48th World Junior Championship (Oct. 21-Nov.4)

The 48th World Junior Championship is going on now in Puerto Madryn, Argentina!

This is a very prestigious event that gathers the top junior players in the world!

Most countries send only their National Champions to represent them in this event.  From the United States we have two very talented representatives, GM Elect Ray Robson and GM Elect Alex Lenderman.

The World Junior Championship is a thirteen round Swiss for players age 20 and under, therefore, both of our representatives will meet the age criteria for future Junior Championships for some time to come. 

Good luck to Ray Robson and Alex Lenderman!

Schedule:

• Round 1 (Thurs. Oct. 22nd)
• Round 2 & Round 3 (Fri. Oct. 23rd)
• Round 4 ( Sat. Oct. 24th)
• Round 5 (Sun. Oct. 25th)
• Round 6 (Mon. Oct. 26th)
• Round 7 (Tue. Oct. 27th)
• FREE DAY (Wed. Oct. 28th)
• Round 8 (Thurs. Oct. 29th)
• Round 9 (Fri. Oct. 30th)
• Round 10 (Sat. Oct. 31st)
• Round 11 (Sun. Nov. 1st)
• Round 12 (Mon. Nov. 2nd)
• Round 13 (Tue. Nov. 3rd)

• CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL LIST OF PLAYERS
• CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICIAL TOURNAMENT WEBSITE
• CLICK HERE FOR LIVE GAMES

Related Reading:

• Ray Robson – Newest American Grandmaster
• “The Alexander Technique” (USCF Chess Life Online)

Stay tuned for the results of this event….

“Developing Chess Talent – Chess and Autism”

GM Artur Yusupov training young talents in Apeldoorn (photo book cover by Fred Lucas)

Chess and Autism
Excerpt from ‘Developing Chess Talent’ by Karel and IM Merijn van Delft

Chess is a suitable sport for many children and adults with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Scientific research on this subject is lacking, also on an international level. Experience indicates that chess stimulates social, emotional and cognitive development.

A new book, “Developing Chess Talent”, by Karel and IM Merijn van Delft, uses case histories to illustrate this assumption.

CLICK HERE TO READ  “CHESS AND AUTISM ARTICLE by KAREL van DELFT (Excerpts from Book) (PDF)

The following Press Release provides you with more information about this book….

PRESS RELEASE Book ‘Developing Chess Talent’

The book ‘Developing Chess Talent’ will be published in April 2010. The subtitle is ‘How to create a chess culture by coaching, training, organization and communication’.

Authors are Karel van Delft and IM Merijn van Delft. The foreword is by GM Artur Yusupov. The translation is by Peter Boel. Publisher is KVDC (Karel van Delft Communication), Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.

‘Developing Chess Talent’ is a translation of the Dutch book ‘Schaaktalent ontwikkelen’ (KVDC, 2008). Please find attached the contents, as well as an article about chess and autism contained in the book. These texts may be reprinted on the condition that the original authors and the source are credited. The picture may also be published (credits: www.fredlucas.eu).

A month before publication of ‘Developing Chess Talent’, a preview with contents, parts of the text, the foreword by GM Artur Yusupov and some pictures from inside the book will be made available.

The book can be ordered via Karel van Delft, karel@kvdc.nl. The price is 24,50 euros plus 3 euros for postage handling.

Merijn van Delft and Karel van Delft are both psychologists. They were co-founders of the Apeldoorn chess foundation SBSA, which has trained several Dutch youth champions. Merijn van Delft is a professional chess trainer, living in Hamburg, Germany. Karel van Delft is a freelance publicist, living in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.

The attachments are in pdf. If you prefer, we can send you versions in Word.

Sincerely, Karel van Delft

Ray Robson: Newest American Grandmaster!

Photo by Beatriz Marinello

Ray Robson is the newest American Grandmaster elect!  Robson earned his 3rd GM norm at the age of  14 years 11 months and 16 days old. He recently won the Panamerican Junior Championship securing the norm, a GM title and a rating performance of 3116!  How is that for talent?!

In winning his final GM norm Robson becomes one of the youngest GMs in the history of chess.  He is currently participating in the World Junior and received a special invitation to play in the World Cup!

A little history….

Robson was awarded the FIDE Master (FM) title after he tied for first place at the Pan American Youth Chess Championship in Brazil in June 2005.  He also earned the USCF National Master (NM) title in January 2006 when his chess rating exceeded the 2200 mark, which is the minimum required for the National Master title.

