Thursday at Schenectady,

Thursday's round in the Schenectady Championship can be summed up as some upsets, some near upsets and mostly tough chess was played.

In Section A of the preliminaries:

Bobby Rotter defeated Chen Qu in routine fashion. This game went according to what the ratings predicted, one of the few games to do so.

Mockler - Eason was a long fight, three hours+ and more than forty moves. Charles Eason, although about a 1000 point underdog on rating, came out of the opening and the early middle game with no glaring problems in his position. It took Mike some time and moves to breakdown Eason's game leaving Charles with a terrible situation around his King. Eason continues to play well and will see his rating improve after this tournament ends.

Jeff Capitummino, at about 1300, played into Alan Le Cours' Gruenfeld and lost. Not so many moves as Mockler - Eason but nearly the same amount of clock time was used. After much effort and careful play, Jeff had reached an interesting middle game position with good chances of making Alan's King uncomfortable. Not a bad result given the rating difference of 700+ points. Of course time trouble was looming, and Jeff had a moment of inattention. Alan spotted the error and a piece and the game was lost. Disappointment for Jeff no doubt, but creating a promising middle game position against a strong opponent is a step forward for him.

Two close fights by lower rated players were topped by two results that are upsets. Richard Chu last week had a near winning game versus Mike Mockler. This week he notched a draw with Dean Howard, the highest rated player in this section of the prelims. Over the years Richard has taken full and half points from Experts in these club events although his rating has risen above 1600 only occasionally. When he is at his best "Richard the Giant Killer" is a very dangerous opponent.

The second upset was a fine effort put in by David Connors against me. After a reasonably well played opening, we entered a complicated middle game, I tried a risky combination and got it wrong. David did not lose composure, found good moves reached a winning position. Without any good options, I headed for a Rook endgame down a couple of pawns. It was my good luck that David stopped finding good moves. I was able to recover the missing pawns by getting the more active Rook position. We agreed the draw on move 45.

Busy with my effort not to lose to Connors, I was able to see only one game from Section B. It was, however, an important battle between two of the leading contenders; Patrick Chi and John Barnes. In a long fight, and just as it appeared John might be getting an advantage with double Rooks controlling the d-file, Patrick tried to keep the balance by creating threats on John's King. John had used much of his alotted time. His clock was showing less than five minutes, and John slipped letting Patrick simplify to a won ending. A very intersting struggle that is a credit to both players. I have the moves from the critical position and will publish them here in a day or two.