Silver Knights Chess

USCF Rating Report

Twenty-six players gathered at the Bryn Mawr Community Center for the third Friday Night Action tournament of 2009. Expert Joe Mucerino went 4-0 to win clear first place after the top two seeds, FM Dan Yeager and NM Peter Minear, drew each other in the last round.

Starting in June, the Friday Night Action tournaments will feature two sections: an open section and an U/1400 section.

Official Results

The weekend of March 6-8, hundreds of scholastic chessplayers converged on Carlisle, PA for the 2009 Pennsylvania Scholastic Chess Championships. Many Silver Knights players were in attendance in the K-3, K-6, and K-6 U/800 sections, including six of the top ten finishers in the K-3 section:

- Benjamin Lu (1st grade; Kutz Elementary) scored 5-0 and finished in a tie for 1st place. Benjamin is also the national 1st grade champion.

- Remi Zheng (1st grade; Jarrettown Elementary) was 4-1 and finished in 4th place. This was only Remi's 2nd chess tournament!

- Kevin Zhou (2nd grade; Galveston Elementary) also went 4-1 to finish in 5th place. Kevin tied for first place at last year's national 2nd grade championship.

- Jacob Guynee (3rd grade; Churchville Elementary) scored 4-1, good for 7th place.

- Praneeth Ramesh (3rd grade; Pickering Valley Elementary) went 4-1 and finished in 8th place.

- Joshua Hagerty (3rd grade; Simmons Elementary) went 4-1 and finished in 10th place.

- A team of four players from Ithan Elementary (Jake Fortay, Jason Hurle, Jacob Calamaro, and Ben Verbofsky) finished in 4th place in the K-3 section, scoring 12.0 team points.

Coach Daniel shows Jason, Jake, Remi, and Remi's sister the Fried Liver Attack. (Jason seems to be more interested in the camera than the chess game...)

Coach Daniel plays a game with Kevin.

Praneeth has an unusual way of preparing himself for a big game. Does this really look like one of the 10 best K-3 chessplayers in the state?

Over President's Day Weekend, a team of four Pennsylvania chessplayers journeyed to Parsippany, NJ to play in the 2009 World Amateur Team Championships. The World Amateur Team is a very popular and well-attended tournament (always over 1,000 players!) where the only rule is that the average rating of each team must be under 2,200. Our team was comprised of FM Rodion Rubenchik (rated about 2340), PA State Champion NM Peter Minear (about 2280), NM Adam Weissbarth (2225), and Daniel Weissbarth (1950).

After a tough third-round loss, we rebounded to win our last three matches and finish 5-1, winning the prize for the top team from Pennsylvania. Below are some pictures from our celebration afterward. Don't forget that you can meet and challenge the state champion, NM Peter Minear, at the upcoming Greater Philadelphia Scholastic Championships on March 21.

Our team (from left, NM Peter Minear, FM Rodion Rubenchik, NM Adam Weissbarth, Daniel Weissbarth)

Daniel ponders the deep complexities of chess...

Rodion studies the famous Aronian-Leko game from his book. No wonder Rodion is so good at chess!

Scott, our bartender.

New this week in our online chess video library:

1) NM Adam Weissbarth analyzes his round 5 game from the U.S. Amateur Team East.

2) NM Weissbarth gives six middlegame tactics problems, along with complete analysis for each.

USCF Rating Report

The State Warm-Up chess tournament, held annually at the end of February to prepare Philadelphia-area chessplayers for the State Championships in early March, drew 82 players from elementary school up through high school. Top-seeded Austin Henninger won his second K-12 Championship section of the year, again going 4-0. Jerry Mangan (Mother of Divine Providence) and Will Culbertson (Devon Prep) finished second and third, respectively, with 3-1 scores. Jerry's performance was notable as he got a very tough draw, playing three of the top four seeds in the event, and was still able to win most of his games and pick up nearly 200 rating points.