In 2007, Ray became the youngest U.S. IM Elect when he earned the three norms he needed: the first at the 6th North American FIDE Invitational (Chicago, Illinois);  the second at the World Youth Chess Championship (Antalya, Turkey) and the third at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) GM Invitational (Dallas, Texas).

In July 2009, he won the U.S. Junior Chess Championship and became one of the youngest champions ever to do so.

In August 2009, Robson tied for 1st place at the Arctic Chess Challenge (Tromso, Norway), earning his first GM norm. He then went on to earn his second GM norm when he won the 23rd North American FIDE Invitational (Skokie, Illinois).  And his third and final norm was obtained, as we previously mentioned, at the 2009 Pan American Junior Championship in Uruguay.

Congratulations Ray!!

So, who are some of the youngest GMs in the World?

Here is a list:

1. Sergey Karjakin 12 years, 7 months, 0 days
2. Parimarjan Negi 13 years, 4 months, 22 days
3. Magnus Carlsen 13 years, 4 months, 27 days
4. Bu Xiangzhi 13 years, 10 months, 13 days
5. Teimour Radjabov 14 years, 0 months, 14 days
6. Ruslan Ponomariov 14 years, 0 months, 17 days
7. Wesley So 14 years, 1 month, 28 days
8. Etienne Bacrot 14 years, 2 months, 0 days
9. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 14 years, 4 months
10. Péter Lékó 14 years, 4 months, 22 days
11. Hou Yifan 14 years, 6 months, 16 days
12. Anish Giri 14 years, 7 months, 2 days
13. Yuriy Kuzubov 14 years, 7 months, 12 days
14. Dariusz Swiercz 14 years, 7 months, 29 days
15. Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son 14 years, 10 months
16. Ray Robson 14 Years 11 Months 16 days
17. Fabiano Caruana 14 years, 11 months, 20 days

Ray Robson was also the recipient of the 2009 Samford Fellowship which provides the opportunity for young American players to excel in chess. Click Here for more details…

Zatonskih Clinches U.S. Women’s Championship

Photos Courtesy of Betsy Dynako

Zatonskih Wins U.S. Women’s Championship!

Congratulations Anna Zatonskih! (See results below)

• 1st Place – Anna Zatonskih
• 2nd Place – Camilla Baginskaite
• 3rd Place – Alisa Melekhina
• 4th Place – Irina Krush
• 5th Place – Tatev Abrahamyan
• 6th Place – Sabina Foisor
• 7th Place – Rusudan Goletiani
• 8th Place – Iryna Zenyuk
• 9th Place – Battsetseg Tsagaan
• 10th Place – Yun Fan

CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE FINAL STANDINGS & DETAILS

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information contact:

Slay and Associates
Mike Klein, 704-965-4976
charlottechess@gmail.com
www.slayandassociates.com

ZATONSKIH CLINCHES 2ND CONSECUTIVE U.S. WOMEN’S CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 12, 2009 — Anna Zatonskih clinched her second consecutive U.S. Women’s Chess championship by defeating Sabina Foisor in round eight of the 2009 event at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.

With one round remaining, she has acquired a near-perfect 7.5 out of 8 points and will win the record $15,000 first prize. No other woman has more than 5.5 points so Tuesday’s final round will be for posterity, not place.

Zatonskih, of Long Island, N.Y., said she will still try hard. “It doesn’t feel right to win the championship and lose the last round,” she said.

Zatonskih also earned an automatic qualification to the 2010 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship. She said she was nervous today for the first time all tournament, knowing that single bad move and “I could easily spoil everything.”

Zatonskih, who has won all of her games with the black pieces, entered a slightly better ending against Foisor. The defending championship pressed ahead and found a stunning coup de grace — a sacrifice of her bishop, her last major piece, that resembled a famous game played by Grandmaster Alexei Shirov. Jettisoning the bishop created an unstoppable armada of pawns that Foisor, of Baltimore, Md., could not slow down.

The victory comes combined with a loss by Zatonskih’s closest competitor. For most of the tournament, Camilla Baginskaite trailed the leader by one point, but she suffered her first loss today at the hands of the resurgent Irina Krush. Krush, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who began with only one win and three draws in her first five games, has won three in a row to pull into a tie with Baginskaite for second place.

