5 days away to the 4th Stella Niagara

IM Sofia (center) with her older sister, GM Susan (left) and younger sister Super GM Judit (right)

It is only 5 days away to the 4th Annual Stella Niagara Scholastic and Quick Open featuring honored guests IM Sofia Polgar and her husband GM Yona Kosashvili. Join in on the fun and excitement!

For more information on the event see http://www.uschess.org/directories/tnmtsearch/tlaweb.php?tla_seq=797&tla_id=FourthStella

If you plan on participating please comment with your name, USCF ID#, and which section you wish to play in.

Patterson wins Sardinia Quick

Albert (Pat) Patterson won the April 26th quick tournament held at the Sardinia Community Center last Saturday. Pat with 7 pts, edged out Ryan Madden (6pts), reversing the results from last month. 1st grader Felix Ling won the u1200 prize with 4pts. Also competing in the adult section were the chessdoctor Mark Mieth, Morgan Beach, and Ryan Palmisano.

In the Scholastic section, newcomer Mike Hoffman was very impressive in his first tournament, winning 6 out of 8 games. I think we will be hearing a lot more from him in the future! Wes Darling, Nathan Palmisano, and Robert Becker also competed. The cross table is available at http://main.uschess.org/assets/msa_joomla/XtblMain.php?200804262671

Don't forget to sign up and play in the Stella Niagara tournament this Saturday! The chessdoctor works very hard to make this a classy event so lets support him. I'll see you there!

Saturday's Super Guest of Honor

While many of you may know about Sofia the middle sister of the famous chess playing Polgar sisters, perhaps you do not know as much about our other special guest GM Yona Kosashvili. So here is some background:

Born in the Soviet Republic of Georgia in 1970, he later emigrated to Israel and performed at a very high level and became a GM. His highest FIDE rating was 2549. This was good for 57th in the world at that time. Although not presently active in competitive chess, his current rating of 2522 still places him at 18th among all Israeli players.

There were many highlights to his chess career, including excellent play for the Israel team in the 1990 Olympiad in which he won an individual silver medal, and besting the computers in 1999 at the 12th Aegon Human vs. Computer Tournamnet. One of the most recent highlights was his tie with GM Viktor Korchoi for first place in the Curacao International Tournament of 2002. He also won the blitz tournament outright beating Sophia in the finals! Here is the ChessBase report of that event: http://www.chessbase.com/newsprint.asp?newsid=612

His replay his win over Korchoi in that tournament, click the following link: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1258060

More of his games are available at: http://www.365chess.com/players/Yona_Kosashvili or http://www.chessgames.com/player/yona_kosashvili.html

He married Sophia Polgar in 1999 and has two children Alon and Yova. The family presently resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada where he is a practicing orthopedic surgeon. To read some abstracts regarding some his medical publications go to: http://lib.bioinfo.pl/auid:5295016

LYNN M. MARINELLI CHESS LEAGUE!

Starting Thursday, May 1, 2008 at the Kenmore Community Center, 135 Wilber Avenue, Kenmore NY 14217. Register promptly at 6pm, Game pairings start at 6:30pm. USCF RULES ENFORCED! "TOUCH MOVE"! Time Control Game/30, NO Delay. Join a 6 week chess league, sections will be for K-4, 5-8, 9-12 and Adults. Play only those in your own section. Females are strongly encouraged to participate. Kenmore Residents with Resident cards entry fee is $5.00 all others $10.00. Advance registration can be emailed with full name, age, grade, school, uscf id number, uscf rating and section to participate, send to arcangel8chess@yahoo.com. Awards and/or Trophies for Top Three Winners in each section along with your name in the weekly newspaper.

CHESS CLUB OF BUFFALO BLITZ!

SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 2008 NEW STARTING TIME 1:30PM TILL 5PM GATEWAY LONGVIEW FAMILY RESOUCE CENTER 347 EAST FERRY STREET BUFFALO, NY 14208 OFF STREET PARKING, RING THE FRONT DOOR FOR ENTRY, CHESS ON FIRST FLOOR. BLITZ GAMES WILL BE PLAYED. BLITZ GAMES ARE TIME CONTROLS THAT ARE UNDER GAME 30. USCF RATED AND UNRATED PLAYERS ARE WELCOMED. BRING CHESS SET, CHESS CLOCKS, CHESS BOARDS, SCOREPADS AND PENCILS.

