During the weekend of September 23-24, BayAreaChess had the honor and privilege of hosting the 2017 National G/30 and G/60 Championships. The two National Championships attracted no less than 11 grandmasters. GM Daniel Naroditsky, GM Zviad Izoria, GM Enrico Sevillano and GM Conrad Holt represented the Bay Area grandmaster contingent.
GM Ray Robson and GM Alex Shimanov traveled from St. Louis to participate. GM Timur Gareyev, GM Meliksek Khachiyan, GM Zbigniew Pakleza, GM Vladislav Kovalev and GM Carlos Matamoros rounded out the other high-profile attendants, traveling from across the US and the world to compete.
The many amazing Grandmasters on the first day together with Chief Organizer Dr. Judit Sztaray and Chief TD NTD Tom Langland
The tournaments attracted a total of 349 players, with 140 participating in the faster G/30 time control, and 209 players in the slower G/60 time control. The scholastic side events also attracted a total of about 200 players. On average, there was about a fifty percent increase in entries from last year’s tournaments!
Tournament hall full with players attending the G/30 National Championship
Boards 1 through 3 were live during the weekend, and pgn files can be downloaded from BayAreaChess’s result pages.
The G/30 championship on Saturday had 5 rounds. As with almost every shorter time control tournament, the National G/30 Championship produced interesting games and a range of surprising results. GM Robson and GM Naroditsky both won their last round games to tie for first. Eeswar Kurli secured his win in the u1900 section with a clear 5/5 record. Ahyan Zaman, a rising talent whose father also competed in the Open section, took clear first in the u1600 section. Tim Erwin placed first with a clear 5/5 record in the u1300 section.
Annotated below is GM Robson’s last round victory against Adrian Kondakov.
[pgn][Event "US G/60 Championship"] [Site "Santa Clara"] [Date "2017.09.24"] [Round "4.2"] [White "Robson, Ray"] [Black "Kondakov, Adrian"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C19"] [Annotator "Vignesh Panchanatham"] [PlyCount "63"] [EventDate "2017.??.??"] [WhiteClock "0:17:12"] [BlackClock "0:11:53"]1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 Ne7 7. a4 b6 8. Bb5+ Bd7 9. Bd3 c4 {Black may have already overextended by allowing the dark-squared bishop to reign.} 10. Be2 Nbc6 11. Nf3 Qc7 12. Ba3 O-O-O $2 {With an attack already forming, kindside castling would have been a much better option.} (12... O-O 13. O-O Rfe8 14. Qd2 Nf5 $14) 13. a5 b5 14. Bd6 Qb7 15. a6 Qb6 16. Bc5 Qb8 {Black is pinned down in every direction.} 17. Ng5 Rdf8 18. f4 f6 19. Nf3 Rf7 20. O-O Nf5 21. Qd2 h5 22. g3 g5 $6 {An attempt at counterattacking, but there is not enough kingside support to make it plausible.} (22... Kd8 23. Rfb1 Rh6 24. Bf1 h4 25. g4 $16) 23. fxg5 $18 fxe5 24. Nh4 Rg7 25. dxe5 Qxe5 26. Nxf5 exf5 27. Rae1 Qc7 28. Bf3 h4 {Every line is open for white to take advantage of.} 29. Bd4 Nxd4 30. Qxd4 Bc6 31. Re6 Rgh7 ( 31... hxg3 32. Rxc6 Qxc6 33. Qxg7 Qb6+ 34. Qd4 $18) 32. g6 1-0[/pgn]Sunday’s G/60 tournament had 4 rounds. Due to the large amount of entries, every section used accelerated pairings. In fact, the final result wasn’t clear until the very last game, a draw between GM Gareyev and GM Shimanov. Their draw led to a 5-way tie for first place in the Open section among GMs Gareyev, Shimanov, Robson, Khachiyan, and Izoria. Chris Xiong won clear first in the A section, upsetting several higher-rated players along the way. Venka Doddapaneni, Anish Somani, and Omya Vidyarthi won clear first in the B, C, and D sections, respectively, all with perfect scores. Section E had a two-way tie of two unrated players, G/30 winner Tim Erwin and Daman Singh. Annotated below is GM Naroditsky’s decisive game against GM Shimanov. Let it serve as a reminder that everyone makes mistakes in time pressure.
[pgn][Event "US G/30"] [Site "?"] [Date "2017.09.23"] [Round "5.2"] [White "Naroditsky, Daniel"] [Black "Shimanov, Alex"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "D02"] [Annotator "Vignesh Panchanatham"] [PlyCount "71"] [EventDate "2017.??.??"] [WhiteClock "0:08:40"] [BlackClock "0:04:45"]1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 Nf6 3. e3 e6 4. Nf3 c5 5. c3 Nc6 6. Nbd2 cxd4 7. exd4 Nh5 8. Bg5 f6 9. Be3 Bd6 10. g3 O-O 11. Nh4 g6 12. Be2 Ng7 13. c4 {White attempts to break in the center to take advantage of black's awkward piece placement.} Ne7 14. O-O b6 15. Ng2 Bb7 16. Bf3 Qd7 17. b3 Ngf5 18. Qe2 e5 19. dxe5 Bxe5 20. Rad1 Rad8 21. cxd5 Nxd5 22. Ne4 Qf7 23. Rd2 (23. Nf4 Ndxe3 24. fxe3 Kh8 25. Nf2 Bxf4 26. gxf4 $15) 23... Ndxe3 24. fxe3 Qe7 25. Rfd1 Kg7 26. Rxd8 Rxd8 27. Rxd8 Qxd8 {After the trades, black is better in the endgame due to his better pieces and coordination - and the two bishop advantage.} 28. g4 Ne7 29. Nd2 Bc8 30. Nf4 g5 $6 {There was no real reason to allow the white knight onto h5.} ( 30... b5 31. Nd3 Bc7 32. Nf4 Qd6 $15) 31. Nh5+ Kh6 32. Nc4 Ng6 33. Be4 Ba6 $4 34. Nxe5 $1 {Nf7# is coming!} Nxe5 35. Qxa6 Qd1+ 36. Qf1 {With the extra piece, Naroditsky would have been able to convert quite easily.} 1-0[/pgn]
Last Round at the G/30 National Championship: Board1: GM Garayev facing GM Robson, Board2: GM Narodisky facing GM Shimanov and Board 3: GM Kovalev facing GM Izoria
The scholastic side event was quite popular, specially the faster time control, that usually better suits the young players. More than 110 players rated under 1000 competed in 5 sections for the many trophies and medals and, of course, the section titles. School and Club team competition was an added bonus, resulting in Weibel and Harker School teams’ in in G/30 and G/60 Championship, respectively.
Weibel Elementary School, and Harker Lower Campus’ Team accepting the 1st place trophy for their victory at the G/60 and G/30 National Championship, respectively.
The scholastic tournament hall was full with 116 players on the first day of the weekend, competing in the G/30 championship.
Congratulations to the National Champions and to the winners of each section!
Tournament results can be viewed here: G/30 Championship: https://www.bayareachess.com/events/17/0923sp G/60 Championship: https://www.bayareachess.com/events/17/0924sp The next upcoming tournaments are the Bay Area Chess Championship on October 21-23 to be held in Milpitas, CA and the annual California Warfare Championship over the Thanksgiving weekend when we are back at the Santa Clara Convention Center. More information: www.bayareachess.com/champs and www.bayareachess.com/tg The tournament was organized by 2017 Organizer of the Year and BayAreachess Executive Director Dr. Judit Sztaray and directed by Chief TDs: NTDs John McCumiskey, NTD Thomas Langland, and STD Jordan Langland. To find out more information about all upcoming Bay Area Chess events, visit www.bayareachess.com or email Click here to show email address.About the Authors
Dr. Judit Sztaray is the Executive Director of Bay Area Chess. She won the 2017 US Chess award for "Organizer of the Year". Vignesh Panchanatham is an International Master, ranked 5th in the U.S. for 17-year-olds. In addition, he is a 2017 SuperNationals Co-Champion, 2016 National High School Co-Champion, and 2014 Pan-American Youth U16 gold medalist.Categories
Archives
- December 2024 (16)
- November 2024 (18)
- October 2024 (35)
- September 2024 (23)
- August 2024 (27)
- July 2024 (44)
- June 2024 (27)
- May 2024 (32)
- April 2024 (51)
- March 2024 (34)
- February 2024 (25)
- January 2024 (26)
- December 2023 (29)
- November 2023 (26)
- October 2023 (37)
- September 2023 (27)
- August 2023 (37)
- July 2023 (47)
- June 2023 (33)
- May 2023 (37)
- April 2023 (45)
- March 2023 (37)
- February 2023 (28)
- January 2023 (31)
- December 2022 (23)
- November 2022 (32)
- October 2022 (31)
- September 2022 (19)
- August 2022 (39)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (35)
- May 2022 (21)
- April 2022 (31)
- March 2022 (33)
- February 2022 (21)
- January 2022 (27)
- December 2021 (36)
- November 2021 (34)
- October 2021 (25)
- September 2021 (25)
- August 2021 (41)
- July 2021 (36)
- June 2021 (29)
- May 2021 (29)
- April 2021 (31)
- March 2021 (33)
- February 2021 (28)
- January 2021 (29)
- December 2020 (38)
- November 2020 (40)
- October 2020 (41)
- September 2020 (35)
- August 2020 (38)
- July 2020 (36)
- June 2020 (46)
- May 2020 (42)
- April 2020 (37)
- March 2020 (60)
- February 2020 (38)
- January 2020 (45)
- December 2019 (35)
- November 2019 (35)
- October 2019 (42)
- September 2019 (45)
- August 2019 (56)
- July 2019 (44)
- June 2019 (35)
- May 2019 (40)
- April 2019 (48)
- March 2019 (61)
- February 2019 (39)
- January 2019 (30)
- December 2018 (29)
- November 2018 (51)
- October 2018 (45)
- September 2018 (29)
- August 2018 (49)
- July 2018 (35)
- June 2018 (31)
- May 2018 (39)
- April 2018 (31)
- March 2018 (26)
- February 2018 (33)
- January 2018 (30)
- December 2017 (26)
- November 2017 (24)
- October 2017 (30)
- September 2017 (30)
- August 2017 (31)
- July 2017 (28)
- June 2017 (32)
- May 2017 (26)
- April 2017 (37)
- March 2017 (28)
- February 2017 (30)
- January 2017 (27)
- December 2016 (29)
- November 2016 (24)
- October 2016 (32)
- September 2016 (31)
- August 2016 (27)
- July 2016 (24)
- June 2016 (26)
- May 2016 (19)
- April 2016 (30)
- March 2016 (36)
- February 2016 (28)
- January 2016 (32)
- December 2015 (26)
- November 2015 (23)
- October 2015 (16)
- September 2015 (28)
- August 2015 (28)
- July 2015 (6)
- June 2015 (1)
- May 2015 (2)
- April 2015 (1)
- February 2015 (3)
- January 2015 (1)
- December 2014 (1)
- July 2010 (1)
- October 1991 (1)
- August 1989 (1)
- January 1988 (1)
- December 1983 (1)