The 1st Annual National Chess Day and Festival attracted twenty-one players and was battled down to the last games for a share of the prizes.  When the final handshake was made, Ian Morton and Stephen Welt shared first and second place with 3 points in the Open section, leaving the Under 2000 prize to David Causey with 2.5 points.  Ian reeled off three straight wins after losing to Stephen in the 1st round, while Stephen went undefeated with a win, two draws and a full point bye to tie.   In the U1800 Section,  Bob Halliday from  Columbia scored 3 wins and 1/2 point bye to secure 1st place.  Tied for 2nd were Paul Bryan, Mowei Tang and Michael Kruse.  The interesting story of the tournament was the participation of Trung Tran, a local computer scientist with SPAWAR, who had immigrated in 1992 from Vietnam.  He played in only one tournament in 1993, but did well enough to garner a 2051 provisional rating.  By his play in this, only his second USCF tournament, his rating should hold over 2000.  We look forward to his participation in future Charleston tournaments.  Many thanks go out to our fellow clubmember and Orbis, Inc. employee, Bill Mummert, who arranged access to his company’s classroom and was a gracious host of the event.

Click here for the USCF crosstable

Fifteen local players showed up on 7/10/10 at the Blackbaud Office on Daniel Island and participated in a two section Game 60 USCF-rated Swiss event to benefit prison chess in South Carolina.  This was the “brainchild” of SCCA Prison Chess Coordinator, Chris Falter, of Summerville, who organized and directed the event.  All proceeds were donated to fund prison chess activities under Chris’ direction in S.C.  As for the chess event, go to the following link to see the outcome of the competition – Make a Difference Game 60 Swiss.  Hopefully, Chris will stage another benefit for prison chess so that we can encourage more players to visit the excellent facility that hosted this event and help with this important cause.

We had a full meeting last Wednesday.  Club Champion David Causey finished his simul +8, -1, =3, a score that wouldn’t seem out of place with ones we’ve seen from GMs in our state.

Members also discussed and voted unanimously on a couple changes that will be taking place.  We will be adding a monthly kids/family night with a start time around 5 or 5:30 once the space becomes available to us in a month or so.  We will also be having continual 5 round Game :60 tournaments.  There will be one round each week starting July 7th at 8pm.  There will be a weekly entry fee and prizes given, details will be announced soon.  The change in starting time is designed to accommodate  blitz and thematic tournaments, players looking for casual games, and those members who have a difficult time making it by 7:30.  If able please come by 7 to enjoy some of these other activities.

After over two months of competition, the final results of the Charleston CC Championship have been rated.  Go to 2010 CCC Championship and view how everyone finished.  Trophies will be awarded at the next meeting on Wednesday, June 30, followed by a simulteanous exhibition by the 2010 champion, David Causey.  Also, bring any chess books or equipment that you would like to sell, swap or donate.  Be sure to bring your board and set to participate in the simul.  See you there and be ready to give the new champion your best game!

GM Lubomir Ftacnik, after giving an instructive lecture using the last game between GM Anand and GM Topolov in the World Championship match, dispatched all twelve participants in the simultaneous exhibition that followed.  Not even a draw was recorded this year against the grandmaster, who just finished winning this year’s S.C. Open in Greenville with a 5-0 score.  Though all are “licking their wounds” from the grandmaster’s drubbing, they should have a chance to conduct a post mortem on their game and see where they went wrong.  As has always been said in chess, “we learn mostly from our losses.”  Many thanks go out to our SCCA president, David Grimaud, along with his sponsorship of GM Ftacnik’s tour of our state through Precision Tune Automotive Care.  Also, many thanks to the participants who came out to see GM Ftacnik’s lecture and take their turn over the board against such a formidible grandmaster.

Go to “Club Calendar” for scheduled pairings and results.

Grand Master Kaidanov won 13 games and drew 1 in his simultaneous exhibition.  He won all four boards in his blitz simul and won his blindfold blitz game.

For the third straight year Josh Nissenboim has successfully drawn our visiting Grand Master.  Granted the first time they didn’t see him coming,  in hindsight Ftacnik  didn’t really stand a chance.  The second time though, he must have been wondering at how this so called B player was tauntingly, and needlessly, throwing away pawns in a hopelessly drawn opposite color bishop ending until he was up his three useless pawns.  It seems no surprise that Ftacnik didn’t show for a third humiliation.

I’m ashamed to admit I wasn’t sure that Josh would do it again.  When GM Kaidanov announced that he would be taking the white pieces my doubts grew.  When David Grimaud announced that Josh had twice drawn Ftacnik I became down right skeptical.  But as Josh offered a draw in a position I thought he might have been winning I’ve started to ask myself not why these GM’s are letting Josh draw them but why he’s letting them draw him.

The club championship was harrowing, well kind of. In the end it was a tie for first between Stephen Welt and David Causey with 4.5/5. As was pre-arranged the players were to play an indefinite sequence of 2-game mini-matches (G/45) until there was a decisive result. The first and second week experienced missed wins by both sides, and all 4 games were drawn. In week 3 of the playoff Stephen struck in the first game with a win in a Q+R+6 pawns vs Q+R+6 pawns ending. In the second game Stephen offered a draw in a winning position. The draw was accepted, ending the match.

Enjoy a video of this last game.