Kamsky - Karagianis, Denver Open 2015

Denver - June. I missed the Friday night (June 12) lecture marathon with Brian and Gata and the following simul while hiking in the North Cheyenne Canyon near Colorado Springs with Emily. Our original intent was to check out Jeff Baffo's recommendation of Seven Falls but it was unfortunately closed for renovations. Maybe they're installing a Starbucks inside one of the mountains?

In fact, the trail we chose was rather poorly thought out. It resulted in 8 miles of up-and-down grueling trail work. Nonetheless, it was beautiful, and I highly recommend a visit and a hike along the Columbine trail (Both lower, mid, and upper if you want to take the real Pepsi challenge).

 All day Saturday it was a struggle to get up from the board. Something between my middle back and right hip (maybe a flexor? idk) was seriously sore and it probably confused an opponent or two to see me elevate myself from the chair like an octogenarian and limp my way out of the playing hall. It turns out that eight miles of near-tree-line hiking was about six and a half miles too many.

 But ok, the tournament began and sooner rather than later I found myself behind the roped-off boards battling Super-GM Gata Kamsky in the third round. I asked Brian to hold off e-mailing the moves to the list until I could get a .pgn of the game formulated with a few notes, and he kindly agreed. Here it is.

A Farewell to the Riviera

The storied Riviera was recently purchased by the Nevada Convention Authority and is set to be demolished.

I always enjoyed playing at the Riv, it had an old world charm and a perfect setup for a large convention. The rooms were always spacious and quiet, secluded away from the main casino. I'll never forget playing WBCA rated games against Emory Tate and Aleks Wojtkiewicz in the large conference hall, then sharing a beer or two with the top GMs at one of the Riviera's several bars.

Once, in 2007 or 2008, after the Riviera added a small poker room just off the convention concourse, I sat down after the 6th round of the National Open to find myself the lowest rated chess player at the poker table. GMs Jan Ehlvest, Dmitriy Gurevich, Varuzhan Akobian, and IM Andranik Matikozian filled out the game.

I bluffed Ehlvest with a 3 8 offsuit (was playing the board) and showed it to him. Ahh, the memories!

Action from the US G/10 Championship

The US Game/10 Championship is underway in Las Vegas at the Westgate Resort and Casino. Below is a recreation of a key position from an interesting game in the 4th round between FM Cameron Wheeler and GM Rauf Mamedov.

Arrived at National Open

As of the morning of June 18th, I am currently the 36th(t) seed out of 88 players in the Championship section.

There are currently 18 GMs participating, including former FIDE 2700+ players Gata Kamsky, Alexey Dreev, and (I think) Rauf Mamedov.

Full link to pre-entries here:

http://www.vegaschessfestival.com/registration/advance-entries/