The Penultimate Round at Saratoga

Last night's session at the Saratoga Stauton Chess Club was the next to last scheduled round in the event that began in September. It was hard fought with a surprise included. Glen Gausewitz and I battled over our usual Exchange French. Glen came out on top after three hours of tough play. We arrived at an endgame where his pieces were going to be just a bit more active than mine. Struggling to find something to offset Glen's piece activity, I dropped a pawn. Dour defense was no match for Glen's calm technique and he took the full point.

Alan LeCours defeated Peter Sparagna with the Black pieces, and Steve Taylor as White won from Ray Alguire. No surprise in those outcomes given the ratings differences. The shocker came in the game Hrebenach versus Feinberg. Young Jeff Hrebenach won from Jonathan! There is an 800 point rating gap between these two players. Although I was quite busy trying to hold my game together against Gausewitz, there were a couple of opportunities to look over at the Hrebenach - Feinberg contest. Jonathan played in his usual restrained fashion with the Black pieces, but I thought he was getting to a pretty good position. A second look seemed to show Feinberg making progress. A third observation in passing by the board said things were not going quite as smoothly as one might have expected. As their game moved towards a crisis, I was completely occupied trying to hold off Glen while a pawn down and was unable to see just how Jeff got the full point. Maybe next week I'll be able to obtain the game score and publish it here.

It appears that Steve Taylor is headed for the title. Second place is still unclear. My loses to Magat and Gausewitz surely have put me out of the running. Sells and Magat are the leading contendor's for second with Gausewitz close behind. As is usual with these months long round robin tourneys, just about everyone has games to make up. The Saratoga event has five make-up rounds planned, and we may not have a decision before the middle of January.

More tomorrow: the Chi - Barnes game from the latest round from Schenectady and whatever else that comes up.