Baginskaite, of Sioux Falls, S.D., and Krush have a lot to play for in the final round. Not only is there a lot of prize money still at stake ($12,000 is the second prize), but the top two finishers in the tournament will qualify for the next Women’s World Championship, to be held in Istanbul, Turkey.

Zatonskih has already qualified, but if two or more women are tied for second after tomorrow’s round nine, a fast-paced tiebreaker will be played to decide who is awarded the second spot in the championship.

One woman’s world championship qualification hopes all but ended in round eight when Alisa Melekhina, 18, of Philadelphia, Pa., lost her second game in three rounds. She had been undefeated through the first five rounds, despite playing many players who are vastly more experienced. Today she lost to Iryna Zenyuk, of Pittsburgh, Pa., who said she received encouragement from friends in her native Ukraine. They have been staying up until 5 a.m. local time to follow her matches online.

“Yesterday I was so down,” Zenyuk said. “People I (train) with said, ‘You have to come back, you have to fight.’”

Zenyuk declined to say who her supporters were, leading some to believe she has some very strong chess players on her support team.

Also rebounding today was 19-year-old Yun Fan, of Greencastle, Ind. She played several sacrifices against third-seeded Rusudan Goletiani, including both of her knights and both of her rooks. Still in college, Fan said she was proud of the game, but did not expect her non-chess playing professors to understand the beauty of her game.

After beginning the tournament will several losses, Fan has won two games out of her last three. Goletiani, of Hartsdale, N.Y., has underperformed all event and said she is just looking to get the tournament over with.

Tatev Abrahamyan, of Glendale, Calif., also showed resiliency in round eight. She won her second game in a row despite a rough beginning to the tournament. Abrahamyan’s pieces were bottled up most of the game but she opened a lane and her queen, bishop and rook came flooding in to suddenly checkmate Battsetseg Tsagaan, of Ellicott City, Md.

For complete standings, go to www.saintlouischessclub.org/US-Womens-Championship-2009/standings.

Round nine play starts Monday at 10 a.m. Central time. Games can be followed live at http://www.saintlouischessclub.org/US-Womens-Championship-2009/Live-Coverage and the broadcast can be heard at www.chessclub.com/chessfm.

For a complete listing of all events surrounding the 2009 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship, go to www.saintlouischessclub.org/US-Womens-Championship-2009.

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis is a not-for-profit, 501(c)3 organization that opened in July 2008. Founded by retired investment fund manager Rex Sinquefield, it has more than 500 members. The club offers free classes, discounted tournament entry fees and discounted merchandise for club members. For more information, please visit www.saintlouischessclub.org, or call 314-361-CHESS.

“Oral Ambassador of Chess”, Jerry Hanken, Passes Away

Rest in Peace – Jerry Hanken (1934-2009)

Jerry Hanken, chess journalist, promoter and Life Master, passed away on October 1st, 2009 in Los Angeles at the age of 74.  He leaves behind a saddened chess community.  Jerry was an Original Life Master and Chess Life columnist.  He is survived by his former wife, Barbara, and their children, Andrea and Dan.

Memorial Service

A memorial service for journalist, promoter and life master Jerry Hanken will be held on October 25th in Pasadena, California. (See details below)

Sunday, 3pm, October 25, 2009
Church of Truth
690 E. Orange Grove Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91104

Donations for the service and any questions can be sent to Barbara Hanken at 5200 Shearin, Los Angeles, CA 90041; bshanken@yahoo.com

Many in the chess community have shared their thoughts on the USCF’s website – Click Here to Read More…

Below you will find an article written by U.S. Chess Trust’s Chairman Emeritus & Trustee, Harold Dondis with Patrick Wolff for the Boston Globe, in memory of Jerry Hanken.

Our thoughts are with his family. May he rest in peace.

Feel free to share your thoughts and messages with the chess community by commenting on our site.

Chess Notes
By Harold Dondis and Patrick Wolff

The Boston Globe, www.boston.com

News has come to us via California that Jerry Hanken, very ill, was put on a ventilator and that his life ebbed away on Oct. 1. He was 74. Hanken has been one of the dominating personalities of the American chess scene for decades. He has been a politician, a battler, a reporter of great note, and to possibly sum it up, a man larger than life.

Hanken was a former probation officer and also an English teacher. He was elected to the board of the US Chess Federation (USCF) for many years, and his battles there were as unstinting and articulate as one could imagine. Whether or not such battles were good for the USCF is now beside the point. Hanken was a dedicated member of the board, and he was the foremost translator of chess for chess fans. He was a life master and could always be found at major tournaments. He was the clear choice to write reports on the tournaments as they occurred. In this function, he was the center of the tournament’s energy, always providing effulgent reports on the personalities and the happenings in the tourney. He did not hesitate to write about himself, but always with a high humor for which there were no peers in this game.

