Chess Club Black & White (CCBW)

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Happy 50th Birthday Garry Kasparov!

Chess Magazine Black & White staff, readers and fans wish 13th World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov a fantastic 50th birthday on April 13. Birthday wishes are pouring in on his FB page and flooding the Internet. We hope to bring you a summary soon. Meanwhile, you can take part in this Garry Kasparov trivia quiz featured on his official Facebook page!

Kasparov Facebook Page contest reads as follows: Quick Kasparov birthday question #1: What game position do you think will be on his chess birthday cake? Try to guess the game and move number! The answer will be revealed with a photo of his cake at his New York City birthday party on April 19. We'll give a shout-out to anyone who gets it right! (And don't worry, his cake has the white square on the right.) -editor

This very nice chess graphic on Garry Kasparov is up at www.chessbase.com with a beautiful article. Also read 'Kasparov as an open project' by Russian journalist Igor Yakovenko.

International Master Narayanan Srinath has won the Asian Junior Chess title for the second time. The event was held in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Srinath had won last year in Tashkent in June 2012 along with a GM norm. He is also a former World Under-12 champion having won it at Belfort in France in 2005. Sahaj Grover was second and top seed GM Salem Saleh of UAE was third. Vo Thi Kim Phung of Vietnam won the girls' section. India's WFM J Saranya was second. Defending champion Ivana Furtado of Goa ended the tournament in sixth place.

In the Asian Junior blitz chess, Anurag Mhamal and Sahaj Grover tied for first. Mhamal was declared champion on better tie-break score. Vo Thi Kim Phung (Vie) won the Asian Junior girls blitz championship also.

Final placings:
Boys: 1 N Srinath (Ind) 8/9; 2 Sahaj Grover (Ind) 7; 3-6. Salem A.R. Saleh (UAE), Anurag Mhamal (Ind), Mehdi Hosseinpour (Iri), Tran Tuan Minh (Vie) 6 each; 7 Debashis Das (Ind) 5.5…34 players.
Girls: 1 Vo Thi Kim Phung (Vie) 7/9; 2-4. J Saranya (Ind), Nguyen Thi Mai Hung (Vie), Diana Assaubayeva (Kaz) 6.5 each; 5-6. Sarvinoz Kurbonboeva (Uzb), Ivana Furtado (Ind) 6 each; 7-10. Rucha Pujari, Riya Savant (both Ind), Dorsa Derakhshani (Iri), Farida Khursanova (Uzb) 5.5 each….36 players.

RIP: American chess legend Robert Byrne. We have this sad news. World Chess Championship Candidate-1974 and US Chess Champion-1972 Robert Byrne is no more. His wife Ursula (Maria) Byrne announced late Friday that Robert Byrne passed away after a long illness, eight days short of his 85th birthday. The memorial service will be on Saturday, April 20, at 1 PM at Dorsey Funeral Home, 15 M Wilton Place, Ossining, NY 10562. Attendees are welcome. RSVP to ursula1732@aol.com. ( Also welcome are verbal messages that can be read out.)

Byrne's dear friend Anthony Saidy says, "Robert Byrne was a pillar of American chess. I would add that uniquely, in mid-career, Robert Byrne switched from the Queen Pawn to the King Pawn, tantamount to a Ford driver taking on a race car, or an internist learning brain surgery. It took him close to the summit of world chess. R.I.P. a great American player and a friend whose example taught me much."

Byrne represented the United States nine times in Chess Olympiads from 1952 to 1976 and won seven medals. He was the chess columnist from 1972 to 2006 for the New York Times, which ran his final column (a recounting of his 1952 victory over David Bronstein) on November 12, 2006. Byrne worked as a university professor for many years, before becoming a chess professional in the early 1970s. Read the complete Wikipedia entry on this great American chess player here. (Report via US #1 www.chessblog.com)

The 13th Bangkok Chess Club Open Tournament will be played from April 14th to 21st in Pattaya, Thailand. The tournament is organized by the Bangkok Chess Club and the playing venue is 5-star Dusit Thani Pattaya Resort. (Left: Koneru Humpy leads India challenge). Top rated Grandmasters are Nigel Short ENG 2690 (last year winner), Levente Vajda ROM 2632, Jan Gustafsson GER 2621 (winner in 2011), Humpy Koneru IND 2597, Sune Berg Hansen DEN 2566, Jozsef Horvath HUN 2538, Zong-Yuan Zhao AUS 2537, Adam Horvath HUN 2509, M.R. Venkatesh IND 2501 and Attila Czebe HUN 2488. There are two groups of play: Open category for all players, and Challenger category for players rated below 2100 or unrated (ratings based on FIDE or Thai ELO ratings – other national ratings will be validated by the organizer). When registering, players must indicate in which group they wish to play. Both groups will be played using the Swiss System, with 9 rounds for Open, and 7 rounds for Challenger. For the pairings, a Swiss Manager program will be used.