Colorado Springs Chess News

Game Of The Week

By Tim Brennan

Paul asked me to write something for his annual “Tim Brennan week”. I am once again honored to do so! Thanks Paul!

I decided to tell my favorite chess story. This took place when I was visiting my long time friend Pete Short when he was living in St. Petersburg, FL in April 2008. Pete invited me to attend the annual “Space Coast Open” in Coco Beach. This is very close to where all of the space shuttle launches take place, hence the name.

Pete and I drove across Florida to get there. The tournament was right along the beach which was very nice. The tournament was a pretty typical class tournament, and I scored 3 out of 5 in the B section. I remember the tournament being well run, and one guy that almost ran me over with his wheelchair, but other than that, nothing out of the ordinary.

The real adventure began after my 5th round game. My last game was Sunday afternoon, as is typical in a weekend Swiss. I drew my last game against a hippy looking middle aged guy. The game was kind of frustrating, so after it was over I went outside to smoke a cigarette, leaving all of my stuff at the table.

When I came back to the board to clean up my stuff, I noticed that my sunglasses were gone. My clock was still there, and my pieces, etc. I asked my opponent who was watching his son’s game if he had seen them. He said he saw he son’s friend “Carl” pick them up.

I asked this guy to describe Carl, which he did. This was not a huge playing area, so I walked around trying to find a kid that matched this description. I asked a couple of other kids if they knew Carl. They did, but thought he had left. I spent about 10-15 minutes trying to figure out where this Carl character was, checked the lost and found at the front desk of the hotel, etc.

At this point Pete was finishing his game. I told Pete, “I am calling in the Wolfe”. For those of you not familiar with the movie “Pulp Fiction”, first of all shame on you and add this to your Netflix queue ASAP, and second of all this is a reference to a line in the movie where the two main characters get in some trouble, so they “call in the Wolfe”, who is a character that “solves problems”.

Pete immediately knew what I meant by this, and asked what was up. I explained that I thought some punk kid stole my sunglasses. Pete immediately jumped into “Wolfe mode”. Pete is a professional investigator, and has solved lots of corporate crimes, and lives for stuff like this.

So first Pete gathered some clues, and asked a couple other people what they knew about Carl. He questioned the eye witness who saw Carl pick up the glasses. We determined at this point that Carl was gone, and the tournament was winding down at this point in general.

Pete went and talked to the tournament director and told him that we needed Carl’s phone number. The tournament director was hesitant to give this information. Pete let him know that he would not hesitate to call the police, and that the police would be there taking statements during this guy’s award ceremony ruining the whole thing. This was a brilliant tactic, and the TD gave us the information that we needed.

We then hit the road to St. Petersburg. Pete enlisted the help of his wife Audrey to help with the investigation. Audrey was still back in Colorado and was able to get on the internet. She quickly was able to find out the address where he lived, home phone number, photo, and all sorts of information. We were like Jack Bauer enlisting the help of Chloe O’Brien back at CTU, and getting all the information in real time on our blackberrys.

We found out that they lived in Orlando, which was on our route home. Pete left a message with Carl letting him know that we knew he had the sunglasses, and that we were on our way to get them. Pete also left a stern message on the home answering machine letting them know our intentions to get the sunglasses back as well, and involve the local police if necessary.

As we got closer to Orlando Pete called Carl’s cell phone again. This time Carl picked up. Pete said “CARL. Don’t Hang up. We know you have the sunglasses.” It was like something out of a Mel Gibson ransom movie. Carl denied the whole thing, but you could hear the fear in his voice.

At this point the mother must have heard the message that Pete left on the home answering machine, and you could hear her scream in the background “CARL! YOU TOLD ME YOU FOUND THOSE SUNGLASSES!!!”

The mother got on the phone, and apologized for her kleptomaniac son, and promised to return the sunglasses. She mailed them back to me a week later. Case closed.

So overall, it was a fun adventure tracking down the stolen glasses, and hopefully the kid learned a valuable lesson – “don’t mess with Colorado Chess players” :-)

Here is a game that I played against Jerry Maier in September 2010 at one of the Pueblo tournaments. I had the white pieces.

1.e4 c5 2.d4 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 4.c4 Qa5+ 5.Bd2 Qb6 6.cxd5 Qxb2 7.Nc3 cxd4 8.Rb1 Qa3 9.Nb5 Qc5 10.Rc1 Qb6 11.Rxc8+ Qd8 12.Nc7#

Jerry said after this game “That was beautiful!” which I really appreciated.

