The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

Hi Normand:

Thx for the positive feedback. It is fun to do, and encouragement makes it even more fun!! Glad you find it of interest.

Bob

[Normand Arsenault]

Re: The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

I enjoy this blog Bob.

Please continue with it for the remainder of the tournament.

Norm

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: TIO - U 1900 - Day 1, Sunday, July 15 – Rds. 1 & 2 ( Pt. II )

Part II ( continued from above post )

Rd. 1 Results in U 1900 ( Top Boards )

Noritsyn, Sergey 1750 1 - 0 Chen, Richard 1880
Romero Alfonso, Carlos 1864 ½ – ½ Liu, Jiaxin ( Dora ) 1749
Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748 1 – 0 Finlay, Ian 1859
Zhong, Joey 1847 1 – 0 Wang, Eric 1724
Prost, Bernie 1721 0 – 1 Xu, Jeffrey 1832
Oganesyan, Hayk 1829 ½ – ½ Blium, Benjamin 1712
McNelly, Peter 1703 0 – 1 Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Coren, Daniel 1821 ½ - ½ Yang, Bryant 1702

My Rd. 1 Game/Result

Nickoloff, Steve 1- 0 – Armstrong, Robert

Post Rd. 1

The Scarborough CC contingent of Mario, myself, Doug Gillis, Dinesh Dattani, and Ken Kurkowski, all decided to go out to a local Bathurst restaurant for early dinner shortly after 4:00 PM – some games were still continuing ( the time control is Game/90 + 30 sec. increment - the increment is always a wild card in tournaments, since a tough game can theoretically go on forever, and run into the start of the next round, and delay pairings for the next round ). Then Mario, Ken and I went to have a coffee at the Green Beanery, on Bloor, before the next round. Rd. 2 started on time at 6:00 PM

Rd. 2 Results in U 1900 ( Top Boards )

Only 3 of the 9 favourites won their first game! They were joined by six 1700’s who had won:

Maheux, Pierre 1776 0 – 1 Zhong, Joey 1847
Xu, Jeffrey 1832 0 – 1 Yu, Patrick 1781
Chidley-Hill, John 1827 1- 0 Nickoloff, Steve 1769
Zotkin, Daniel 1784 1 – 0 Noritsyn, Sergey 1750
Preotu, Rene 1838 ( .5 ) 0 – 1 Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748

My Rd. 2 Game/Result

Armstrong, Robert J 1645 1 – 0 McNelly, Peter 1703

I now had climbed back to 50%! I was no longer on the bottom!

Standings in U 1900 After 2 Rounds ( the 5 with perfect scores – 2/2 )

Zhong, Joey 1847
Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Zotkin, Daniel 1784
Yu, Patrick 1781
Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748

The Leaders Rd. 3 Pairings Get Tough – Winners Play Winners ( Starting Favourites in Bold )

Zhong, Joey 1847 – Zotkin, Daniel 1784
Oliveira, Rodrigo 1748 – Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Yu, Patrick 1781 – Zhang, John 1773 ( 1.5 )

Heading Home
Mario finished his game a bit early ( a loss ), and so had some time to go park his car for the week at his daughter’s, not too far away. I had finished when he returned. The games concluded a bit after 10:00 PM, and Mario and I headed out to the Bathurst Subway Station to head back to my place

Late Hours of the Day 1

Mario and I got home about 11:00 PM. We were starved, so I cooked us up some hotdogs, while we both guzzled a beer, and chatted about our games. Then Mario went to settle into the basement guest room, and I headed upstairs to my study, and my trusty computer, Robo, to finish this Day 1 blog, and post it here on ChessTalk, and repost it on the Cooperative Chess Coalition ( CCC ) Facebook chess discussion board, CCC – Chess Posts of Interest. It got posted in the wee hours of Monday morning.

Invitation.

Finally, I'd like again to invite everyone to join into the discussion - any comments, suggestions, questions, criticisms of the blog are welcome - and of anything to do with the Toronto International Open. I will try to respond where it seems appropriate.

