Lenderman and Sevian Win the Eastern Class Championships

Aleksandr Lenderman at the Eastern Open earlier this year, where he also won 1st. Photo: Bill Simmons

Grandmasters Alexandr Lenderman and Samuel Sevian won the Eastern Class Championships held at the Host Hotel at Cedar Lake in Sturbridge, Massachusetts from April 28-30. Each scored 4-1 and won $1500. The tournament drew 278 players in seven sections and awarded a guaranteed prize fund of $20,000! Lenderman annotates his best game of the tournament---his round two win over WFM Carissa Yip.

[pgn][Event "Eastern Class"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2017.04.28"]
[Round "2.2"]
[White "Lenderman, Alex"]
[Black "Yip, Carissa"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "E97"]
[WhiteElo "2661"]
[BlackElo "2368"]
[Annotator "Aleksandr Lenderman"]
[PlyCount "81"]
[EventDate "2017.??.??"]1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. Be3
$5 {Slightly off-beat but has some poison. Much more common of course is 8)d5,}
(8. d5 Ne7) 8... Ng4 9. Bg5 f6 10. Bc1 (10. Bh4 $5) 10... f5 11. Bg5 Qe8 (11...
Qd7 $5) (11... Bf6 $5) 12. d5 Ne7 13. Nd2 Nf6 14. f3 f4 15. Bh4 (15. b4 $5)
15... g5 $1 {I underestimated this.} 16. Bf2 (16. Bxg5 $6 Qh5 17. Bxf6 Bxf6 $40
{Would give black a very dangerous attack.}) 16... h5 (16... Qg6 17. Nb5 g4 (
17... Ne8 18. c5) 18. Nxc7) (16... c5 $5) 17. c5 g4 18. cxd6 cxd6 19. Nb5 gxf3
$5 20. gxf3 $5 {This is an exchange sacrifise, which I assessed as very
promising for me. Most importantly though I didn't want to give my opponent
any initiative} (20. Nxf3 Nxe4 $5 21. Nc7 Qd8 22. Nxa8 Bf5 {Is also better for
white but looked unclear to me during the game.}) 20... Bh3 21. Kh1 (21. Re1 $4
Qg6+ $19) 21... Bxf1 22. Bxf1 (22. Qxf1 $5) 22... Qd7 (22... Qb8 $5) 23. Nxa7
Nc8 24. Nb5 Ne8 25. Qb3 Bf6 26. Nc3 h4 27. Qb5 $1 {I really liked this move.
Reminds me of my game against Enkhbat from Eastern Open where I traded queens
for a similar purpose. Despite being down an exchange. I trade queens off
since his queen is like a glue. It keeps his position together and restricts
my pieces somewhat. Once I trade the queens off, all my pieces gain maximum
activity including the bishop being able to come to h3. And the d6 weakness
will also be very hard to defend.} Qxb5 28. Nxb5 Bd8 29. Nc4 Rf7 30. Bh3 $18
Rg7 31. a3 Kf8 32. Rc1 Bf6 33. Rc3 Ke7 34. b4 Kf8 35. Na5 Ne7 36. Be6 Ng6 37.
Nc4 Be7 $6 {Speeds up the finish.} 38. Nb6 Rd8 39. Nd7+ Rxd7 40. Bxd7 Bd8 41.
Bxe8 1-0[/pgn]

The Master section was extremely strong. There were 21 players and one third were GMs! In addition to Lenderman and Sevian, GMs Giorgi Kacheishvili, Gil Popilski, Alexander Fishbein, Alexander Ivanov, and Irina Krush made up the top seeds. In addition to the GMs, there were two FMs, one WFM and five NMs. All told there were 15 masters. Round one was fairly straightforward as the GMs all won. The only upset of the round was expert Alan Zhang defeating FM Christopher Chase. Five of the seven GMs opted for the two-day schedule, which had eleven players. After round one of the two day schedule, only GMs were at 1-0, so there would be two GM matchups in round 2! On board one of the two day schedule, Sevian defeated Alexander Ivanov while, on board two, Kacheishvili drew with Popilski. Krush was the lowest rated of the perfect scores and got paired “down” to NM Farzad Abdi, who had taken a half point bye in round one. Krush also won. When the merge occurred, there were four perfect scores---all GMs! On board one, Sevian would face Alexander Fishbein and draw while, on board two, Lenderman defeated Krush to emerge as the only 3-0 score. Going into Sunday’s rounds, Lenderman was trailed by Sevian and Fishbein, who were ½ point back while Kacheishvili, Ivanov, and Krush stood at 2-1 with NMs Wesley Wang and Nithin Kavi. Due to colors, Lenderman faced Fishbein on board one, Sevian played Kacheishvili on board two while Ivanov and Krush faced off against Wang and Kavi. Lenderman defeated Fishbein and, because Sevian drew Kachievili, he was now 1 point up on the field and guaranteed at least a tie for 1st. Ivanov defeated Wang while Krush drew Nivin. This set up the last round where Lenderman was 4-0, and Sevian and Ivanov both had 3-1. Kachiesvili, Popilski, Fishbein, Krush, Abdi and expert Christopher Wood, who defeated FMs Christopher Chase and drew FM Gregory Markzon all stood at 2 ½.

