round three are here:
Last Friday the Sierra Madre Open started with 7 exciting games and the black players scored an astonishing 5.5 points.
You can play through the games and enjoy Larry Stevens’ insightful annotations here:
For standings and pairings go here:
https://caissachess.net/live/910
I will post the pairings for round two Wednesday night.
With the Steinitz Open concluded we have two Fridays left before the holiday break.
We will hold two 2h G3+2 events. The person with the highest score (not cumulative) wins $50. Registration is free. However, if you feel the need for a donation you are welcome to do so:
You can register for the two blitz arenas here:
https://lichess.org/tournament/deYrR0nj
and here:
https://lichess.org/tournament/LF4cxem3
The password for both is:
sgv
There won’t be any tournaments on Dec. 25 and Jan. 1 but I’m happy to arrange something if there is demand.
On 01/08/2021 we will have the second edition of our Sierra Madre Open. Which will also mark the first anniversary of the San Gabriel Valley Chess Club. The tournament will be a 5 round Swiss held on Lichess with G60+10 games. As with our previous tournaments ties will be broken in a 2h G6+1 blitz arena which will take place on 02/120/2021.
You can register for the Sierra Madre open here:
https://caissachess.net/online-registration/index/910
Online registration requires a USCF ID. Your membership does not need to be active for this. If you don’t have a membership ID please contact me and I can sign you up.
The Steinitz Open concluded with a dramatic finish that saw Larry Stevens, Gerald Ruiz, and Kyan Hsu tying for first. A 2h blitz arena was needed to break the ties.
Kyan took an early lead with three early wins while Gerald and Larry each started their tournament with a loss. Kyan took full advantage of the Lichess regulations by collecting bonus points with his winning streaks as well as going into Berserk mode. Kyan also managed to play 15 games in the allotted time while Gerald and Larry only completed ten and nine games respectively. Kyan’s aggressive play and tactical acumen were also essential ingredients for his win. Congratulations! Gerald finished 4th with a respectable 24 points and secured his second place overall. After playing a fantastic tournament in the open Larry was not able to adjust to his first Arena tiebreaker. But I’m sure he learned a valuable lesson and is a contender for first in our next tournament.
Thanks to Kyan winning the tournament a prize in the under 1800 category became available. Arturo Armagnac, thanks to his performance in the Open, took first and Lisa Willis, thanks to her blitz skills came in second.
You can find the results of the Steinitz Arena Tiebreakers here:
Throughout the tournament the big question was: Who can stop Larry Stevens? Round 5 gave us the answer.
Larry had a great tournament and he made things look quite easy. After round 4 he was in the sole lead, one point ahead of Gerald Luiz and Kyan Hsu. Larry had the white pieces against Gerald in the last round and a draw would have been sufficient to win the tournament. A great spot to be in, but how should you play in a situation like this? Gerald’s task was more difficult but also less complicated. All he needed to do was to win with the black pieces. Answering Larry’s e4 with the Philidor Defense let to a complex position with a lot of pieces on the board. Black eventually equalized and had the easier game. Larry, however, skillfully neutralized black’s pressure and stirred the game into a very very equal rook ending. It was here where things went wrong. Instead of stopping black’s attempts to rock the boat Larry engaged in a race and found himself in a lost queen ending. Gerald had been playing on his increment for quite a while by this time and missed a tactic that would have let to an instant draw, but it seemed that Larry had already come to terms with his loss and missed this chance.
Kyan was the only other person to be able to catch up with Larry. He went all in with the Schliemann Defense versus Lisa Willis’ Ruy Lopez. Shortly after the queens came off Kyan won a pawn and the extra material combined with the bishop pair guaranteed a smooth conversion.
Arturo Armagnac and David Faulkner reached this position after Arturo’s 54. f3-f4. David’s position had been pretty hopeless for a while and it seemed he was just going through the motions here and missed a golden opportunity here. What should he have played?
You can play through all the games here:
As usual, you can find the results and standings here:
https://caissachess.net/live/878
So, what happens next?
On Friday, 12/04/2020 at 7pm we will have a 2h arena blitz tournament. Everybody is welcome to join. The games will be G6+1 and the final standings will be used to break any ties. So Larry, Kyan, and Gerald only have to worry about their relative standings, whoever does best wins the tournament. The same applies to all the other ties. If Kyan finishes in the top two he will get this prize and not the prize for the under 1800 category. So, if you are rated under 1800 you know who to root for.
Please sign up here
https://lichess.org/tournament/1zg4bUUV
for the tournament. The password is:
Steinitz
Please also take the time to read the instructions on the tournament website. I recommend to pay some attention to the Arena Beserk, how scores are calculated, and how a winner is decided.
I hope to see you all at the Steinitz Arena. Players who haven’t participated in the Open are also welcome to join.