Bob, Intrepid Warrior!

[Bob Armstrong]

TIO - U 1900 - Day 1, Sunday, July 15 – Rds. 1 & 2 ( Part I )

TIO – Day 1, Sunday, July 15 – Rds. 1 ( 12:00 PM ) & 2 ( 6:00 PM )

Wee Hours of the Morning - Introducing the Blog

I posted the introduction for the blog ( above ) here on ChessTalk at about 1:00 AM Sunday morning.

Later in the Morning

At prior Canadian Open tournaments, and most weekend tournaments, my sleeping goes into “ tournament mode “. This means I often get only 4-5 hours sleep. And it doesn’t seem to matter when I go to bed, or how tired I am. My eyes just flutter open, and I am rested. And it generally seems that I am not overly tired by the end of the day ( though I’ll be 67 years old later this month ). So I went to bed at 12:30 AM this morning, and lo and behold, I’m wide awake at 5:30 AM – starting the sequence off with 5 hours sleep, with the first two rounds to play today. May as well shower, and get at life!
Afterwards, I went to my trusted friend, Robo, my computer, to do some prep work for keeping this blog. First was to get the obligatory morning coffee. Second task – get the most up-to-date pre-registrations for my U 1900 section ( I am rated 1645 ). The TD, Aris Marghetis, of Ottawa, had kindly posted early this morning ( after I went to bed ) the latest update as of 7:00 PM Saturday, when pre-registrations by on-line had closed – 29 players in my group. So I was able to make up my score chart for my section, where I fill in the results and standings as the tournament progresses, to report on it all here, in the blog.

Next was to do a partial draft of my Day 1/Rds.! & 2 blog – I try to type up the template as much as possible during the day, before the round begins, so that in the late evening and early hours of the next morning, I have much less to do, to complete the day’s blog and post it, hopefully that evening, or early next morning. Some of this will depend on the system the TD has for pubic posting of results of rounds, and the time of that. I will not likely be able to get results for all games from the results page being filled in in the tournament hall, or not at all if the results are given in by “ results card “. We’ll just have to see how it all goes.

Got some breakfast, and then continued the partial draft blog. About 9:30, I continued entering games from Rd. 6 of the Scarborough CC Spring into Summer Swiss. I do this as a volunteer effort at my club, serving as Chair of our SCC Games Database Committee. At the end of each tournament, the tournament database of SCC member games is sent out to each member, to be able to play over the games of other members during the tournament. I intended to finish off at 10:15 AM, and then start to prepare to leave for the playing hall by public transit..

One point of some interest, is that when I play in a longer tournament, my wife of 41 years hightails it out of sight to our Meaford farm for the week. She says I’m useless while playing, and better to be off enjoying her gardening and reading! So, as a result, I’m alone. But when we did renovations two years ago, we added a small guest room in the basement. So Mario Moran-Venegas, a chess friend from my chess club, Scarborough CC in Toronto, who is playing in the same U 1900 section, is going to make a reappearance in this blog, in his somewhat glorious role of chess companion! Mario is from out-of-town, and so this works well for him. He came and stayed with me during the 2011 Toronto Canadian Open, and gained some notoriety during his blog role at that time. We look for great things from him again this year! He checked in with me on Sunday night to confirm we were still on ( concerned about the Annex air conditioning – I don’t know if it is air conditioned – it wasn’t when they first started holding weekend tournaments a few years ago ). I said I’d see him at the playing hall before Rd. 1.

The U 1900 Favourites

As I mentioned, there are 29 pre-registrations in my section ( and there likely may be a few last minute on-site registrations, to be added to the following list ). I’d have to consider the 1800’s on the list, the favourites, being the highest rated – there are at pre-registration: 8 1800’s, 15 1700’s, and 6 1600’s. There were 5 on-site registrations with one being in the 1800’s, and the other four in the 1700’s ( the section now totaled 34 players, with me still on the bottom ). So, here are the 9 1800’s who we’ll be watching, until some from the pack jump up into the lead as well:

Chen, Richard 1880
Romero Alfonso, Carlos 1864
Finlay, Ian 1859
Zhong, Joey 1847
Preotu, Rene 1838
Xu, Jeffrey 1832
Oganesyan, Hayk 1829
Chidley-Hill, John 1827
Coren, Daniel 1821

Off to Battle!

