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Full pairings here: http://chess-results.com/tnr101373.aspxChess Daily News from Susan Polgar

Answer to Q # 702 Edward VIII abicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson. Ramu, Jiji, Manju S, Susmitha, Varghese Paul provided the correct response Filed under: quiz

Eric "AceQuad" Brix is so hot right now, he could melt ice by just looking at it. AceQuad has put on a clinic during this year's Spring Championship of Online Poker. Last night, one of the hottest online poker players on the planet made two final tables in "high" events (#37-H and #38-H). AceQuad began the day near the top of the Leader Board and is among the favorites to win Player of the Series. AceQuad is still in the middle of an epic rush. His run good continued and he advanced to his seventh SCOOP final table after a deep run in Event #39-L, a remarkable feat considering he faded 3,001 other players to do so. With seven final table thus far, no one player has more final table appearances at this year's SCOOP. The closest is David "WhooooKidd" Baker had five going into today's action. The only downside to AceQuad's magical kismet is that he was unable to break through and actually win one of these SCOOP events. Alas, his first title remained out of reach and AceQuad could only get as close as third place in this one. Denmark's mossberg1988 pulled away with the victory in Event #39-L with a stunning double-elimination knockout to end the tournament. SCOOP Event #39-L $55 PLO [6-Max] attracted 3,007 runners. They boosted the prize pool to $150,350. Only the top 390 places paid out with $23,681.55 originally set aside to the eventual champion. PokerStars Team Pros were well represented in this event and included George Danzer, Marcin "Goral" Horecki, Bryan Huang, Joe Cada, David Williams, Nacho Barbero, ElkY, Lex Veldhuis, Alex Kravchenko, Richard Toth, Chad Brown, Martin Hbruby, Marcel Luske, and Rino Mathis. Team PokerStars Online members taking a shot at a SCOOP title included the usual suspects like mement_mori, sirfredy83, and nkeyno. Notables who cashed included Team PokerStars Pros George Danzer (52nd) and Marcin "Goral" Horecko (341st). Team PokerStars Pro Danzer was seeking his third career SCOOP title after winning Event #12-H ($2,100 NL 2-7 Draw) last week. Danzer began the day near the top of the overall SCOOP Leader Board. Other big names vying for the coveted Player of the Series included Shaun Deeb, David "WhooooKidd" Baker, AceQuad, and ninototoroko. Danzer was getting short and made a final stand with [Kc][Qd][8c][5c] against Holger Hott's [Ad][9h][9c][8d]. Holger Hott flopped a set and that's all she wrote for Danzer, who was knocked out in 52nd place ($323.25). Danzer's quest for a third SCOOP crown came up short. With 18 players remaining on the final three tables, AceQuad sat atop of the chip lead with 2.1 million. With 12 players to go, AceQuad's big stack incurred a hit and he slipped as AELISTAS1987 seized the lead with 2.3 million. With seven to go, action went hand-for-hand since the final table was six-handed. Short-stacked hort336 bombed it all-in preflop with [Ac][7c][5h][3d] and Strlxen tried to pick him off with [Ad][Qh][4h][3s]. The board ran out [Ts][8d][2h][6c][Jd] and both players failed to improve their hands, but Strlxen won the pot with Ace-high and a Queen-kicker. Canada's hort336 unceremoniously bubbled off the final table in seventh place. Event #39-L - Final Table Chip Counts: Seat 1: Strlxen (1,297,436) Seat 2: ttouch77 (965,865) Seat 3: ITSME81 (1,264,088) Seat 4: balsareny88 (4,602,467) Seat 5: mossberg1988 (3,197,608) Seat 6: AceQuad (3,707,536) The table commenced during Level 35 with blinds at 30K/60K. With six left in the hunt for a SCOOP title, balsareny8 sat on the big stack with 4.6 million, while ttouch77 was the shorty with 965K and the only player with fewer than 1 million in chips. AceQuad advanced to his seventh final table in this year's SCOOP. ttouch77 eliminated in 6th place The final table played a full level before someone busted. Strlxen opened to 240,000, ttouch77 potted to 720,000, Strlxen shoved all-in for 1,017,436, and ttouch77 called all-in for 5,865. Strlxen: [Kd][Ks][9h][8c] ttouch77: [Ad][Ac][5h][2d] Two big hands; ttouc

