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Chess Life Online 2010 May The May Check is in the Mail
Chess Life Online 2010 May The May Check is in the Mail | The May Check is in the Mail |
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| By Alex Dunne | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| May 3, 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The May "Check is in the Mail" column by Alex Dunne includes an
annotated game by Barry Walker, an obit of Robert Karch and chess
cartoons. Also log in as a member to read Alex Dunne's latest article in the May issue of Chess Life Magazine, Duliba Dubbed CCGM. VIENNA GAME (C28) 4385 Notes by Barry Walker 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nc6 4.d3 Na5 5.Qf3 GM Michael Adams came up with this improvement for the Vienna. It saves an important tempo compared to the older Qd3-f3 lines, 5...d6 6.h3 Be7 7.Nge2 0-0 8.0-0 c6 9.a4! Nxc4 10.dxc4 White builds the standard light squared Pawn complex for the Vienna Game, making the N-B exchange even less favorable for Black. 10...Be6 11.b3 Qa5 12.Rd1 Rfd8 13.Ba3 Qc7 14.Ng3 a6 15.a5! Rac8 16.Bb2 g6 17.Nf1 Nh5 18.Ne3 Ng7 19.Ng4 f5 20.Ne3?! Nh6+ gives White a slight advantage here, one that I missed to capitalize on. 20...Rf8 21.exf5 Nxf5 22.Nxf5 gxf5 23.Qg3+! Kh8?! 23...Kf7 would allow for a repetition of checks, which I would have taken. Yet since he believes he has the better position due to the two Bishops and central Pawns, he continues his buildup of pressure. 24.c5! f4 25.cxd6 Bxd6 26.Qf3 Rf5 27.Ne4 Be7 28.c4 Rg8 White now has a nice e4 outpost, the central Pawns have been stopped in their tracks. Boles attempts counterplay by trying to pin my King with his Rooks. This forces me to play the King towards the center and go for play on the d-file. 29.Kh1 Rg6 30.Bc3 Kg8 31.Rd3 Rf7 32.Re1 Bf5 33.Rdd1 Rh6 34.Kg1 Rg6 35.Kf1 Be6 36.Rd3 Rf5 37.Qe2! An intermezzo move allows me to build pressure on the d-file. 37...Bf8 38.Red1 Rf7 39.Nd6 Bxh3 40.Nxf7 Bxg2+ 41.Ke1 Qxf7 42.Rd8 Qf5 43.Bb4 Rf6 44.Re8 e4 45.Qb2 c5 46.Bxc5 Bf3 47.Rdd8 Qxc5 48.Qxf6 48..Qxa5+ allows 49. Kf1, and the only way to continue to check the White King is to give up the light-squared Bishop. Mate is inevitable. 1-0 APRIL RESULTS John Collins Todd Brigham 08C25 6-0 Patrick Stephens 07C44 5-1 Thomas Lynd 07C47 5-1 Paul Ott 08C17 5-1 Joseph Daudish 08C17 5-1 Frank Spooner 07C45 3 ½-2 ½ Trophy Quads Richard Black 08Q05 5-1 Lester Ferrell 08Q10 5-1 Walter Muir Larry Kocian 09W15 5-1 Larry Kocian 09W17 5 ½-1 ½ Souvik Roychoudhury 09W19 6-0 Vincent Glispie 09W28 5 ½-½ Michael Burrus 10W05 6-0 Daniel Todd 09W23 5-1  HENRY GROB AT CC  Wikipedia tells
us that between mid- 1940 and the end of 1972, Swiss Master Henry Grob played a
total of 3,614 correspondence chess games, often playing 60-70 games at
once. His total score was +2,703 -430 =481 (81%). All of the games
were played against readers of the Zurich newspaper Neuen Zurcher
Zeitung. Grob's moves would be printed in the newspaper, and his
opponents would then post their moves back to him. Grob played 1. g4 in
many of the games. In my database of postal games, of 1338 Grobs, White
scores 50%Here is a game typical of the play. Grob essays the Grob, of course, since he wrote the book on it - Angriff g2-g4. After some brief complications, Black finds himself doomed. GROB ATTACK (A00) 4386 CLASSIFIED ADS LEARN CHESS BY MAIL ! Lessons given by mail, telephone, ICC - many different ways. I specialize in players rated 800-2100 who would like to improve their game. Contact me for information. Alex Dunne, 324 West Lockhart St., Sayre, PA 18840 or [email protected] JILL JARIS TOPS CCLA WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP  Jill Jaris has
won the 2008 CCLA Women's Championship with a 4-1 score. Jill, adds the CCLA Women's Championship to her earlier win in a USCF Trophy Quad. Jill was her high school chess champion and has won a total of eighteen trophies from 1975 to 1998. In the following game Jill defeats the always dangerous Verna Fausey. SICILIAN DEFENSE (B22) 4387 TWO TIE IN COLLINS 08C22 Frank Brack of Vidor, Texas and Claude Corbett III of Taylors, SC tied for first in John Collins 08C22.
To slow White's initiative, Brack tosses Pawns, but White's pieces seem to grow in strength with each morsel. SICILIAN DEFENSE (B22) 4388 Quote: In this age of the internet, it may be hard to believe that proponents of playing chess through the mail still exist. -- Jon Edwards Obituary: Robert Karch  Robert
Karch was born March 24, 1930 and died one day before his eightieth
birthday. Robert served as US National Secretary for ICCF for a number of
years. Besides organizing many correspondence events, Robert was also
active in organizing Washington State OTB tournaments.Robert while serving in the army at Ft. Benning, Georgia, generously agreed to play postal chess against a 14-year old Pennsylvania boy. Thanks, Bob. You were the first player with a rating I ever played by CC. In the following game Karch attacks strongly then switches to the endgame. MODERN DEFENSE (B09) 4389  The chess pieces brush up on Ruy Lopez Theory SNOWBALL CHESS I hesitate to introduce (reintroduce?) the concept of snowball chess in this age of email as I receive enough chain-letter types of email myself, but here goes: The "snowball" Game In "snowball" chess each move is made by a different player, and on completion of the game a copy of the whole game is sent to every participant. It is believed that this amusing version of correspondence chess was first introduced in 1882 in California. The "snowball" rolled for the greater part of a year, and only melted away when it reached Glascow. There it was the unhappy lot of a well-known Scottish player to make the move "Resigns" having had no part in the game's undoing -- Manchester "City News" 1918 I would like to hear from any intrepid soul who starts and/or finishes such a game. 08C10 WON BY WALTER LEWIS
Walter Lewis shut out the opposition in this John Collins event. In the following game Lewis shows that active Rooks can beat inactive pieces. TORRE ATTACK (A46) 4390 USSR STAMP HONORING KERES  Some of the most exciting chess can take 2 ½ years. SEMI-SLAV DEFENSE (D31) 4391 Black shows a lot of heart in this imaginative game, but White's King is a heart-breaker. SICILIAN DEFENSE (B25) 4392 The threat of a discovered check effectively ends the game on Move 35. BENKO COUNTER GAMBIT (A58) 4393 See a pdf index of Alex Dunne's columns on the Correspondence Chess section of the website. Also log in as a member to read Alex Dunne's latest article in the May issue of Chess Life Magazine, Duliba Dubbed CCGM. |
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