As we recall, Hanken was the center of a controlling majority on the board in 1991-1993, in an interlude of no president in office between the tenures of Maxim Dlugy and Dennis Barry. It was in the latter’s term that the debates at the USCF executive board virtually exploded. Hanken was a supporter of the right to debate OMOV (One Man One Vote for members in elections), the resolution that was adopted providing for direct election of the executive board. Hanken’s debates made Cicero sound like a soft-spoken introvert. He bawled oratorical threats and even disrobed in part to emphasize his position.

It was sad to see Hanken appearing of late in a wheelchair, but still reporting to his public with optimism and piquant comments. It was even sadder to hear that his health had declined, and that he was determined not to return to a nursing home, which he inimitably described as Dickensian. He announced that if he was ever sent back he would get a second opinion from Doctor Kevorkian, and he was finally put on a ventilator for his last days. Hanken recently captained the Journalists of America, and received their awards as humorist and journalist of the year. He could quote poetry not only by the yard but also by the mile. He knew Stephen Vincent Benét’s long epic poem “John Brown’s Body’’ by heart, and would emit it with forensic accomplishment at the slightest request. Recently he took time out to send us a disc, in which he recited poetry of Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Jerry Hanken, the Oral Ambassador of Chess, has now left the stage.

Chess Championship Helps Unite the Community

PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information contact:
Slay and Associates
Jack Naudi, (636) 751-4965
jnaudi@slayandassociates.com
www.slayandassociates.com

CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP HELPS UNITE THE COMMUNITY

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 1, 2009 — Sure, there will plenty of great chess at the 2009 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship, which will be held Oct. 4-13 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. But thanks to a variety of partnerships involving the arts, cultural and a health care communities, the tournament offers much more.

The championship will leave its mark from the Contemporary Art Museum to the Siteman Cancer Center and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art to the Saint Louis Science Center.

For jazz aficionados, the unofficial kickoff of the championship starts 7:30 p.m. Friday with the Queens of Jazz , which features Tony nominee Ann Hampton Callaway and Denise Thimes at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.

On Saturday, the Contemporary also will host “Playing in the Dark: A Collision of Art and Chess.”Anna Zatonskih will play five people simultaneously while blindfolded. She will have to make moves while seeing all five boards only with her mind’s eye. Other special chess games will be played during the day. The games start at 2 p.m. and the public is invited.
Defending U.S. Women’s Chess Champion

The Saint Louis Science Center will host “Chess Queens Express,” from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Oct. 9, a community day for the players. The event, part of the center’s SciFest ‘09, features competitors from the championship playing up to 10 members of the public at the same time.

On the same day, the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine will unveil a chess playing program designed to brighten the lives of patients and caregivers during treatments. Called “Chess for Life,” the program was developed in conjunction with the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. The goal is to use chess to help improve mental focus and allow for interaction.

Capping off the tournament will be a discussion of seminal works by Marcel Duchamp, an avid chess player and artist, on Oct. 14 at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The discussion will be led by Bradley Bailey, Saint Louis University assistant professor of art history. The evening also will feature “A Game of Chance” — a chess match between Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis founder Rex Sinquefield and the newly crowned 2009 U.S. women’s champion that will involve a roulette wheel to determine each player’s moves. Roulette chess is an invention of Larry List, an artist and writer, and Jennifer Shahade, chair of the 2009 U.S. Women’s Championship. Duchamp was an advocate of combining chess, the ultimate game of skill, with chance.

“Chess is pervasive throughout American culture,” said Tony Rich, executive director of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. “The partnerships we are creating throughout the community reinforce the innate belief that this simple game brings hope, education and pleasure to so many. We are proud to support chess programs in such diverse environments.”

For a complete listing of all events surrounding the 2009 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship, go to http://www.saintlouischessclub.org/US-Womens-Championship-2009 .

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis is a not-for-profit, 501(c)3 organization that opened in July 2008. Founded by retired investment fund manager Rex Sinquefield, it has more than 500 members. The club offers free classes, discounted tournament entry fees and discounted merchandise for club members. For more information, please visitwww.saintlouischessclub.org or call 314-361-CHESS.