Chess Tournament Services

The 2009 Las Vegas International Chess Festival commemorative CD, produced by me, is now available to purchase for just $20 (+$3 shipping).  Each CD contains:

Each CD will be safely packaged and shipped to you upon receipt of your order. I pride myself on prompt, friendly service and will do my best to ensure that you will be able to enjoy your CD in the shortest amount of time possible.

Click the below “Buy Now” button to securely purchase your copy.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that I have been chosen to be the Assistant Arbiter at the 2009 United States Chess Championship.

This year’s Championship will see twenty-four of the best players in the country battling it out over 9 rounds from May 8-17 in St. Louis, Missouri, for the title of 2009 US Chess Champion and nearly $200,000 in prize money.

Participating in the event are some of the strongest Grandmasters in the chess world such as Gata Kamsky, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Onischuk and last year’s Champion Yury Shulman.  International Arbiter Carol Jarecki will be the Chief Arbiter.

Complete information regarding the 2009 US Chess Championship can be found at the tournament website, http://www.uschesschamps.com.

I authored the following tournament report from the Eastern Class Championships in Sturbridge, which was published at Chess Life Online.

In weekend Swiss tournaments, so often the final round is anticlimactic with the top board, and one or two others, agreeing to peacefully end their weekend and secure some prize money for their efforts.  The CCA’s Eastern Class Championships held in the old rural village of Sturbridge, Massachusetts, this past weekend, March 6-8, was anything but your typical finish. It produced one of the most thrilling conclusions to a tournament I have had the pleasure to watch.

After all the excitement GM Darmen Sadvakasov and local fan favorite Marc Esserman, who has all his IM norms but not the necessary 2400 FIDE rating to receive the title, shared first place and pocketed around $1,200 each.

The 5th and final round saw six players tied at the top with 3 points.  Local Senior Master, Denys Shmelov, had already requested a half-point bye which left five players battling it out for the money.  On board one was the all GM match-up of Giorgi Kacheisvili and Sadvakasov, board two saw Esserman against GM Alex Shabalov while on board three another local player, FM Paul MacIntyre got “dropped” a score group to play the highest player on 2½, GM Sergey Kudrin.

Read the complete article at Chess Life Online…

I was awarded 2008 US Chess League Blogger of the Year for the work I did for the Boston Blitz at http://www.boston-blitz.com.

However, although I did create the website and put a lot of work and effort into it, the Boston Blitz website was a total team effort.  Particular thanks go to Mark LaRocca for his weekly reports and wonderful constant feedback on how to improve things and to Ilya Krasik for writing a handful of articles that received more comments and web traffic than all of my posts combined for the whole two years!

I would also like to thank Matt Phelps, the Blitz Manager, for making life easy with the wonderful facilities that were provided and to the entire Blitz team for providing the results to keep up going to the Finals for two years in a row and for making attending the matches such an enjoyable, friendly experience.

Lastly I would like to thank the US Chess League for providing this wonderful opportunity for players and fans across the country (and world) to participate in such an incredibly worthwhile venture.

The complete award article from the USCL can be viewed at http://usclnews.blogspot.com/2008/12/blogger-of-year.html.

After waiting for what seemed like months, I have eventually been awarded the title of FIDE Arbiter.  The title was awarded at the Dresden FIDE Congress, which took place during the Olympiad in November, 2008.

This title will allow me to direct FIDE rated tournaments and allow me to award norm certificates to players meeting the performance requirements in FIDE events.  It will also allow me to train future FIDE Arbiters.

The full press release made by the United States Chess Federation can be viewed at http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8942/319/.