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/.

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…

I authored the following tournament report from the 2007 US Women’s Chess Championship held in Stillwater, OK, which was published as the cover story of the October 2007 edition of Chess Life Magazine.

Standing in the playing room was a young lady with rosy, shining cheeks, a glowing smile and a joyful look on her face. It was a refreshing sight given that over the previous five days, her look had been more determined: very serious with the fate of the world seemingly resting on her shoulders. Her head was usually buried in a book when she wasn’t playing chess, staying out of the limelight and just generally minding her own business. The jubilant lady was IM Irina Krush, winner of the Frank K. Berry 2007 U.S. Women’s Championship held in Stillwater, Oklahoma, from July 16-20, 2007. Going into the tournament as the slight favorite had caused Irina to take the tournament even more seriously than usual, preparing for the event with a determination to succeed and live up to the chess nation’s high expectations. Irina’s performance was very businesslike. She came to the tournament with a job to do and she did it. There was nothing spectacular about her games, no brilliant sacrificial slaughters and nothing to make use of the regular “Krushing” puns that typically accompany her name in chess articles. After five grueling days over the chessboard, her second U.S. Women’s Championship title was secured thanks to an overnight change in her opening repertoire, and also thanks to a young 16-year-old playing in her first tournament! More on that later. The championship was a 10-player round-robin event with the top-rated female players in the country invited to participate. Despite a few players declining invitations that I’m sure we would all like to see participate (Polgar, Goletiani, Shahade), when the final list was compiled we had two IMs, Irina Krush and Anna Zatonskih; two WGMs, Camilla Baginskaite and Katerina Rohonyan; two WIMs, Batchimeg Tuvshintugs and Tsagaan Battsetseg; and four WFMs, Tatev Abrahamyan, Chouchanik Airapetian, Elizabeth Vicary and Alisa Melekhina. The average USCF rating was 2290. Of the players, three of them had previously won the title: Anna Zatonskih in 2006, Camilla Baginskaite in 2000 and Irina Krush in 1998 when she was just 14.

Read the complete article at Chess Life Magazine Online…