A Quick Update on the Schenectady Championship

On Thursday November 19th the one game between leaders, LeCours versus Howard was postponed. The other scheduled games were played and went pretty much as the ratings predicted.

There was one contest that I thought could be an upset, Chu - Mockler. I tend to wander around the tournament room while waiting for my opponent to make a move. On my first pass by the Chu Mockler game I noted Richard Chu had a reasonable position. Some mintes later, wandering again, it seemed Chu had pushed Mockler back, he had not one piece off the back rank. As I returned to my game I was thinking of a number of occasions over the years that Richard had defeated top ranked players in previous championships. It had happened so often that we sometimes called him Richard the Giant Killer. Were we going to see an upset nearly as big as Northrup over Lack in the B Section? The third time my between-move wanderings took me by thier board, I stopped and did what should have been done at the first look - counted the material. Richard, who'd developed his forces very well,was actually down a full piece. So much for snap judgments about chess positions in passing by. Such judgments are often mistaken, especially if you don't check the spimple things like who's got more pieces. With the scales lifted it also was clear that Mike was opening lines towards Richard's King. Not a good thing for Richard. I had to leave before the game finished. My guess is Mike won.

To follow up on the Mockler - LeCours game from the previous week. Mockler won. I guess Alan was not able to hold off the attack Mike was brewing up when I left the scene. In a short email exchage Mike and I had during the week, he said he believed there was no way for Alan to defend successfully. If I can get the game score, we will take a look to see if Mike is right. And, if we are lucky the game will be the subject of discussion at GM Har-Zvi's Saturday session soon. That discussion will be even more interesting if both of the guys are there.

Mockler's win from LeCours opens a small gap among the leaders in Section A. Mockler is leading. Howard, Little and Rotter are bit back, and LeCours is trailing just slightly.

More to follow later this weekend: Norma's party, the Saratoga Championship and whatever else comes to mind.