In the K-6 U/700 section nearly half the players were unrated, as 29 new chessplayers tested their mettle in competition or the first time. Emerging victorious after four rounds were three players with perfect 4-0 scores: Colin Evans (Springton Manor Elementary), Remi Zheng (Jarrettown Elementary), and Alexander Dornak (Chadds Ford Elementary). Remi's performance was especially impressive as he is only in first grade and had never played in a tournament before! We look forward to seeing Colin, Alexander, and Remi continue to improve as they move up to the championship section in subsequent tournaments.

A close team competition between the host school, Hillside Elementary, Mother of Divine Providence, and Springton Manor ended with a victory for Springton Manor. They clocked in at 13.0 team points for their second straight tournament victory. The only bad news - some of their players are doing so well their ratings will soon be over 700, pushing them up into the Champ section!

We wish all the players good luck at next weekend's State Championships and at the Greater Philadelphia Championships on March 21.

 The three winners of the K-6 U/700 section: Alex (left), Remi (middle), and Colin (right)

Winning a trophy seemed great until the Springton Manor kids had to decide who got to hold it for the picture...

Clayton unleashes the Petroff Defense on an unsuspecting opponent

Brother against sister...

USCF Rating Report

Our second monthly Friday Night Action tournament at the Bryn Mawr Community Center was a great success, with 28 players (up from 18 the previous month!) competing. We had players from across the chess spectrum, from James Strommer, an unrated elementary school student, up through 2560-rated IM Bryan Smith. The winners of the tournament were FM Rodion Rubenchik and the Pennsylvania State Champion, NM Peter Minear. Rubenchik and Minear had a quiet last-round draw to secure the joint victory.

Finishing in 3rd-7th place with scores of 3-1 were IM Smith, who was upset by Minear in a 3rd-round time scramble, Expert Joe Mucerino, Larry Saxby, Frank Jackson, and Richard Neal.

Most of the scholastic field was made up of players from Wyomissing High School and Springton Manor Elementary - many of these students got great experience playing against strong adult players, and it should serve them well at the upcoming state championship.

A unique aspect of the Friday Night Action tournaments is that there are no sections - thus, almost any matchup of players is theoretically possible. One of the most unlikely games in recent memory took place on second board in the third round. The top three seeds, Smith, Rubenchik, and Minear, all had 2-0 scores, but they were joined by 124-rated Nathan Shaffer of Wyomissing High School, playing in just his fifth tournament ever. Nathan defeated two higher-rated opponents in the early rounds, earning a third-round game with Rubenchik on board two. As far as this Tournament Director knows, no game between players this far apart in rating has ever been contested, as they clocked in with a whopping 2220-point differential. According to the USCF's rating formula, this gave Nathan less than a 0.0003% chance to win the game. Would he be able to pull off the upset of the century? (See below for the game.)

(IM Bryan Smith, left, takes on NM Peter MInear in their third-round game)

 (In the picture: Rubenchik, top left, takes on Shaffer, while Jonathan Wu, bottom left, battles Daniel Weissbarth)

White: Nathan Shaffer (124)
Black: FM Rodion Rubenchik (2344)

1.e4,e6
2.Nc3,d5
3.d3,Nf6
4.Nf3,c5
5.Bf4,Nc6
6.Ng5,h6
7.Nf3,Be7
8.Be2,a6
9.o-o,b5
10.d4,dxe4
11.Ne5,Nxd4
12.a3,Bb7
13.b4,cxb4
14.axb4,Bxb4
15.Na2,Be7
16.c3,Nxe2+
17.Qxe2,o-o                                     
18.Rad1,Qb6
19.Nd7,Nxd7
20.Rxd7,Rfe8
21.c4,Bc6
22.Rc7,Rac8
23.Rxc8,Rxc8
24.h4,b4
25.Qh5,Qc5
26.Rc1,Qxh5
27.Nxb4,Bxb4
28.Rb1,a5
29.c5,Qxh4
30.Bg3,Qg4
31.Re1,Bxc5
32.Kf1,Bb5+
33.Kg1,Qxg3
34.Kh1,Qh4+
35.Kg1,Bxf2++