The Witty Knights

On my way back from USA I stopped by in Belgium for a very important match of my team Amay. We needed to win on any rate, but things seemed very bad for us. I had terrible game on board one against my friend Nicolas Clery, and had to lose. Luckily for me though, I managed to escape thanks to my great knight duo:
Bojkov,D (2544) - Clery,N (2402)
Belgium Interclubs Amay, 06.02.2011
[Bojkov,Dejan]


57.Nf5+ Kh7 58.Ng5+ Kg6 [58...Kh8 59.Nf7+ Kh7 (59...Kg8 60.Ne7+ Kxf7 61.Nxd5=) 60.Ng5+] 1/2
Knights did great job, saved the half point and gave us the desired victory by a minimal margin 4.5-3.5. I sent the endgame to the famous etudist IM Yochanan Afek (he likes collecting practical ideas and implementing them into his own studies, and there were some other nice moments in the endgame prior to this position). And in return received this fabulous study:

Nadareishvili,G


White's pieces are scattered around and it seems impossible for them to coordinate without heavy losses. However: 1.Nb4+ Ka5 2.Nc6+ Ka4 3.Nb6+ Ka3 4.Nc4+ Ka2


5.Bf3! Yochanan wrote me that the study is cooked due to the tablebases-[5.N4e5! cook VV 5...Qxh5+ 6.Kg7 Qf5 7.Ng6 Kb2 8.Nce7 Qe6 9.Ng8 and according to those tablebases this position is a theoretical draw. Still, the author's idea is safer, quicker, and much, much more bautiful!] 5...Qxf3 [5...Qf8+ 6.Kh7 Qf7+ 7.Kh8 Qxc4 8.Bd5 Qxd5 9.Nb4+] 6.Nb4+ Ka1


And here we are again. Familiar position, is not it? The only difference is that the hunted prey is more delicious- 7.Nc2+ Ka2 8.Nb4+ 1/2

American Tour (Report for Chessvibes)

After Robert’s two stories about his American experience, it is my term to share impressions. From 15-19 January I took part in the Golden State open in Concord, California which is part of the CCA (Continental Chess Association) events. Bill Goichberg is the man in charge here, and the series include the major chess opens in USA, such as the Philadelphia, Chicago World and North American open, those where the big money are. Goichberg’s tournaments have their own rules. There are no conditions for anyone (GMs do not pay entry fee, but the amount is deducted from their prices), and everyone is obliged to carry his own chess set and clock. There are various sections and those rated under 2200, 1600 or even 1300 can win a reasonable amount of money (for example, the under 1600 rating section’s first price is 2000 $, which is not as bad considering the fact that the first price in the open section is 3000 $). Therefore, these events attract huge mass of players.
This year the open section started with a major upset straight from the first round. The nine-year-old Samuel Sevian knocked down the rating favourite Mauricio Flores:

Sevian,S (2157) - Flores,M (2653) [B47]
Concord (1), 14.01.2011
[Bojkov,Dejan]


28.e6!! 0–0 [28...dxe6 29.Qb5+ Ke7 30.Bxc3; 28...fxe6 29.Qe5 both win at least a rook for White.] 29.e7 [29.exf7+ Kxf7 30.Re1 would have been even easier, as the rook is not going anywhere- 30...Ra3 31.Rxd8 Rxd8 32.Qe7+] 29...Bxe7 30.Qxe7 Rxh3+ 31.gxh3 Rxb8 32.Qe5 d6 33.Qd4 Qa6 34.Re1 Qc6+ 35.Kg1 Rc8


This allows another firework, but Black is losing anyway. 36.Bc3! f6 37.Qxf6 Qxc3 38.Re8+! 1–0
Mauricio told me that after the game his young opponent showed no excitement at all (even though this was his first win over a GM ever), and took it as normal. Samuel continued his great performance and managed to overcome the 2200 USCF rating mark, thus gaining the title of a national master. He is the youngest ever American who had achieved that and obviously, his main successes are still to come. In the meanwhile, after suffering from a poor start I managed to score 3.5/5 before the final 2 rounds. As usual, there is always a story with me when winning a tournament, and this was no an exception. It started with taking a train in the wrong direction before the sixth round that fortunately costed me only 45 minutes on the clock. (Thanks for not forfeiting for a minute late on the American tournaments!) I won that game though against E. Tate, and one more black after that against IM E. Sevillano, also as Black (I should add that Enrico is a great man and took the loss like a real gentleman), thus sharing the first with the American John Bryant (who in fact had the better tiebreak, and won some extra cash for that.)
On the next day I was already travelling to L.A. for the first since six years GM norm tournament on the South West Coast (19-23 January). It is a shame that such an enourmous city like Los Angelis with its’ seventeen million people is meager on chess events. This is however a subject to a change, as the local tournament organizer Ankit Gupta and tournament director Michael Belcher are working hard in promoting our sport. After organizing an IM norm event in December, they now succeeded in a GM brother, and there are still more to come, including a strong open in August.
The event was dedicated in memory of Jimmy Quon, who taught more than a thousand children in his life, and organized numerious events in L.A.
The contest for the first place did not really take place, as GM Mark Paragua started with 6/6 to claim the title in style. Second is the local hero GM Melik Khachiyan, third is IM Mackenzie Molner.
I did not play well here (fatigue was taking its toll) but there was a curious moment in one of my games that would definitely bring joy to Mr. Afek:

Molner,M - Bojkov,D
L.A. Invitational (8), 23.01.2011
[Bojkov,Dejan]


Here I went for a correct idea, but in a wrong way: 1...Be4? The idea is to chase the king into a smaller cage with Be4-f3+, Bf3-g3+ followed by Rg2-b2-b1 mate. However, the correct way to this was to make it with checks: [1...Bc2+ 2.Ke1 Bg3+ 3.Kf1 Rd2 Already, threatening mate, for example: 4.f6+ The point is that the defense: (4.Be5 is not working due to: 4...Bd3+ 5.Kg1 Bf2+ as the rook on c5 is hanging.) 4...Kf7 5.Ra5 Bd3+ 6.Kg1 Bh2+ 7.Kh1 Be4#] 2.Ke1 Bf3 However here Molner had enough time to destroy my plans: 3.f6+! Ke6 [3...Kf7 4.Rf5] 4.f7 Bd6 There is not time for mating net: [4...Bg3+ 5.Kf1 Rb2 6.Re5+! Kd7 7.Re1] 5.Re5+! Kxf7 6.Rf5+ ½

In conclusion I would like to present you the wonderful video that Christian Glawe made from the event!

Jimmy Quon Memorial Chess Tournament from Ice Hat Creative on Vimeo.

Two Simuls in San Diego

After the exhausting tournament scheme, that finally ended on 23 January in L.A. I got some free time to see USA. Chess was still involved though, as I was invited for a couple of simultaneous exhibitions in San Diego on 27 and 28 January. This is what the official site of the club wrote about the events:

“Thursday night was the first go around for this event and we had 19 participants, a few less than expected but not a bad turnout. It was a small field, but fairly strong, with over one half the players rated over 2000. It started promptly at 7 PM and GM Bojkov got right after it after a few brief announcements. Here were the players in rating order:
2 Masters: Bruce Baker and Kyron Griffith
8 Experts: Dimitry Kishinevsky, Nikolay Arutyunov, Alejandrino Baluran, Alan Tsoi, Jesse Orlowski, Bill Whitney, Antonio Gonzalez and Robert Defore.
3 Class A: Buddy Morris, Chuck Ensey and Carl Newell.
5 Class B: Edgar Lopez, Jim Krooskos, Frank Arias, Steve Perry and Leonardo Villaverde.
1 Class C: Fred Cleveland
Buddy Morris was the first to go down in flames - he transposed a move order and blamed it on being tired. Antonio Gonzalez was the next to drop as he tried to replay a blitz game he had had some success with Dejan yesterday. I (Chuck) was the next to drop, but just before I did, Bill Whitney had earned a draw!! I had to leave at that point, but it looked like Alan Tsoi had a won game, up the exchange and a pawn, and Bruce had drawing chances in a Rook and pawn ending, down a pawn, but it was doubled. Update: Yes Alan Tsoi won and Bruce Baker drew, as did Kyron Griffith. So, final score was 1 win, 3 draws and 15 losses for the home team. A repectable showing for both sides.
So Friday night we did it all over again, but the turnout was much lower, really hardly enough to hold a decent simul. There were a few kids from the Jedi Knights, plus 4 Experts (Arutyunov, Gonzalez Humphrey and Whitney), plus a few Class players (Morris, Perry, Vajapeyam). No one got a win or even a draw under these conditions.”
This short game was played in the second simul, where my young opponent fell for a typical trick:
NN - Bojkov,D [A00]
Simultanious San Diego, 28.01.2011
[Bojkov,Dejan]
1.e3 d5 2.d3 e5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.d4 e4 6.Ne5 Bd6 7.Nxc6 bxc6 8.Be2 h5 9.0–0?


9...Bxh2+ 10.Kxh2 Ng4+ 11.Kg1 Qh4 12.Bxg4 hxg4 13.f4 g3 0–1
I should add that San Diego is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited, with the remarkable bay area, jolly downtown and glorious Balboa Park and Zoo.
I found many new friends. Thanks you Antonio, Dimitry, Bill, Buddy and Nikolay for showing me the city. And thank you Chuck, for the invitation!

The Advantages of the Isolated Pawn

Bojkov,D - Adamson,R [B10]
Los Angelis Los Angeles, 21.01.2011
[Bojkov,Dejan]
I did not do well at L.A. as a whole, but the following game was my best achievement. Most of the beautiful lines though remained behind the curtains: 1.e4 c6 2.c4 d5 3.cxd5 cxd5 4.exd5 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nxd5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Bb5 e6 8.0–0 Be7 9.d4 0–0 10.Re1 Bd7 11.Bd3 Nf6 12.a3 Rc8 13.Bg5


13...Qa5?! Robby told me after the game that he had prepared this line at home, and that everyone plays here 14.Bc2. However, as I did not know that I found another move, that actually prevents his idea: 14.Ne5! And Black went into the thinking tank. 14...Qd8?! The point is that if Black continues with his normal development, he might be crushed due to the weakness of the f7 square: [14...Rfd8? 15.Bxf6 Bxf6 16.Bxh7+! Kf8 The only move, that was concerning me for a while. Much weaker is: (16...Kxh7 17.Qh5+ Kg8 18.Qxf7+ Kh7 19.Re3 when Black is getting mated.) 17.Qh5! Only when I saw this follow up I chose 14.Ne5! White's attack is unstoppable, for example: 17...g6 18.Bxg6 fxg6 Or: (18...Bxe5 19.dxe5 fxg6 20.Qh8+ Ke7 21.Qg7+ Ke8 22.Qxg6+ Kf8 23.Qf6+ Ke8 24.Re4 followed by Re4-h4-h8 and mate.) 19.Qh6+ Bg7 20.Qf4+ Ke7 21.Qf7+ Kd6 22.Nc4+ and White wins.; After the game Robby suggested the defense: 14...Be8 I thought that this is also very bad for him, but I now believe that this might have been Black's best chance. Here are some possibilities: 15.Re3 h6 a) 15...g6 16.Bh6 will win at least an exchange for White.; b) 15...Nxe5 This was Robby's idea, as after: 16.dxe5 Nd5 17.Bxe7 Nxe7 18.Ne4± The sacrifice on h7 does not work:(18.Bxh7+ Kxh7 19.Rh3+ Kg8 20.Qh5 f5) ; 16.Bxh6! This one of the lines that was keeping me calculating. Black is mated after: 16...gxh6 17.Rg3+ Kh8 18.Qd2 Ng8


19.Rxg8+ Kxg8 20.Qxh6 f5 21.Qxe6+ Bf7 22.Qxf5 Kg7 23.Qh7+ Kf6 24.Qh6+ Bg6 25.Qxg6#] 15.Qf3! Preventing the move 15...g7-g6, and transfering the queen on a vintage point. The rook lift does not bring anything substancial after: [15.Re3 g6] 15...Nxe5 Black sacrifices material to loose the grip. There is no time to grab the central pawn, as the opening of this highway is deadly for Black: [15...Nxd4 16.Qh3 h6 17.Bxh6! gxh6 18.Qxh6 Nf5 19.Bxf5 exf5 20.Qg5+ Kh8


21.Nxd7 (The simplest) 21...Qxd7 22.Rad1 Qc7 23.Rd3 with mate to follow.] 16.dxe5 Nd5 17.Bxe7 Qxe7 After: [17...Nxe7 White has a pleasant choice which pawn to take: 18.Rad1 (18.Qxb7 Bc6 19.Qa6) 18...Qc7 19.Bxh7+ Kxh7 20.Qd3+] 18.Nxd5 exd5 19.Qxd5 Bc6 20.Qb3 Rfd8 Black is a pawn down without any compensation, and the active try in the game only speeds up the end. 21.Bf5!


Threatening both the rook and the e5-e6 advance. 21...Qg5 22.Qh3 Bxg2 23.Qxh7+ My initial idea was to win the exchange with: [23.Qg4 However, the move in the game gains more material.] 23...Kf8 24.h4 Qf4 25.Bxc8! The straightforward attack wins as well:[25.e6! fxe6 26.Bxe6 Rc6 27.Qg8+ Ke7 28.Qxg7+ Kd6 29.Rad1+; However, the gain of the bishop spoils the victory, as Robby pointed out: 25.Kxg2? Rd2 26.Rf1


26...Rcc2!! 27.Bxc2 Qg4+ 28.Kh2 Qf4+=; 25.Bxc8 Rd2 26.Qf5] 1–0

LA Invitational Tournament

From 19-23 January Los Angelis hosted a GM norm tournament dedicated to the memory of one of the cities best chess promoters-Jimmy Quon.
Jimmy Quon was a beloved chess player from the Southern California Community who taught at La Jolla Country Day School for 14 years. At one time he was teaching 15% of the student body. In the end, he had coached over 1000 players.
This was the first GM norm event in Southern California since six years. The dream of our T. D. (tournament director) Michael Belcher was always to host an event like that. Since the times of the Spassky-Fischer match, Michael always admired to one of the people on the stage. But that person was neither Boris, nor Bobby. That person was the arbiter! And when he reached the mature age of twelve, he started to organize tournaments. Michael is originally an Indian from the Navaho tribe and experienced problems as the people did not know how to play chess. Therefore, he taught them, and then organized them tournaments. In L.A. he found support by both Jimmy Quon, and the current organizer of the event- Ankit Gupta. Ankit is a national master, who does his best to promote our sport in the enourmous city. Still, despite its seventeen million populations, L.A. is meager in chess events. These two men efforts though gave already two norm events to South California- an IM and GM norm invitationals, when the plan is that those events become regular. Metrochess L.A. is also organizing a strong open in August and have already participants’ confirmation by GMs like Adams and van Wely.
All the games were played in the California Market Center, which is the L.A. downtown. It is a fashion district, and many reviews took place while we played our games. The tournament itself appeared to be a triumph for the Philipini GM Marc Paragua, who started with remarkable 6/6. he took clear first, two points ahead of his closest pursuer GM Melik Khachiyan, former trainer of Levon Aronian. Third is Mackenzie Molner. None achieved the desired norm.

Unfortunately, this wonderful event was affected by a racist scandal, caused by a third party. In his regular information email Ankit Gupta recommended among others the events of a local club LACC (Los Angelis Chess Club) whose founder and director Mick Bighamian has an Iranian origin. Confused by the many emails in the list, the Israeli GM and student at Texas Tech University Anatoly Bykhovsky wrote an email to LACC, instead of Metropolitan Chess Club asking for conditions for the summer open. Despite the fact that LACC has nothing to do with this tournament, the Israeli received the following reply from Bighamian’s email: “We don’t allow players from terrorist countries in our tournaments! Good Chess! ”
Bykhovsky rushed in to complain to Susan Polgar, and the whole case soon reached Israel, where the President of the Chess Federation wrote an official letter of protest to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
In the meanwhile Bighamian’s explanations to what have happened vary to either a computer virus or the public usage of the club computer.
This is a very sad case in our sport, which should be used to unite the people, rather than segregate them. In an official letter of the participants we stand behind the organizer Gupta, and condemned any racist’s attitude. Ankit on his turn hurried up to invite Anatoly Bykhovsky for the summer tournament. I hope that he will understand, and accept the invitation.

The Typical American Open

Concord open took place 14-17 (for most of the players 15-17) January in the small town located near the Pittsburgh Bay Point Area, in California. It was part of the American tour, and had various sections for each rating.
The word that can specify an open here is flexibility. Chess is a business as any other. Therefore, the organizers try to attract as many people as possible, providing them various options. They can either choose the four days scheme, when they play all the seven games in the normal time modus (2 hours per 40 moves, and additional hour till the end of the game), or play the three-days schedule. This means that they will play three days, and in the first day the first two games are in a semi-rapid time limit (75 minutes per game). After that the two tournament schedules are gathered together. Most of the players choose the three days-schedule, as they have one day less to pay a hotel, or they simply have work to do in that day.
Another peculiarity is the re-entry option. If a player plays in a lower rated section, and let’s say loses his first game, he can quit this tournament and re-enter the next day into the open section with the three-day schedule, thus starting a new tournament. However, in that case he will have to pay yet another entry fee.
There is no special treatment to any players. Each of them has to carry his own chess set and clock for his white games. Someone had told me that it is not a rare picture to see the likes of Kamsky and Nakamura with a chess set under their arm at the tournament hall. Grandmasters’ only privilege is that do not pay entry fee at the start of the event. But in case that they take prices- those entries are deducted from their price.
One more interesting thing was the five-second delay modus. This means that your clock starts to count the seconds only after five seconds have passed by (and not adding five seconds on the clock as I thought). Still, as some players come with mechanical clocks they cannot use that system. But none cares. It was a bit unexpected for me that despite all this freedom, and lack of control the tournament went smoothly, and none ever complained of anything.
The byes are allowed, and you can take as many as you want once that you have announced them before the third round. You can take one whole bye-bye to the tournament as long as you pay your fee. You can also leave it whenever you want in case that you do not like your tournament situation. When I asked the tournament director Bill Goichberg if he can place the pairings on the internet the night before the rounds he replied: “I do them in the morning, as many people leave the night before, and there is no sense to repair them.”
Headphones are also allowed during games, and most of the people use them for better concentration. Some listen to the music. The look of an opponent with headphones on performing strong moves was bit too scary for me though.
“Why do you guys take so many byes?” I asked Daniel, a new acquaintance who I meet at the station while we wait for the free bus shuttle for the hotel (which was never coming). “You see man, I work as a DJ in San Francisco, and there was none to replace me for my show, so I took a bye for my third game. I worked till 3 a.m., and here I am (it was 10 a.m.) for the fourth one.” But then you must be tired-why do not you take another bye in the morning?” “Ah, no, I want to play some good games and if I have the chance to make to the money that will be good.” Daniel is 42, rated around 1300 and started playing chess three years ago, but he really enjoys it. “You know man, this is something that you can always keep learning, and satisfy you.”
I started the event horribly scoring 2/3 in my first game, which objectively could have been much less for the level of the play that I was showing. But then things went better and with two final black wins I managed to tie for the first with Daniel John Bryant, each of us scoring 5.5/7. There was an additional tie-break criteria (which I never understood what exactly it was, neither it was written anywhere), and Daniel got some extra bucks for edging me in that.

