News From Schenectady and Albany Clubs

The Schenectady Championship Preliminaries are now in full swing. Bill Townsend forwarded cross tables for both sections. Summaries of the current standings are:

Preliminary A:

Richard Chu 4 - 0

Patrick Chi 3 ½ - ½

John Phillips 4 - 1

Bill Little 1 - 1

Michael Mockler 1 ½ - 1 ½

Cory Northrup 2 ½ - 2 ½

Zack Calderon 2 - 3

Brij Saran 1 ½ - 3 ½

Michael Stanley 0 - 3

Yogi Kanakamedala 0 - 4

Richard Chu’s lead is not surprising as he has been meeting the lower half of the table so far. As dangerous as he can be to the higher ups in the ratings, we will have to see if he take some scalps this year as he has done in the past.

The other interesting result is Mr. Mockler standing at 1 ½ - 1 ½. All three games he has played were drawn. It was no big surprise for Mockler to draw with Chi. The other two draws were with Brij Saran and Zack Calderon. Both have to be considered some kind of upset.

A prolonged bout of illness has made me the “tail end Charlie” of this year’s event. I hope the worst is past and I can begin to catch up on the schedule.

Preliminary B:

Philip Sells 4 - 0

Richard Moody 4 - 1

John Barnes 2 - 1

Dillip Aaron 2 ½ - 1 ½

David Connors ½ - 1 ½

Alan Le Cours 1 - 2

Jeff Capitummino ½ - 2 ½

Herman Calderon 1 ½ - 3 ½

Matthew Clough 0 - 3

The biggest surprise in this section has to be the loss by Le Cours to Moody. Moody is well placed for a good result this year. Mr. Moody has been an active player for some time in local events. This is his first year competing in the Schenectady Championship, and he is off to a good start.

For those who may not know the rules for the Schenectady tournament; the top three finishers from each section play a final round robin to decide the title. There are chances we may see a new face in the finals if Richard Moody keeps up his good work. Alan Le Cours with minus 2 at this point will need to play up to his high standard to out pace Moody.

The first round of the Albany Area Chess Club’s Championship finished last night. So far in in Section 1 Gordon Magat defeated Art Alowitz, Tim Wright won from Bill Little and Bob Kemp was successful against Tim McCarthy

In Section 2 Jonathan Lack won from Jason Denham and Glen Perry did likewise versus Chuck Eson. All the games both sections were played last Wednesday except the Howard - Henner game.

Dean Howard and Peter Henner played their scheduled game last night. Regretfully, I had to leave before this contest finished. Howard as White played the Scotch and after about 90 minutes of play they had reached a moment of some tension. The Scotch is full of tactics and I was unable to form an opinion as to who was on top. The venerable Scotch has quietly crept back into the mainstream of theory after Kasparov gave it his stamp of approval in the 1990’s. While prowling around on ICC today, I came across a game by Steve Zierk the newest US International Master. He recently won the World Under 14 Championship and the IM title, and he did it with a Scotch against a close rival. Zierk’s game is an example of just how tactical Scotch can become. There were several moves in it I never anticipated. So, I don’t feel too bad about not coming up with an opinion about Howard - Henner.

Tomorrow I will reach out to Howard and Henner and try to get the score for the blog.

Incidentally, the rules for the AACC event have the first place finishers in the two section playing a two game match for the title. This makes each game in the preliminaries critical if one has ambitions to fight for the highest place.

More soon.