Three Norms Earned in New York Over Presidents' Day Weekend

Three players earned norms across three norm-qualifying sections from February 15 through 19 in New York City as part of the NYC Chess Norms Presidents’ Day Norm Invitational. This was the first NYC Chess Norms event since last month’s invitational produced a quartet of norms.

FM Gabriel Eidelman finished tied for first (with GM Aleksandr Lenderman, no less!) on a 6/9 score to earn an IM norm in the GM-A section.

Eidelman (R) with organizer IO Keith Espinosa (courtesy Alex Ostrovskiy)

Eidelman was in fine form, out-preparing his opponents and ready to capitalize on their errors, be they experienced IMs (see game one) or fellow talented juniors (see game two):

In the IM-B Schiller section, IM Mykola Bortnyk came out determined to make everybody’s path to a norm as difficult as possible.

IM Mykola Bortnyk's 8½/9 score made quite an impression in the IM-B section (courtesy Alex Ostrovskiy)

He finished with an 8½/9 score, and indeed was a move away from making it a perfect 9/9:

One of Bortnyk’s most interesting (and complicated) wins came over 20-year old FM Danila Poliannikov.

Danila Poliannikov earned an IM norm with his 6½/9 performance (courtesy Alex Ostrovskiy)

The game is annotated below, but note that, despite this loss, Poliannikov still earned an IM norm with an impressive 6½/9 result.

Poliannikov’s path to the norm included wins over a seasoned GM in round four and a win over an IM in the last round.

In the IM-C Scheveningen section, WFM Chloe Gaw earned a WIM norm with a 4/9 score against a stacked field.

WFM Chloe Gaw (courtesy Alex Ostrovskiy)

Considering that her four losses came against two GMs and one IMs, and that she held two other IMs to a draw while defeating one, this is a great result. Here’s her dynamic victory over one of them:

Equally as impressive as her wins, though, is how close she came in some of her losses, most noticeably:

Speaking of GM Vojtech Plat, he joined Bortnyk in coming up just short of a perfect 9/9 result. But, unlike Bortnyk, he was in serious danger of ending his tournament on a loss before holding on to finish 8½/9 atop his section.

Who is that player who almost took down Plat, then?

Remember that name: nine-year-old Lev Shangin (courtesy Alex Ostrovskiy)

Why, that would be nine-year-old Lev Shangin, who boasted a 2255 performance rating and added 128 points to his dramatically misleading rating of 1879. Along the way, he also won his first game ever against an IM (not just any IM, either, but IM Yury Lapshun):

Jessica Hyatt also had a fantastic weekend, winning the five-round NM-D Round Robin with an undefeated 4/5 score. The result bumped Hyatt over 1800 FIDE, and was particularly impressive considering that the field included a titled player, WIM Klara Kovacs, with a FIDE rating over 2100.

The next NYC Norm Invitational event will be held March 27 through 31 in conjunction with 1000GM.

All results are available here and games can be viewed here. For results, select “tournament section” towards the top to see other sections. For games, select “overview” and find the drop-down menu below the graphic to select other sections.