King Loek Rulez

Berkeley international took place at the beginning of January (2-8) at the Berkeley Chess School, up the hill of the town. It was a 10-round open, with a tough scheme that featured three doubled rounds at the beginning. We played the FIDE time limit, with the only difference that the phone ring would not necessarily mean a defeat by forfeit.
Berkeley is a small town near San Francisco, famous for its University of California. One of the organizers of the event, Arun Sharma is a professor teacher in Mathematics in this prestigious University. He is rated around 2300 and recently did very well at the North American Open in Las Vegas where he won a special price for rating category. “This was probably my best tournament so far”, said he with satisfaction. The other organizer is David Pruess, an IM and great promoter of chess in USA. He also organized the previous three editions of the tournament in 2005, 2006 and 2008.
I can say that the event was very well organized. The halls were spacious, and easily accessible, there were free beverages and snacks for the players during their games.
The field was rather strong, and the surprises started immediately from round one. The rating favourite Loek van Wely had to leave his top board after drewing a game against Keaton Kiewra, who is rated 2337. I was always wondering why people call the Dutch GM- King Loek. Here I understood it, after watching his consecutive string of five-in-a-row recovery, which included wins against strong GMs Magesh Panchanathan, Josh Friedel and Robert Hess. He then made three more draws, and won the decisive last round game to claim a clear first in style. His opponent from the first round also did quite well, secured an IM norm with a round to go, and created a marvelous game against the compatriot Hess to score his first GM norm. The tournament itself was quite rich of norm achievements. Sam Shankland scored his final GM norm to gain the title at the age of 19, Denys Shmelov who is not even an IM made his first GM norm. In addition, Daniel Naroditsky became an IM at the age of 14, and Conrad Holt and Roman Yankovsky scored their second norms, while Tatev Abrahamyan made it to the WGM norm. in a thrilling game Sergey Erenburg managed to outwit Timur Gareev and take clear second, while Magesh Panchanathan edged out Josh Friedel to win the third price. I was in a Christmas mood and presented as many points as possible. What made me an impression was the fact that there was no closing ceremony. The price winners calmly took their checks and left, there were neither bombastic speeches nor long applauses.



Not many people attended the tournament, and I was once shocked by a question from a visitor who asked me if it is allowed to get inside and have a look at the games.
There were more chess-related activities throughout the event- simultaneous exhibitions with the youngest national master Kayden Troff and GM Timur Gareev, free chess lecture by IM Daniel Rensch, blitz tournament which was won by Robert Hess.
The American tournaments are much more different than those in Europe. The bye point system is still not very clear to me. How many half-point byes can one possibly take? And when should he/she announce them? Some of the players took four byes. Some none. It is a completely free world.
And it is not only like that on the chess field. The next day while walking around in San Francisco we see people on underwear coming out of the BART (something in between a train and metro) station. It appeared that there was a “No pants day” in San Francisco, and those willing to do it can walk this way. It is 10 degrees centigrade, but noone cares. It’s America!
We had a wonderful time visiting the Golden Gate Park, the Japanese Garden, the China town, the Mechanics Chess Club and walking around in San Francisco.