The TIO is being played at the Annex CC, 918 Bathurst Street, just north of the first signal light north of Bloor ( and just north of the Bathurst Subway Station ). I live near the Greenwood Station, on the Danforth side of the Bloor-Danforth east/west subway line. So getting to Annex is pretty easy….generally. But today, the happy little Toronto Transit Commission ( TTC ) has decided they need to do work on the subway tracks from Broadview ( 4 stops west of me ) to St. George Station ( 5 further stops west ). Bathurst Subway station is then just 2 stops west of St. George! There will be shuttle buses running along Bloor from Broadview to St. George - my prior experience with this is tremendously long lines, and too few buses – in other words, a long wait. But there is no way to avoid this problem. And it seems it is just in the morning, since service is apparently supposed to resume at 12:00 PM – too late for me! So I decided to leave for the playing hall at 10:30 AM to give myself some wiggle room – the Rd. 1 starts at noon ( what Rd. 1 ever gets off on time? ). I socked a good book into my bag.

But at about 10:00 PM, Mario called to say he was coming from Angus, a little over an hour from Toronto, where he lives. He intended to go to the playing hall and park there for the day ( and then go park at his daughter’s for the rest of the tournament – parking around Annex is not easy - and then come to my place ). So he said he could pick me up in about a half hour, and we could go to the hall together. He had waited ‘til he was close to Toronto to call on this, since you can never be sure if there might be a back-up on the Hwy 400 he takes to Toronto, and if there was a problem , he wouldn’t have had time - I was saved! So I continued to enter the SCC games until he arrived. My great wife called soon after from our Meaford farm, where she was hiding out from my chess, to wish me luck – she knows I need it ( since Jan. 2011, my rating has plummeted from 1811 to 1645 )!! Mario showed up, true to his word, at around 10:30 AM. He got himself settled in the guest room, and we were off to the hall at 11:00 AM!

Pre-Rd. 1

While waiting for Rd. 1 to get paired, and started, I saw a number of familiar faces, and chatted with some friends. Also said “ Hi “ to a number of juniors in my section, who are from my Scarborough CC ( and all of whom have defeated me in our last encounters! – nothing like a challenge ). The hall was nicely set up, with tablecloths on all the tables, giving all us patzers the sense of “ professional chess “. Rd. 1 got going relatively on time, at about12:20 PM.

Continued in Part II below

[Erik Malmsten]

Re: The Toronto International U 1900 Blog

I assume that there were a couple of late entries today (Ed Zator and Greg Beal?), but based on this list, Bob, you have to play 4 of the 6 FIDE-rated players to get your first published FIDE rating. Luckily, you don't have to beat any of them, as they will be tough opponents. But you may not meet enough of them.

The 20 unrated-FIDE players will have to score 1/3 against the 6 FIDE-rated players to start a partial rating. There will be a couple of new FIDE listed players.

U1900 Section fide/cfc rating

1880f/1827 John Chidley-Hill
1848f/1864 Carlos Romero
1792f/1859+CO Ian Finlay
1763f/1784 Daniel Zotkin
1708f/1750 Sergey Noritsyn
1669f/1749 Jiaxin Liu

partial 2/7f/1773 Mario Moran-Venegas
partial 1/4f/1724 Nicholas O'Bumsawin
partial 2/8f/1702 Bryant Yang
partial 1.5/4f/1659 Zhanna Sametova
partial 1/5f/1645 Robert Armstrong

unr/1712+CO Benjamin Blium scored 5-4 in the U2000 section of the Canadian Open, but I don't think that section was FIDE rated.

In the U2200 Oleg Tseluiko & David Cohen need to get a point to start their FIDE rating. Stephan Tonakanian just got his first published rating while Ben Olden-Cooligan and Constantine Khayutin will get enough games for a published rating.

