10-year old wins Utah State Chess Championship

Media outlets from around the country are abuzz with news about Kayden Troff, just 10 years old, winning the Utah Game/60 Championship.

A 10-year-old West Jordan boy has won the 2009 Utah Game/60 Chess Championship — and he could be ranked first in the nation in his age group.

Kayden Troff won $120 in prize money Saturday and has been invited to attend U.S. Chess School this summer.

10-Year-Old Boy Wins Utah Chess Tournament [www.fox13now.com]
10-year-old West Jordan boy wins Utah chess tournament, has a bright future [Seattle Times]
10-year-old wins Utah State Chess Championship [www.ksl.com]

Complete Schedule for SuperNationals IV is posted

USCF has posted the complete schedule of events for SuperNationals IV. Check it out to see when your favorite GM is doing a simul or there's a lecture you wish to attend.

SuperNationals is April 3-5 in Nashville, TN. Players can still register for the event. Hotel space is running out fast! (Note: There are parents here in Southern Arizona, that have extra room reservations available if anyone is interested. Contact Enrique.)

13-year old wins Western Chess Congress

Michael Aigner writes about Daniel Naroditsky's impressive result in Concord. The Western Chess Congress was a 5 round "adult" tournament with a total prize fund of over $10,000.

However, one junior stood taller than all of the rest. Always short for his age, former World U12 champion FM Daniel Naroditsky, now 13 years old, has grown in more ways than one over the past year. In Concord, he proved that he was the man to beat, transforming from a shy player with a mid-2300 rating into a confident champion with the composure of a veteran professional.

IM Mark Ginsburg also attended the event and finisted tied for 2nd place. David Adelberg, rated 2122, turned in an impressive performance rating of 2438!

Read the complete article on the USCF website.

The Ruy Lopez by GM Prasad and GM Panchanathan

GM Prasad and GM Panchanathan have written an article on Chess.com that gives a basic overview of one of the most popular openings of all time. They analyze the game Karpov-Unzicker (1974) to illustrate the common strategy of the Ruy Lopez.

Here it is, the Ruy Lopez opening for white. Other than white's direct threat of capturing the Knight on c6 and taking the e5 pawn, white in the long term decides to keep his bishop on the queen side. Notice that keeping the bishop on the queenside does not mean that it has nothing to do with the king side. White's light squared bishop is used along the a2-g8 diagonal as well as the b1-h7 diagonal defending against black's future f5 ideas.

One of the basic traits of this opening is the possibility to play on both sides of the board, particularly when the center gets closed.

This is the second article in their weekly series. They have also done a similar article for the Sicilian Najdorf.

Chess.com is a website that offers live as well as online (similar to correspondence chess) chess games. Additionally, they also offer news and other articles regarding chess from all over the world. Membership is free and there is a premium membership option (for a fee). Be sure to tell them that EJ sent you.

2009 U.S. Women's Chess Championship

USCF has announced details on this year's US Women's Chess Championship. The tournament will be a held Oct. 2 - 12 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis in St. Louis, Missouri.

The U.S. Women's Chess Championship dates back to 1937. The tournament is a 9-round event using the Round Robin pairing system, in which every player plays every other player and the highest score wins. Time controls will be the classical 40 moves in two hours, with the remaining moves in one hour. There will also be a 5-second increment per move.

Invitations will be sent to the top nine U.S. women players by ranking based on the August 2009 United States Chess Federation rating list. An invitation will also be sent to the defending champion, Olympic gold medalist Anna Zatonskih. The championship will have a purse of $64,000, with $15,000 awarded to the winner, the highest first prize in its history. In case of even scores, prize funds will be evenly divided between winners.

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis also is the site of the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship, which will take place from May 7 through 17. The details of that tournament, including a $64,000 Fischer Memorial Prize, were announced earlier this year.

Regional Championship tournament is this weekend

Just a reminder that the Regional Championship (RQ 1) is this weekend at Sierra Middle School. The tournament is 5 rounds and is SACA rated. There are 4 sections: K-1, K-3, K-6, and K-9. The first round is at 9:00am and the tournament should be over by 5:30pm.

Coaches need to register your teams by Thursday evening (or Friday is your team meets on Friday). Teams and players without a coach need to register by Thursday as well. Required information is player's name, school, grade and section; along with any .5 point bye requests.

