Europe is home to hundreds of leagues which are the heart of organized chess for amateurs and professionals all over the continent. While the United States doesn’t have anything comparable to Germany’s famous Bundesliga we do have the U.S. Chess League (played via the Internet for over a decade). For old school face to face chess there is the Chicago Industrial Chess League dating back to the late 1950s and New York’s Bankers League which was founded in 1917!
Along the lines of Chicago and New York the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco is trying to form an employee based team competition in the heart of high tech. Thursday, February 18th, six teams met at the Mechanics’ in a prequel to a full-fledged league.
The top team by rating was LiveRamp with near 2300 masters Tenzing Shaw and James Sun on the top boards. They defeated Dropbox, which fielded strong Experts and Class A players by a score of 3-1.
Here are the top two boards from the match. All games were played at G/55 with 5 second delay.
[pgn][Event "LiveRamp v Dropbox"]
[Site "San Francisco"]
[Date "2016.02.18"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Shaw, Tenzing"]
[Black "Xing, Kerry"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A80"]
[WhiteElo "2287"]
[BlackElo "2129"]
[PlyCount "61"]
[EventDate "2016.02.18"]
[EventCountry "USA"]
1. d4 f5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bg5 d5 4. Bxf6 exf6 5. e3 c6 6. Bd3 Bd6 7. Qf3 g6 8.
Nge2 Be6 9. h3 Nd7 10. g4 fxg4 11. hxg4 Bf7 12. Nf4 Nf8 13. O-O-O Qc7 14. Nfxd5
cxd5 15. Qxf6 Be6 16. Nb5 Qd7 17. Nxd6+ Qxd6 18. Bb5+ Nd7 19. Qxh8+ Qf8 20.
Rxh7 O-O-O 21. Qxf8 Nxf8 22. Rh4 g5 23. Rh6 Bxg4 24. Rg1 Bf3 25. Rxg5 a6 26.
Bd3 Nd7 27. Bf5 Kb8 28. Rd6 Kc7 29. Rxd7+ Rxd7 30. Bxd7 Kxd7 31. Rg7+ 1-0
[/pgn]
[pgn] [Event "LiveRamp v Dropbox"]
[Site "San Francisco"]
[Date "2016.02.19"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Pan, Hongkai"]
[Black "Sun, James"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "E70"]
[WhiteElo "2099"]
[BlackElo "2270"]
[PlyCount "56"]
[EventDate "2016.02.18"]
[EventCountry "USA"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nge2 O-O 6. Ng3 c6 7. Be2 a6 8. a4 a5
9. f4 e5 10. d5 Qb6 11. dxc6 bxc6 12. Qxd6 Na6 13. Nd5 Nxd5 14. exd5 exf4 15.
Ne4 Qd4 16. Qxf4 cxd5 17. cxd5 Nb4 18. Be3 Qxb2 19. Rd1 Nc2+ 20. Kf2 Nxe3 21.
Qxe3 Bd7 22. Rd2 Qb4 23. Bf3 Rfe8 24. Qd3 Qb6+ 25. Ke2 f5 26. Rb1 Qd6 27. Qc4
fxe4 28. Bxe4 Bf5 0-1
[/pgn]
Other matches saw TubeMogul defeat The Hustle and Square beat Saleforce.
San Francisco area companies which are interested in joining the new league are encouraged to contact the Mechanic’s Institute Chess Club at chessroom@milibrary.org.