Countdown to the 4th Annual Stella Niagara Scholastic and Quick Open

It is just one week away to the arrival of the second Polgar sister-Sofi, along with her husband GM Yona Kosashvili and family to our chess community as they will be the honored guests at the Fourth Annual Stella Niagara Scholastic and Quick Open on Saturday May 3rd. Don't miss out on your opportunity to meet chess royalty!

The detalis of the tournament can be found at http://www.uschess.org/directories/tnmtsearch/tlaweb.php?tla_seq=797&tla_id=FourthStella

If you plan on participating please comment with your name, USCF ID#, and which section you wish to play in.

Sardinia Quick Chess Tournament

Sat. May 24, New starting time - 1pm! At the Sardinia Community Center, 12320 Savage Rd, Sardinia, NY Must be a USCF member to play(can join at tournament) 2 sections: adults: 3SS, G/29, EF $20 RDS: 1,2,3 Prizes based on entries Scholastic- Round Robin- play as many games as possible in 3hrs! EF: $10 Games start at 1pm. Trophy for 1st place. All scholastic players will receive a prize!

Does anyone know Brian Hartman?

I have received a email from an International Master, FIDE Rated, from Canada who is considering playing in our Grand Prix Tournaments on Saturdays. He is Brian Hartman, expired USCF memberhship and is rated USCF 2450. If he does attend that means Dr Kenneth Regan International Master (2419), Lionel Davis National Master (2211), Barry Davis National Master (2141), Eddie Mark III National Master (2134), Tony Kimbrough (2075p), Rev. Marijan Procyk (2072), Doug Dubose (2028), Mark Clark (2013), Richard Kalfas (1982), David "Pawn Master" Mc Duffie (1866), Vance Williams (1838), Glenn Westcott (1775), Harish Srinivasan (1770), and Thomas Warner (1729) will have a nice friendly added competitor to the mix. So now let's see if we can get all of these chess players assembled in the same venue at one time. WOW! What a strong field, imagine what other players who might start showing up unnoticed?

I think David Taber (1800) is out there and expired uscf member, he has been attending thursday night Kenton Chess Club, thursdays from 6pm till 8:30pm at Kenmore Community Center, 135 Wilber Avenue, Kenmore NY 14217.

LYNN MARINELLI CHESS TOURNAMENT REMINDER!

As of Thursday night, Lynn Marinelli, Chairwoman of the Erie County Legislature will be at the tournament. She will be there to take pictures with chess players and their parents and to meet and greet the chess community. So lets come out and meet and greet Lynn. Remember the tournament is open to all ages, no uscf registration required. Global Concept Charter School will be bringing 9 players and they are looking to take no prisoners. Female chess players who pre register to my by tonite will have a free entry in honor of womens month. The adult section is getting some interest as well with preregistration of 4 players so far. Game 30 for the adults with 5 rounds of chess all for $10.00 cash only at the door. Players should check in no later than 1pm, games will start at 1:30pm. Please bring chess sets, chess clocks, chess boards. Those who would like pizza and beverage, please donate $5.00 at checkin.

Use of Labels for Posting

I found that the use of labels while posting any new post is very useful, in finding that information later. Here is the screen shot of where you would put in the labels. Labels are also useful in categorizing all posts of one type. For eg. here are some guidelines of how to use labels

• 1. All games posted can have label "Games"
• 2. All tournament announcements can have label "Tournament"
• 3. Tournament results can have "Results"

You can also give multiple labels for a post. eg. "Tournament, Main Place Mall". Later on, clicking on Games or Tournaments, will display all posts in that category. Also the search feature, on the top right of this blog, can be used to search the blog for these labels. For earlier posts, I shall slowly add the labels. For a current list of labels, scroll further and look on the right side bar.