The day started with IM Polgar giving a short lecture whlie the pairings were being made.
IM Dr. Ken Regan, a gracious chess educator and "house player extraordinaire" for the day, shown here with his daughter Rebecca who played in her second tournament.
In the skittles room, IM Polgar with son Yova on her lap instructs and encourages Mr. Cirillo, a new chess coach in Lackawanna, and his daughter Enya, who both played in their first tournament. In the center, young Felix Ling listens in as well.
GM Kosashvili also helped analyze games and gave encouragement as well. Tom Warner, in baseball cap, must have got some good instruction as he then went out and beat Rev. Marijan Procyk to go on to win the Quick section which is seen below:
First grader, Felix Ling, 7, makes his move in the final round game of the Advanced section against our Canadian guest Michael Song. The game ended in a draw and Felix finished first and raised his rating to 1220! This places him 21st in the USA for his age, according to the April 2008 rating list. (Felix was 41st on that list.)
The proud parents Yona and Sofi with their excited boy, who received his first chess playing medal at the beginning of the Award's ceremony.
The players of the Beginner Section. In the front row with each's trophy is Nathan Palmisano first, Molly Dolan second, and Tyler James third.
The players of the Intermediate Section. The trophy winners here are Robert Becker first, Ryan Palmisano second, and Jacob Bennett third.
The day concluded with a tandem simul by IM Polgar and GM Kosashvili against 27 opponents and they went 27-0! Expert Rev. Marijan Procyk won the last man standing award.
Thanks for the memories and best in chess and in life to all!
Posts
Just wanted to pass on this message:
ReplyDeleteHi Mark!
Thanks a lot for your kind hospitality, we enjoyed our stay in Youngstown and at the chess event very much! Please pass on our special thanks to your family to make our weekend such a pleasant one! I must also add, that your "little corner of the world" is a very pretty one! Before coming home today, we visited in Power Vista and spent some time around the Falls. Alon wanted Alex to come with us to Clifton Hill!
Kind regards,
Sofi, Yona, Alona and Yoav
Dear Mark and Glynnis,
ReplyDeleteI also had a grand time---Debbie and I thank you for the spectacular dinner with yours and the Kosasvili/Polgar family at the Y.Y.C., and Rebecca enjoyed the tournament. I hope we can all do something like this again!
I can add that one of the games fascinated Yona and me enough that we continued analyzing it even after the players left. Yona refuted my ideas of how Black could press a piece-down attack. Then we consulted Rybka on my laptop, and...the program found a resource none of us had considered that holds Black even. So it goes...
---Ken R.
P.S.: For those interested in Sofia's artwork, her new website is here.
Hi Mark!. Thanks for a fantastic tourney. I was previliged to have GM Yona Kosashvili, help me build my repertoire as black in a particular variation. I can never forget those 10 minutes of insight that I was given. Thanks
ReplyDeleteMark -
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to thank you for putting together the Stella chess tournament. It was truly amazing. The chance for the kids to see - and even play against - [three Chess] Masters was phenomenal!
Thanks for all the time, effort, and resources you put into making the event a big success.
Brian
Brian Bennett, Ph.D.
Mark!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your dedication to promoting chess in in our little corner of the world. I was glad I came, although my play was nothing to brag about. I found out that playing blitz producess more mistakes then I thought previously. (or is it old age?)
It was great to meet Sofi and Yona and their sons, future grandmasters.
When is GM Judit comming? (In two years?)
Thanks for the set. I already used it with Felix. (Hopefully he will perform well this weekend.)
Thanks again, Mark.
M