Sam Sevian at the 2015 U.S. Championships. Photo: Austin Fuller

Sevian had the white pieces against Lenderman and needed a win, in order to catch Lenderman and tie for first. He was up to the task and won the game to join Lenderman at 4-1.

[pgn][Event "2017 Eastern Class"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2017.04.30"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Sevian, Samuel"]
[Black "Lenderman, Aleksander"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C10"]
[WhiteElo "2676"]
[BlackElo "2661"]
[Annotator "Samuel Sevian"]
[PlyCount "97"]
[EventDate "2017.05.01"]1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Nbd7 6. Nxf6+ Nxf6 7. Nf3 h6
8. Be3 Nd5 9. Bd2 c5 10. Bb5+ Bd7 11. Bxd7+ Qxd7 12. c4 Nb6 13. Rc1 Rc8 14.
dxc5 Rxc5 15. b3 Be7 16. O-O O-O 17. Be3 Qxd1 18. Rfxd1 Rc7 19. a4 Bc5 20. Bf4
Re7 21. Ne5 Rc8 22. h4 h5 23. a5 Na8 24. Nd3 Bd4 25. Be5 Bxe5 26. Nxe5 Nc7 27.
Rd4 Kh7 28. f4 Na6 29. Nd3 Nc5 30. Nxc5 Rxc5 31. b4 Rcc7 32. c5 Kg6 33. Kf2 e5
34. Rd6+ f6 35. Rc4 Kf5 (35... exf4 36. Rxf4 Re5) 36. fxe5 Rxe5 37. Rcd4 Ree7
38. R4d5+ Kg6 39. Kf3 a6 40. Rd8 Re1 41. R5d7 Rxd7 (41... Re7 42. Rxc7 Rxc7 43.
Ke4 Kf7 44. Kd5 Ke7 45. Rb8) 42. Rxd7 Rc1 43. Rxb7 Kf5 44. Ke3 (44. Rxg7 Rc4
45. Rb7 Rxh4 46. c6 Ke6 47. b5 axb5 48. a6 Ra4 49. a7) 44... g5 45. Rb6 Rc2 (
45... Rc4 46. hxg5 fxg5 47. Kd3 Rg4 48. Rxa6 Rxb4 49. Ra8) 46. hxg5 fxg5 47.
Rxa6 Rxg2 48. b5 h4 49. Rh6 1-0[/pgn]

Even though Sevian played 4 GMs while Lenderman played 3 and even though Sevian defeated Lenderman, it was Lenderman who had the better tiebreaks and won the $100 bonus. Both players tied on the first two tiebreak systems, but because Lenderman started at 4-0, he had the better Cumulative tiebreaks. Ivanov also had a chance to tie for 1st if he could defeat Kacheishvili, and Ivanov also had white, but the game ended in a draw, so Ivanov tied for 3rd. The winner of Popilski–Krush and Abdi–Fishbein would also tie for 3rd, and Wood could join the tie if he could beat WFM Carissa Yip. Abdi did defeat Fishbein to finish at 3 ½. He started with a half point bye and a loss to Krush and then won his last 3 games. Popilski and Krush drew while Yip defeated Wood. Abdi won $800 as top Under 2300 while Ivanov won $500 for 3rd. Here is Ivanov’s round three win over GM Gil Popilski.

[pgn][Event "Eastern Class"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2017.04.30"]
[Round "3"]
[White "GM Ivanov, Alexander"]
[Black "GM Popilski, Gil"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B91"]
[WhiteElo "2568"]
[BlackElo "2651"]
[Annotator "?"]
[PlyCount "63"]
[EventDate "2017.??.??"]1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. g3 e5 7. Nde2 Be7 8. Bg2
O-O 9. a4 b6 10. Nd5 Nxd5 11. Qxd5 Qc7 12. Nc3 Bb7 13. Qa2 Nd7 14. O-O b5 15.
Be3 Nf6 16. axb5 axb5 17. Qb3 Qc4 18. Qxb5 Qxb5 19. Nxb5 Nxe4 20. c4 f5 21. Nc3
Rfc8 22. Nxe4 fxe4 23. Bh3 Rcb8 24. Ba7 Re8 25. Bd7 Red8 26. Be6+ Kh8 27. Bb6
Rf8 28. Be3 h6 29. Rfd1 Kh7 30. b4 Kg6 31. b5 Kf6 32. Bd5 1-0[/pgn]

Abdi also won the blitz tournament. He started with a half point bye for the first two games and won all his games to finish at 7-1 tying with NM Ramya Inapuri. There was one interesting observation about mixed doubles. A player asked to be paired with a mixed doubles partner. We tried to explain that the idea behind this prize is twofold: 1) you bring someone to the tournament with you and 2) increase female participation. The idea isn’t that we match people up for a free prize! However, as luck would have it, right before the deadline GM Irina Krush said she didn’t have a partner. That is amazing for the highest rated lady in the tournament! So we paired the two together. They were in 1st place after three rounds! They only scored a point on the second day, so they didn’t win the prize, but at least they got to compete. Still, it is probably a good idea to form your teams in advance. A man coming to the tournament looking for a woman partner is likely to have a hard time, but we are looking to increase women’s chess. The winners of each section were: