I authored the following tournament report from the 2007 New England Masters held in Peabody, MA, which was published in the November 2007 edition of Chess Life Magazine.

The main idea behind the New England Masters was to have a nine-round event in the USA in which title norms could be achieved, particularly by American participants—and giving up-and-coming players the experience of playing tough opponents in every round. Unfortunately, there were no norms achieved, although IM Dean Ippolito’s result would have been good enough for a GM norm and FM James Critelli’s result would have been good enough for an IM norm had they been able to play just one more foreign opponent to meet the necessary requirements. 23-year-old German GM Leonid Kritz was the winner of the New England Masters, held in Peabody (near Boston) from August 13-17, 2007. Kritz went through the whole tournament undefeated on his way to finishing with 7/9, a half-point ahead of GM Alex Shabalov, U.S. Champion and Ippolito.

Read the complete article at Chess Life Magazine Online…