Colorado Springs Chess News

Game Of The Week

By Tim Brennan

Pardon the interruption, boys and girls, but I'm Tim Brennan, and I will be hosting Paul's Newsletter today!

Sorry to disappoint those of you tuning in today hoping to continue reading Paul's new series on his most brilliant wins against Kathy Schneider, part 5 of 12, but I promise he will be back next week to go over every pawn push in the those epic battles!

Thanks for having me here today Paul!  It is an honor!

There has been a lot of politics going on in Colorado these days.  People are complaining about the Colorado Closed, the use of electronic devices, and everything in between.  It reminds me of a joke from the world of academia...

Why is the infighting so vicious?

Because the stakes are so low!

One of the things that I really admire about Paul is that he manages to stay out of the mud on these issues.  Personally, I end up getting sucked into a lot of these issues, and often play the role of internet troll throwing gas on the fires, which I have to admit I enjoy doing.

Paul has a really great sense of humor about things, and often makes little jokes and quips about these issues without offending anyone, which is a great quality.

Paul is also quite an amazing chess player.  He is also an excellent teacher and writer on the subject of chess.  He has a great positional understanding, a solid opening repertoire, and amazing endgame skills.  He has pulled himself up by the bootstraps, and has become one of the best, and most respected chess players in all of Colorado.

But, as Aristotle wrote, every hero has a hamartia - a tragic flaw. If you think about today's popular comic heroes - they all have some kind of tragic flaw:

• Superman has kryptonite
• Daredevil hates noise
• Green Lantern has the color yellow

As near perfect as Paul's game has become, after years of honing his craft, spending hours pouring over computer analysis, achieving an understanding of the most complex middle game pawn structures that most of us could never dream of, he still has one flaw, one weakness, one hole in his game.

And I am going to share it with each and every one of you here today!  Paul Anderson's one and only weakness is (drum roll please!):

Playing against the authors of Tactics Time! 1001 Chess Tactics from the Games of Everyday Chess Players [Kindle Edition]

Now this might sound lame, but really, is it any more lame than having your weakness being the color yellow?

I have to admit that I have an unfair advantage because we looked at hundreds of Paul's games while putting together this book.  In fact, about 8% of the book comes from Paul's games.

(Paul, please insert my 15 pages of multimedia, high pressure sales copy for the book here including reviews, testimonials, video trailers, thanks.  I am also experimenting with a hypnotic subliminal MP3 to convince people to buy the book - is there any way to get that to play while people read this email? )

Now that you are done reading (and listening, heehee) to all that, let's look at a position from Tactics Time vs Paul Anderson :

White played Rxf7!

So, now you are probably thinking to yourself:  "Self, I would love to have this kind of tactical power!  To be able to score 300 point upsets!  If only there were a way?"

Well luckily there is!  AND - Since this is Tim Brennan week - I am going to give you this book, that will turn you into a tactical demigod, for FREE!!!

Check out Tactics Time! 1001 Chess Tactics from the Games of Everyday Chess Players [Kindle Edition] and start unleashing heck on your opponents today!

http://www.amazon.com/Tactics-Chess-Everyday-Players-ebook/dp/B009TBYA7U

Be sure to tell your chess friends!

Thanks Paul, for having my here today as your guest.  Keep up the great work!

Your Friend, Tim Brennan

http://tacticstime.com

Tragic Flaw

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-replayer.php?id=78567  

[Event "Cabin Fever Reliever"]

[Site "http://cschess.webs.com/"]

[Date "2013.02.19"]

[Round "3.1"]

[White "Brennan, Timothy"]

[Black "Anderson, Paul"]

[Result "1-0"]

[ECO "B10"]

[WhiteElo "1755"]

[BlackElo "2038"]

[PlyCount "55"]

[EventDate "2013.02.12"]

[TimeControl "1800"]

1. e4 c6 2. f4 d6 3. Nf3 g6 4. Bc4 Bg7 5. O-O Nf6

6. d3 O-O 7. c3 Ng4 8. h3 Qb6+ 9. d4 Nf6 10. e5 dxe5 11. fxe5 Nd5 12. Bb3 Bf5

13. c4 Nb4 14. Nc3 Nd3 15. g4 Nxc1 16. Rxc1 Bc8 17. Ng5 Qc7 18. c5 e6 19. Nce4

Bh6 20. Nf6+ Kg7 21. Qd2 Nd7 22. Nfxh7 Bxg5 23. Nxg5 Qd8 24. Rxf7+ Rxf7 25.