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Veselin Topalov and Leinier Dominguez won their games in the 4th round of the Thessaloniki Grand Prix to catch the other five players in the shared lead.The remaining games were drawn, but not without fight. Morozevich and Nakamura played the spectacular game in Naidorf Sicilian. Caruana pressed for a long time but Kasimdzhanov was able to hold on to a draw.Kamsky and Ponomariov had a fairly even position until the American made a mistake. However, the winning sequence was visible only to the computer eyes and the game ended in a draw.Results, pairings, standings and photo gallery are updated.Topalov - IvanchukThe game started as a Rosolimo Sicilian, which is nowadays a popular way to avoid the deeply explored Sveshnikov.Topalov said that Ivanchuk obviously prepared 8...Bh5, the main move being 8...Bf3.9.g4 was supposed to be better for white, according to GM Ioannis Papaioannou, but he quickly added "of course Topalov knows better". The Bulgarian spent a lot of time in the opening, but it looks like he found a good way to put the black setup to test. White was slightly better until Ivanchuk decided not to recapture the pawn on e6. Immediately on the next move Topalov pushed e6-e7 and locked the black King in the center.Black's position collapsed and he resigned a couple of moves later.Morozevich - NakamuraNamakura started with the Sheveningen Sicilian, but the play quickly transposed to the reputable English Attack. The American obviously didn't mind this setup, but he probably wanted to avoid 6.Bg5 in Naidorf Sicilian, which is again springing to popularity.Morozevich deviated from the main theory as early as on move ten, pushing the pawn to a3. This indeed slows black's counterplay for awhile, but it can also turn to be a convenient target for b5-b4 later on.A sharp battle, typical for the opening, ensued and soon Morozevich offered a Knight sacrifice on b5. Nakamura delayed the capture until his Queen moved to a more active place.Black King was stuck in the center and white gave up the Queen for R+B to keep the attack going. Nakamura, however, quickly found a way to take the game to draw with perpetual check.Dominguez - SvidlerThe game started as Ruy Lopez and white chose the quiet but popular 6.d3. He proceeded to develop with the positional 8.Nc3!? and then created a "luft" for the Bishop with 9.a3.Black challenged the Bishop with 9...Be6 and invited a change in the central pawn structure.White attempted the get the action going on the kingside, to which Svidler replied with a counter on the queenside.After some exchanges of the pieces, Dominguez managed to "trick" the opponent and capture the a-file to threaten with heavy pieces on both sides of the board. Dominguez said that 23...d5 was a mistake, he expected 23...Rxc2. After this the black position was already difficult. Svidler made a couple of inaccuracies while under the attack and Cuban wrapped up the game efficiently.Dominguez said in the press conference that he made a good opening choice, because he managed to create some pressure thanks to the pawn structure. "It's always nice to play in front of a large crowd", he added.Grischuk - BacrotGrischuk said he succeeded to take Bacrot out of the preparation, but was unable to transpose to the Catalan. b3 is interesting and leads to reversed Gruenfeld. White retained a minimal advantage, mostly due to the access to c5-square and passivity of black Bishop.White tried to put pressure on d5, while black pushed 23...e4 trying to create counterplay. Black gave up the a7-pawn, but the Russian quickly returned the favor with 29.Qa3, as he said "not to blunder the piece". He suggested 29.Qd4 instead, but it looks risky and he was already low on time.Bacrot defended very well and managed to trade all the pieces down to the equal Rook endgame. Draw signed on move 53.Kamsky - PonomariovPonomariov defended with Zaitsev Ruy Lopez and Kamsky went for the rare 12.Ng5, forcing the black Rook to an awkward square e7. Kamsky said he w