The State Scholastic Championship is April 25-26 in Gilbert, AZ. In order to play at State, players must qualify at a Regional Qualifer. This tournament is the first Regional Qualifier in Southern Arizona this year. The next (last) one will be March 28 at Harelson Elementary.

If you have any questions, please contact Enrique.

Foothills Open Spring wrap-up

The Foothills Open Spring tournament was held last Saturday at Manzanita Elementary. Robby Adamson reports that 50 players participated in the 4-round event. Players were separated into 5 sections (Championship, Reserve, Booster, K-6 and K-3).

Top Prizes:

Championship:
1 Reed, Michael S (4 pts.)
2 Li, Ethan (2.5 pts.)
3 Wong, Kinsleigh (2.5 pts.)
4 Arnold, Justin Way (2 pts.)
5 De Sa, Jacquelyn M (2 pts.)

Reserve:
1 Mittal, Rohan (3.5 pts.)
2 Quesada, Richard F (2 pts.)
3 Aradhyula, Sumhith (1.5 pts.)
4 Shevelev, Daniel (1 pt.)

Booster:
1 El-Kareh, Ardith (3.5 pts.)
2 Groh, Jacob (3 pts.)
3 Mulholland, Casper (2 pts.)
4 Castro, Francisco (2 pts.)
5 Fox, Hugh S (2 pts.)

K-6:
1 Bommireddy, Sreekar (3 pts.)
2 Calendine, Logan (3 pts.)
3 Cancio, Aiya (3 pts.)
4 Wood-Pavicich, Ben (3 pts.)
5 Cancio, Zak (2.5 pts.)

K-3:
1 Carlisle, Denham (4 pts.)
2 Azersky, Sadie (3 pts.)
3 Segal, Jeremy (3 pts.)
4 Patil, Ruturaj (3 pts.)
5 Merson, Samuel (2.5 pts.)

The next Foothills Open will be April 11 at Manzanita Elementary. Money from the Foothills Open goes to support the Catalina Foothills High School chess team. Information and an entry form is available at the Foothills Chess website.

GM Kiril Georgiev breaks Guinness Simul Record - Update

After a month of training – mainly walking and saunas – Kiril Georgiev was ready to take the challenge and play a simultaneous exhibition against 360 opponents. For every move the Bulgarian GM had to walk half a kilometer, and after six hours of play had made only eight moves. After 14 hours it was over, he had scored 88% with 284 wins, 70 draws and 6 losses. The record was broken!

Report by GM Dejan Bojkov from ChessBase.com

UPDATE: Chessdom.com interviews GM Kiril Georgiev about his record-setting feat.

Chess, granddaughter inspire comic strip character

An interesting article about the creator of the comic that appears in Chess Life for Kids.

Chess anyone? Which room would you like to play in? Rosalyn B. Katz's Rockaway condo has multiple chess sets in just about every room. Some are miniature, some micro-miniature, but many, too numerous to count, are set up for play.

Katz's love of chess and the birth of her first grandchild, Zaria Katz, were the impetus for the creation of the comic strip character "Zaria."

"Zaria is an 8-year-old chess player who is in love with the game and in love with life," Katz said. "Her overly enthusiastic way of engaging life gets her into difficulties, but she always lands on her feet."

While Katz writes the strip, Doina Paraschiv, an illustrator with 20 years' experience, draws the cartoons that bring "Zaria" to life. Paraschiv is also a chess player.

The strip was picked up by Chess Life magazine, a publication of the United States Chess Federation, with a circulation of 285,000. "Zaria" has been appearing every other month since July 2003.

The rest of the article is available at the Daily Record.

Simuls at SuperNationals IV

Online registration for the GM Simuls at SuperNationals IV is now available online.

The schedule of simuls is as follows:

Thursday 6:30PM - GM Alexander Stripunsky, GM Alexander Shabalov, GM Maurice Ashley

Friday 9:00AM - US Champion IM Anna Zatonskih, Women's World Champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, GM Alexander Shabalov

Friday 8:00PM - GM Yuri Shulman

Saturday 4:00PM - US Champion IM Anna Zatonskih, GM Yuri Shulman

Sunday 3:30PM - Women's World Champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk

The cost for each simul is $29.