Nxe6+ Kh7 26. Nxd8 Rg7 27. Nf7 Nf8 28. Qh6+ 1-0

This Week In Chess

On April 9th, the Colorado Springs Chess Club held a quad event.  Eight players were grouped into 2 quads for a USCF-rated and unrated Round Robin tournament (RR, G30 and G20).  NM Josh Bloomer went unbeaten in the rated quad while there was a three-way tie for 1st in the unrated quad.   Here are the results:

Score, Player:

Rated Quad (G30):

3.0 Josh Bloomer

2.0 Isaac Martinez

1.0 Alex Torres

0.0 Curtis Holsinger

Unrated Quad (G20):

2.0 Mike Madsen

2.0 Koji Del Conte

2.0 Paul Anderson

0.0 Wesley Smith

Tuesday Night Chess Tour Cumulative and 2nd Quarter Standings

1    Paul Anderson    30.50    5.50

2    Mark McGough    13.00    1.00

3    Tim Brennan    12.00    0.00

4    Mike Madsen    11.50    4.00

5    Alex Torres    11.00    3.00

6    Koji DelConte    10.50    4.00

7    Josh Bloomer    10.50    8.00

8    Isaac Martinez    8.00    3.00

9    Dean Brown    7.00    0.00

10    Alex Freeman    5.00    0.00

11    Jeff Fox    4.50    0.00

12    Brian Rountree    4.00    0.00

13    Daniel Herman    4.00    0.00

14    Sara Herman    4.00    0.00

15    Peter Grigg    4.00    1.00

16    Eugin Pahk    3.00    0.00

17    Josh Divine    2.50    2.50

18    Anthea Carson    2.00    0.00

19    Mike Wanek    2.00    0.00

20    James Powers    2.00    0.00

21    Shirley Herman    2.00    0.00

22    Wes Smith    2.00    1.00

23    Rebecca Herman    1.50    0.00

24    Joe Pahk    1.50    0.00

25    Mike Toth    1.00    0.00

26    Buddy Diamond    1.00    0.00

27    Kathy Schneider    1.00    0.00

28    Curits Holsinger    1.00    1.00

Colorado Closed‏

By Buck Buchanan

April 19 - 21, Manitou Springs: 2013 Colorado Closed / Scholastic Closed.   5 - RR in 4 sections. Time control G/90 with 30 second increment.

Masonic Lodge, 455 El Paso Blvd, Manitou Springs

Rd 1 Friday, 4/19, 7:00 PM

Rds 2-3 Saturday, 4/20, 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM

Rds 4-5 Sunday, 4/21, 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM

Prizes:  Championship sections 1st place $100, 2nd $50;  Challenger sections 1st $75, 2nd $40.

***********************************************

OK, Here are the pairings for all sections.  The player whose number comes first in each pairing has White.

Round One             3-6        5-4        1-2

Round Two             2-6        4-1        3-5

Round Three           6-5        1-3        4-2

Round Four             6-4        5-1        2-3

Round Five             1-6        2-5        3-4

And here are the players for each section with their pairing numbers.  These have been determined randomly.

COLORADO CLOSED CHAMPIONSHIP

1    Randy Canney        2238

2    Robert Cousins       2141

3    Jackson Chen         2092

4    Brian Wall                2204

5    Michael Ginat           2238

6    Zach Bekkedahl       2165

COLORADO CLOSED CHALLENGER

1    Robert Ramirez        2135

2    Chris Peterson          2104

3    Kevin Seidler            2099

4    Paul Anderson          2038

5    Josh Jex                    2005

6    David Hartsook          2105

SCHOLASTICS CLOSED CHAMPIONSHIP

1    Brady Barkemayer    1626

2    Gunnar Andersen      1934

3    Justin Alter                 1820

4    Ryan Swerdlin            1915

5    Nabil Spann                1849

6    Deanna Alter               1776

SCHOLASTICS CLOSED CHALLENGER

1    Cory Kohler                1583

2    Andy Wu                     1632

3    Suhass Narayanan     1764

4    (Player X)

5    Luke Stephens            1721

6    Isaac Martinez              1734