The final of the 82nd Ukrainian Chess Championship is scheduled to take place on 15-26th June in Kiev. The tournament format will be 12-players round robin.The federation has announced that the top national players will compete in the tournament, including the defending champion Anton Korobov, former World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov and European Champion Alexander Moiseenko. Vassily Ivanchuk is not on the list.Concurrently, the Ukrainian Women’s Chess Championship 2013 will be held in Kiev. The federation is planning to gather the strongest players, including the reigning World Champion Anna Ushenina.Participants: Ponomariov Ruslan 2742Alexander Areshchenko 2709 Korobov Anton 2705Pavel Eljanov 2702 Moiseenko Alexander 2698 Volokitin Andrei 2687Efimenko Zahar 2677 Kryvoruchko Yuriy 2659 Kravtsiv Martyn 2595 Bogdanovich Stanislav 2548 Baryshpolets Andrey 2530 Neverov Valeriy 2489Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar

This year’s Aptos Library chess tournament for kids was the biggest and most successful ever! I organize and direct this tournament every year in May. Usually we get around 16 to 20 players (last year we had only 14), but this year 37 people participated! It was awesome. We had to use every set that the library owns, plus one of mine and one of Gjon’s. I wish I knew what our secret was for getting such a huge attendance this year. Better publicity? The library has a new branch manager who seemed really committed to getting the word out. I’d say his efforts paid off. A better date? Usually in the past I have avoided the Memorial Day weekend, but this year it was the only weekend I had available. I thought we might have a low turnout because people would have other plans for the holiday. But apparently their plans were to play chess! For me personally, the huge crowd meant that I didn’t get a moment’s rest. With twice as many players, everything takes twice as long — working out pairings, keeping track of results, even writing names on the certificates (every player who completes three rounds gets a certificate). All that time adds up. Fortunately Shan Crockett, my regular chess club assistant, was able to take care of things like setting up a table for the food and most of the cleanup. There’s no way I could have done those things. Heck, the only food I got was one cracker. I was busy, busy, busy! Before I go on to the results, I want to thank the library for its amazing support. I’ve mentioned the publicity. Also, in these budget-challenged times, the library nevertheless paid for enough snacks to feed a small army. When I say “small,” I mean in height, but not in appetite! Those kids devoured the food until there was hardly a crumb left. Finally, the library paid for the medals. So here were the medal-winners: Age 9 and Under 1. Kevin Wang 2. Andrew Wang 3. Aaron Chan 3. Kristof Varav 3. Alan Lee 3. Quinn Bourret 3. Darrell Wang Kevin and Andrew Wang (who, by the way, are not related to each other) tied for first with 3-0 scores, and Kevin won the playoff game. The next five tied for third with 2-1 scores. It would have taken forever to run a five-way playoff, so I chose to leave the ties unbroken. I think that especially for the younger kids there’s no point in breaking the ties, if you have enough medals to go around. Fortunately we did have enough. We had six bronze medals (five for the younger section, and one for the older section). Age 10 and Up 1. Linnea Nelson 2. Joshua Mitchener 3. Xarius Joseph Well, there was absolutely no surprise about who finished first. Linnea hardly had to break a sweat, but this tournament did give her a chance to try out some new openings (the Gruenfeld). I think that she deserved a chance to finish off her high school years with a flourish. She won last year too, but I don’t think she was so completely dominant yet. Joshua Mitchener tied with Linnea at 3-0 and then lost to her in the playoff. I was thrilled and amazed by Xarius, who finished alone in third at 2½-½. Okay, he had a little bit of luck because he never had to play against Linnea (thanks in part to a second-round draw). But I was impressed that he won two games with ease, and he was completely winning the drawn game as well but he allowed a stalemate. (Obviously we still need to work on that…) Xarius went through a phase of a few months where he lost interest in chess, but now he seems to be back and better than ever! In the older section there was a six-way tie for fourth at 2-1. I feel a little bad that none of these kids won a prize. Particularly Ben Walker-Edwards got a little bit of a raw deal because he had a 2-0 score going into the last round but had to play Linnea, a game he had absolutely no chance of winning. That probably kept him from winning a prize. The certificates turned out to be a really good idea this year. Sometimes, in years past,

by Rich Hutnik I have submitted a dozen or so games to be added to the database here, that are playable on a Byzantine Chessboard. I hope they will be up in the next few weeks. I also submitted a quirky trick-taking cardgame.I will be looking to get these in a book, or some other way available, so I am not going to post the rules at this time on here. Will see how they go. I am going to look to have at least a Geeklist for the Byzantine games.

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