The U1600 section will not have any FIDE-ratable games.

[Jordan S. Berson]

Re: TIO - Day 1 - Pre-Rd. 1

Bob,

I used to always play up one or two sections when I grew up in Montreal. My rationale was simple: A 5-round tournament for $50 meant that I would get at least three or four full slow games against higher-rated players for only $10 per game.

Also, even the top player in a U2000 tournament is not always the favourite, so fighting for a win in each game to try to win prize money added unnecessary pressure. My wins against much stronger opponents would be brilliant, my losses would be lessons, and I would always go home from the tournament with way more than $50 worth of valuable knowledge and satisfaction- especially when I would analyse my games afterward and the big players would chip in their analyses.

Just keep your eye on the goal by maximizing what you can learn from your games, rather than pressuring yourself to win every round. In the long run, your losses will turn into lessons, and your lessons will turn into wins ;)

Good luck! Jordan

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: TIO - Day 1 - Pre-Rd. 1

Hi Gerry:

Thanks for the words of wisdom - I'm definitely going " uphill " in this one!!

Bob

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: TIO - Day 1 - Pre-Rd. 1

Now added to the list of top titled players are IM Artiom Samsonkin and IM Arthur Calugar. This brings the GM/IM total to 7 players. Looking like it should be a battle for first in the Crown section.

There are now 29 pre-registered players in my U 1900 section, and I am still on the bottom!:(

I hope to post my full Day 1 blog, reporting on Rds. ! & 2, late this evening, before midnight, hopefully.

Bob

Don`t worry, you fight best when you fight uphill :)

[Bob Armstrong]

TIO - Day 1 - Pre-Rd. 1

Now added to the list of top titled players are IM Artiom Samsonkin and IM Arthur Calugar. This brings the GM/IM total to 7 players. Looking like it should be a battle for first in the Crown section.

There are now 29 pre-registered players in my U 1900 section, and I am still on the bottom!:(

I hope to post my full Day 1 blog, reporting on Rds. ! & 2, late this evening, before midnight, hopefully.

Bob

[Bob Armstrong]

Your intrepid CFC Governor is going to play in the mid-sized tournament between July 15 ( today ), and Friday, July 20, the Toronto International Open ( TIO ). It is a 7 round, three section, swiss. It can be classed as a notch above the normal local weekend swiss. Playing in the " Crown " section are 3 GM's and 2 IM's :

GM Sambuev. Bator - current Canadian Champion;
GM So, Wesley - one of the world's 2700 players, and top player in the Philippines;
GM Rozentalis. Eduardas - of Lithuania;
IM Noritsyn, Nikolay - former Canadian Champion;
IM Panjwani, Raja - former Canadian Junior Champion

In a number of prior years, I have played in the major 9-round Canadian Open Championship ( Unfortunately, I had to miss this year's Victoria, B.C. version ). For each time I've played them, recently, I have carried on an U 2000 Section blog on this board, with Larry's blessing! I have always gotten very positive feedback to my blog over the years, and it has been fun to do it, and to highlight what happens with us class players, down in the bowels of the tournament. It gets next to no coverage during the tournament, usually.

So for the TIO, I have decided to again post an U 1900 Blog on this board ( I am the bottom rated of 26 pre-registered players in the section, at 1645 ). But this year, since the Cooperative Chess Coalition ( CCC ), of which I am founder and Coordinator, is now running the CCC FB chess discussion board, CCC - Chess Posts of Interest, I thought " Likes " from other countries, might also like to see what a Canadian class player does while playing in a longer somewhat major tournament. I blog not only about the tournament, but about my life during the tournament, off the chess board. So I will also be reposting my Canadian postings there - I hope that you, and the FB " Likes ", will find them somewhat interesting. I invite comments from all, and will try to respond to any questions. See you all after rd. 2 tonight, or early tomorrow AM.

Bob, CFC Governor & CCC Member/Coordinator, Canada