The funny thing about this game is that in the first round Jerry took out Shannon Fox, who has a similar rating to me. Shannon was sitting right next to me when I smother mated Jerry in 12 moves. Shannon said to Jerry “why didn’t you play like that against me?” I immediately jumped in and said “Why didn’t you play like me against him”. lol

One quick comment about the Pueblo tournaments. I really love playing at them. I love the location, and the ambiance. I know some people don’t like the noise, but I think it is a great place to play, and kudos to Liz Wood and Jerry for really bringing the Pueblo chess scene to life. If you haven’t been to one of the Pueblo tournaments, I highly recommend them.

Thanks again Paul! Keep up the great work with your newsletters!

Cheers,

Tim

Call In The Tim-ber Wolfe

www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-replayer.php?id=66996

[Event "2010 HARVEST MOON OPEN"]

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

[Date "2010.09.11"]

[Round "2"]

[White "Brennan, Timothy"]

[Black "Maier, Jerry"]

[Result "*"]

[ECO "B03"]

[WhiteElo "1693"]

[BlackElo "1436"]

[PlyCount "23"]

[EventDate "2010.09.11"]

[TimeControl "1800"]

1. e4 c5 2. d4 Nf6 3. e5 Nd5 4. c4 Qa5+ 5. Bd2 Qb6 6. cxd5 Qxb2 7. Nc3

cxd4 8. Rb1 Qa3 9. Nb5 Qc5 10. Rc1 Qb6 11. Rxc8+ Qd8 12. Nc7#

This Week In Chess

On April 12th, the CSCC had 7 members in attendance.  The participants played in an unrated, Swiss tournament (3SS, G15).  Buck Buchanan and Paul Anderson executed the Swiss gambit to perfection and went home unbeaten.  Here are the results:

Score, Player

2.5 Buck Buchanan

2.5 Paul Anderson

2.0 Mark McGough

2.0 Jeff Fox

1.0 Jeff Beckman

0.5 Kenton Lloyd

0.0 Mike Voight

Colorado Springs Chess Club's 2nd Quarter Schedule

By Dean Brown

April

     5          Speed Tournament, (G/5 single or double round-robin)

     12        Players’ Choice

Apr 16: Denker Fundraiser, (4SS, G/30), see CSCA Website for details

Apr 17: USAFA NoEF Quads #6, (3-RR, G/60), see CSCA Website for details

     19        Game/30 Quads, USCF Quick & Regular Rated

     26        Game/20 Quick, USCF Quick Rated

May

     3           Speed Tournament, (G/5 single ordouble round-robin)

     10         4SS, G90 Rd 1 (non-USCF-Rated)

     17         4SS, G90 Rd 2 (non-USCF-Rated)

May 21-22: Salute to Bobby Fischer,(4-RR, 40/2, G/1), see CSCA Website for details

     24         4SS, G90 Rd 3 (non-USCF-Rated)

May 28-30: Territory Days @ Bancroft Park,Old Colorado City,see Richard Buchanan for details

     31         4SS, G90 Rd 4 (non-USCF-Rated)

June

     7          Speed Tournament, (G/5 single or double round-robin)

June 11-12:  Southern Colorado Open, (6SS, G/60 with30-sec Increment), see CSCA Website for details

     14        June Mating Game, 4SS, G/30, Rds 1 & 2, $5 EF, USCF Quick &Regular Rated

June 19: USAFA NoEF Quads #7, (3-RR, G/60), see CSCA Website for details

     21        June Mating Game, Rds 3 & 4,

     28        Game/20 Quick, USCF Quick Rated

July 2: Fountain ValleyOpen, (4SS, G/30 with 30-sec Increment), see CSCA Website for details

2011 Springs Fundraiser

By Buck Buchanan

4.0    Brian Wall

2.5    Julian Evans

2.5    Paul Anderson

2.5    Isaac Martinez

2.5    Jose Llacza

2.5    Richard Buchanan

2.0    Corey Fineman

2.0    Anthea Carson

2.0    Alexander Freeman

2.0    John Irwin

1.0    Alemayehu Mekonnen

1.0    Kathy Schneider

1.0    Dean Brown

0.0    Kevin Gene Lucas