Big Crowd for the 2018 Club Championship

Playing great players is fun - win or lose. You have a story either way.

We had twelve players this Monday Night. Only ten entered the tournament, and two stayed and played some casual chess.
Of course all the chess at the Club is casual really. It's a laid back and a very friendly atmosphere at all times here.

We have two players that will play their 1st round of the Club Championship this week (a normal casual night and not a tournament night), so there is still time to get in this FREE tournament. We will be taking registrations for this tournament until 7pm this coming Monday! Stop by to sign up and play in the tournament or just to play some casual chess!

Here is a game that was featured in the Michigan Chess magazine in December of 1996. I will let the best writer in Michigan chess magazine history - David Moody - tell the story of this game:

With the rating difference of over 700 rating points, you would not expect much of a game in round 1. But there were some moments of interest:

Cadillac Open, 1996, Round 1
Opening: Grunfeld Defence, D93
White: Mike Nikitin (1528)
Black: Erik Ronneberg (2252)

1. d4           Nf6
2. c4           g6
3. Nc3        Bg7
4. Nf3        O-O
5. Bf4        d5
6. e3           c5
7. Nb5        Na6
This forces the Black knight to a bad square, but this move is not in the spirit of the position and releases a lot of the pressure on Black's somewhat rickety center. And of course there is the chess axiom of never moving the same piece twice in the opening - or as my chess coach once said in broken English, "Never move a chess piece twice until you have moved it once."

 8. a3               Bg4
9. Be2              dxc4
10. Bxc4          cxd4
11. Nbxd4       Nd5
Now Black has pressure on the long diagonal, not to mention the threatened advance of the e-pawn.

12. Bg3            e5
13. Qb3?          Nc5
[Igor3000 says that 13. Bxa6 was a much better move. White is now down -1.5).

14. Qa2           exd4
15. Bxd5          Nd3+
16. Kf1?            Rc8
Black is threatening 17. ...Nc1 and driving off the White queen away from supporting the bishop. (-2.5)

17. Bxb7??          Nc1?
18. Bxc8??          ........
The move of 18. Qd5 was better for White, but he is still in trouble at (-4). He apparently hopes to trap the knight with 18. ...Nxa2 19. Bxg4, but Black finds something much better, (-8) which is why White's last move was such a clank.

18. ........              Qxc8!
19. Qd5               Qa6+
What do you know? It is our old friend - the smothered mate! White resigned here but let's show the ending anyway.

20. Kg1                Ne2+
21. Kf1                Nxg3+
22. Kg1                Qf1+
23. Rxf1               Ne2++

The Swiss System - used for almost all American tournaments has several functions, besides the obvious one of accommodating large fields of players and still rendering winners in a small number of rounds.
But we chess players and writers notice what the Swiss System always accomplishes without even trying. Here are three:
1. The Swiss System will always pair two people with perfect legible writing together and they will deliver a perfect score sheet of a boring game.
2. The Swiss System will always pair two people with terrible illegible writing together every round and those games will be the best of the tournament.
3, The Swiss System will automatically pair people from the same club, city, school and state, while never  allowing pairings of people who will never have a change to ever play each other again.