Greetings,
The Colorado Springs Chess Club will hold the final round of the September Swiss 90 (4SS, G/90+30) this Tuesday (9/25) at 7:00pm. See calendar for details:
cschess.webs.com/apps/calendar/
The August Swiss 90 has been rated:
uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?201808283802
The USCF has sent me a reminder about the 54th annual Colorado Springs City Chess Championship starting October 2nd:
The events shown below are ones that have been or will be advertised in Chess Life or Chess Life for Kids:
Date Event Location TLA in Affiliate
2018-10-02 54th Annual Colorado Springs City Chess Championship Colorado Springs CO 2018-08 CL A5012031
Here is the final newsletter for the 2018 Chess Season. It has been quite a year.
End Of The Season
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Well, another chess season has come to a close for me. It is time for me to move on to managing the website for my other hobby (spamfootball.webs.com/), but I will return after the football season ends. Before I go, I wanted to clean up some loose ends.
Of course, you can still send in news items or articles during the off-season, and I will email them along to the subscribers. Any games I receive will be stored at the Colorado Springs Chess News’ Yahoo! group (groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/cs_chess/info). You can also join the group to keep receiving chess games all year round.
So, before I finish typing my chess thoughts for another year, I want to thank all the people who sent in games and articles, all the people who took the time to tell me something nice about the newsletter, and all the people who take the time to read this.
Game Of The Year
Usually at this time, I look over the past year’s statistics to see if it was a good or bad year for me. Looking over the statistics helps me get past the bad feelings that linger from my losses. They bring me back into balance and force me to look at what I did right and what I did wrong. While the past couple of years have been off and 2018 isn’t looking much better, I still have time to improve 2018. Here is how it is going so far:
2045 peak USCF rating (record: 2015 - 2102)
2067 peak BLITZ rating (record: 2017 - 2067)
2055 peak CLUB rating (record: 2013 - 2127)
77.08% USCF winning percentage (record: 2012 - 79.31%)
79.07% CLUB winning percentage (record: 2013 - 87.86%)
12 projected prizes won (record: 2014 - 20)
25 projected USCF-rated wins (record: 2013 - 75.5)
0 upsets (record: 2001 - 6)
Peak Rating Report
Year, Peak Rating, Gain
1998 1680 +
1999 1580 -
2000 1567 -
2001 1695 +
2002 1757 +
2003 1772 +
2004 1805 +
2005 1864 +
2006 1882 +
2007 1897 +
2008 1962 +
2009 2003 +
2010 1977 -
2011 2000 +
2012 2043 +
2013 2058 +
2014 2098 +
2015 2102 +
2016 2053 -
2017 2048 -
2018 2039 ?
Total: 15 positive years and 5 negative years
So, what happened in 2015 when my rating started to tumble back down from my peak?
I started directing tournaments for the Colorado Springs Chess Club in 2015. It is not easy to direct and play well. I still haven’t figured out how to find the balance between focusing on my game and taking care of the event duties.
However, directing hasn’t been all bad.
Directing tournaments for the Colorado Springs Chess Club is a nice way to give back to the club I have enjoyed for 20 years. My largest pay day for chess was while I was a tournament director. I get a lot of material for my newsletter. And every once in a while, I get to see a game that just makes my year.
Larry Osborn provided me with the most enjoyable game of the year. Since I play and direct, I didn’t get any time to watch his game. However, my Vice President, Peter Barlay saw the ending and told me, “You are going to love this!” I went over the score sheet at IHOB, as I was uploading the ratings report to USCF at 2:00 am in the morning.
I burst into laugher when I saw 14. Qh5+!!!
It was not because of the blunder. It was because I knew Larry had won. It was not just an upset of a higher rated player. It was a comeback against a higher rated player after hanging his Queen!
It was the chess equivalent of a hail mary pass. Instead of the “Minnesota Miracle,” it was the Colorado Springs Miracle!
I go over hundreds of games each year just hoping to find a game like this so that I can send LM Brian Wall a legitimate contender for the Jim Burden Award rather than my crappy, blitz blunders (cschess.webs.com/apps/blog/show … me-as-this).
Here is my nomination for the 2018 Jim Burden Award.
White to move
See diagram and answer here:
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/ph … =205323436
Game Of The Year XV
chessvideos.tv/chess-game-r … ?id=113145
[Event “July Mating Game”]
[Site “http://cschess.webs.com/”]
[Date “2018.07.24”]
[Round “4.3”]
[White “Osborn, Larry”]
[Black “Eskeldson, Derek”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “D30”]
[WhiteElo “949”]
[BlackElo “1341”]
[PlyCount “49”]
[EventDate “2018.07.17”]
[TimeControl “2700”]
-
d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. a3 Nf6 4. e3 c6 5. Bd3 Bd6
-
Nf3 O-O 7. O-O Nbd7 8. Nbd2 b6 9. e4 dxe4 10. Nxe4 Nxe4 11. Bxe4 Bb7 12.
Bxh7+ Kxh7 13. Ng5+ Kg6 14. Qh5+ Kxh5 15. f4 Be7 16. d5 cxd5 17. h3 dxc4 18.
g4+ Kh4 19. Kh2 Bd6 20. Be3 Bc5 21. Rf3 Ne5 22. b4 Nxf3+ 23. Nxf3+ Bxf3 24.
bxc5 Qd3 25. Bf2# 1-0
This Week In Chess
On September 19th, the Colorado Springs Chess Club continued the September Swiss 90 (4SS, G/90+30).
Standings. September Swiss 90
Name Rtng Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Tot Prize
1 Laurence Rob Wutt 1948 W14 W7 W2 3.0
2 Paul D Anderson 1989 W4 W9 L1 2.0
3 Brian Jo Rountree 1885 H— H— W11 2…0
4 Ross Inman 1367 L2 W15 W9 2.0
5 Clinton D Eads 1268 L8 W14 W13 2.0
6 Scott J Walsh 1642 H— H— D7 1.5
7 Grayson Ed Harris 1111 W13 L1 D6 1.5
8 Peter Barlay 1936 W5 U— U— 1.0
9 Mark McGough 1849 W15 L2 L4 1.0
10 William Leo Wolf 1425 W16 U— U— 1…0
11 Dean W Brown 1400 U— W12 L3 1.0
12 Michael Smith II 1610 H— L11 U— 0…5
13 Christophe Motley 1584 L7 H— L5 0.5
14 Scott Ch Williams 1293 L1 L5 U— 0.0
15 Joey Arispe 1231 L9 L4 U— 0.0
16 Sam Hays unr. L10 U— U— 0.0
Projected Prizes: 1st $34.00; 2nd $23.00; U1400 $15.00