Colorado Springs Chess News

Game Of The Week

By Tim Brennan

Paul Anderson asked me to write something for this week's issue, because it is the annual "Tim Brennan week". I have no idea how this yearly event started, but I am flattered :-) Maybe it is because I am a big fan of the newsletter. Thanks Paul!

For those who don't know me, allow myself to introduce... myself (as Austin Powers would say).

• I've been playing chess in Colorado for about 9 years now.
• I seem to have reached my Peter Principle level of incompetency with a rating around 1700.
• I've lived in both Denver and Colorado Springs so know most of the characters in both places
• I've done the Tactics Time column for the Colorado Chess Informant for a while now - tactics are my favorite part of the game
• I'm a former editor of the Colorado Chess Informant
• I run a chess blog at http://www.timmybx.com which I update sporatically
• I play a lot of correspondance chess on http://www.redhotpawn.com as timmybx
• I had a letter to the editor published in the current issue of Chess Life about a chess puzzle that was amazingly bad

OK enough factoids :-)

Here is a game I played against my long time friend Francisco Baltier. Francisco used to work with me in Aurora for Raytheon. We had a fairly good company chess club there with several club players in the 1400-1700 range (me, Pete Short, Shannon Fox, Francisco Baltier, John Mitchell, Robert Bechman, etc).

Francisco moved to Tucson a couple years ago, and I moved to the Springs, but we still meet up at least once a year to play in a tournament together. We have played together in Washington DC, Reno, and Vegas. Francisco has done the National Open about 6 years in a row now.

Francisco has various claims to fame in the chess world. Most famous is probably his 15 move fishing pole win over GM Walter Browne during a simul in Reno.

Brain Wall did some genius video annotations of this game as well.

Earlier in the year I went to visit Francisco in Tucson, and play in the Tucson Open. I was very impressed with the chess scene in Tucson. They have lots of strong players, tons of kids, and the tournament was extremely well run. I would highly recommend the tournaments in Tucson. Plane tickets are pretty reasonable, and it is a short direct flight from Denver.

I had never played Francisco over the board in a rated game before. So it figures that when I went to visit him, we would be paired against each other! The TD actually apologized afterwards for pairing us, since he knew I was from out of town, but neither one of us minded.

I knew Francisco did not know the Kings Gambit very well, and that he would play 1. ..e5 against 1. e4 (hoping for a fishing pole, which there is no way in heck I would play against him). Francisco doesn't really play by the book, and can be dangerous with tactics. In this game he basically made up his own opening with the patzer spite check Qh4+ on move 2. I can't say I handled this odd variation as well as I could have. The game ended up having lots of back and forth tactics with very little else such as positional or strategic play.

Tim Brennan Week

www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-replayer.php?id=71248

[Event "2010 TUCSON OPEN"]

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

[Date "2010.01.23"]

[Round "2"]

[White "Brennan, Tim"]

[Black "Baltier, Francisco"]

[Result "1/2-1/2"]

[WhiteElo "1720"]

[BlackElo "1538"]

[PlyCount "61"]

[EventDate "2011.06.01"]

[TimeControl "5400"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 Qh4+ 3. g3 Qe7 4. fxe5 Qxe5 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. Nf3 Qe6 7. d3

d5 8. Qe2 dxe4 9. dxe4 Bxc3+ 10. bxc3 Nf6 11. Nd4 Qxe4 12. Bg2 Qxe2+ 13. Kxe2

c6 14. Ba3 Nbd7 15. Rhe1 Ne5 16. Kf1 Nfd7 17. Nxc6 f6 18. Na5 Kf7 19. Nxb7 Bxb7

20. Bxb7 Rab8 21. Rab1 Nb6 22. Be4 Rbc8 23. Bb4 Nbc4 24. Bd5+ Kg6 25. Bxc4 Rxc4

26. Re3 Rd8 27. Ke1 Ng4 28. Re2 Ne5 29. Re3 Ng4 30. Re2 Ne5 31. Re3 1/2-1/2

This Week In Chess

On April 13th, the CSCC had 6 members play in the club-rated, quick tournament (3SS, G20).  Here are the results:

Score, Player

3.0 Paul Anderson

2.0 Jeff Fox

2.0 Alex Torres

1.0 Philip Long

1.0 Russ Speicher

0.0 Mike Voight

April East Coast Deli Wednesday

By Dean Brown

2nd Round results:

Results:

Gordon Randall over Josh Bloomer

Mark McGough over Brian Rountree

Anthea Carson over Dean Brown

Kenton Lloyd over Ken Macrae

Alex Freeman over Omar Al-Mutlaq

Jerry Maier over Tara Martinez

Fred Spell, Tom Mulliken, and Isaac Martinez took 0.5 pt byes. 

April Panera Bread Thursday

By Dean Brown

Round 3 results:

Results:

Tim Duesing over Alex Cacas

Gordon Randall over Anthea Carson

Kumar Tedla over Paul Anderson

Jerry Maier over Brian Rountree

Zach Chase over Adin Umana

Kurt Kondracki over Pret Bram

Robert Isacoff over Gene Lucas

Sai Tedla over Zach Umana

Rebecca Isacoff over Chandler Meinders

Cody Meinders over Tara Martinez.

Spring Is Sprung Results

By Jerry Maier

4.5    Julian Evans, 1st $50.00

4.0    Buck Buchanan

3.5    Ted Doykos, U1800 $21.00

3.5    Anthea J Carson, U1800 $21.00

3.0    Alexander Freeman, U1700 & U1400 $36.50

3.0    Jerry Maier, U1700 & U1400 $36.50

3.0    Jose A Llacza, U1700 & U1400, $21.00

2.5    Liz Wood

2.0    Bob Rountree    [WITHDRAW]

2.0    Dean Brown

2.0    Isaac Martinez

2.0    Gene Lucas

2.0    Ken Mac Rae

1.0    Gary Frenzel

1.0    Kathy Schneider

Denver Chess Club's New Location

by Paul Kullback

The new location for the Denver Chess Club on Tuesday nites is: Grant Ave Community Center 216 S. Grant St. Denver.

Right Move Public Chess Club

by David Meliti

3 players share the lead after one round played in the USCF rated G/75 April 2010 Swiss tournament: Tony Telinbacco, Mark McGough and Alejandro Torres have 1 point each. On April 22nd we continue with round 2 of this rated 3-round G/75 swiss event. I also want to welcome two new attendees to the club who are also particpating in this 3-week tournament. They are Omar Al-Mutlaq and GeorgeRaikas....welcome gentlemen!!!  If any of you players were not able to make round #1, with this past Thursday being "tax day" and the tax filing deadline, it is still not too late to enter the tourney beginning with round #2.

Also at the last club meeting on April 15th, we continued with the April 2010 "Informal" Club Rated G/75 tournament. Two additional players registered for this tourney before the start of round 2 growing this tournament to a whopping 12-player competition. Not bad for a "club rated" tourney!!!  After two rounds played, Gil Garrison and Ty Winkler have perfect scores with 2 points each followed close behind by Jay Shuler and Leah Katz with 1.5 points. The club plans to award two chess books as prizes to the first and second place winners at the completion of this 4-round tournament on April 29th. To the winner of first place, you will receive a chess book authored by Scotland's first grandmaster... Chess Under the Microscope by Paul Motwani. The second place prize is a book authored by R.E. Fauber entitled Impact of Genius, 500 Years of Grandmaster Chess. Both books are sure to magnify your chess strength!!!

At the next club meeting on Thursday April 22nd we continue with round 3 of the G/75 April 2010 informal tourney. As always check-in for all tournaments closes at 6:55pm followed by roll call and the start of all rounds at 7pm. Casual chess is available anytime during club hours from 6 - 9:30pm.

Group Chess Lessons: This Monday April 19th we continue with lesson #3.  As always childrens lessons begin at 6pm with adult lessons starting at 7pm at Compleat Games & Hobbies downtown.

Have a great week !!!