Antics 2017-3 Fall.pdf

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Alabama Chess
The Official Publication
of the Alabama Chess
Federation
Antics
Fall 2017
Inside this issue:
State Championship
64: Play-by-Play
by Scott Varagona
The Fiercest Fight:
Markin-Varagona
by Scott Varagona
National Chess Day
Scholastic Report
by Caesar Lawrence
Jonathan Rasberry at
the Troy Classic
by Jonathan Rasberry
Fall Photo Gallery
by various contributors
4
10
16
18
20
Intense concentration: the National Chess Day Scholastic,
October 14, 2017.
(Photo by Ann Kreitlein.)
Page 2
Alabama Chess Antics
Greetings from the Editor
The 64th Alabama State Chess
Championship is now in the books. This
issue features a play-by-play report by me on
the Premiere Section of the championship, as
well as an in-depth annotation of the most
pivotal game: Markin-Varagona, Round 4.
Thanks to everybody who wished me well
before this very tense tournament; I hope to
represent Alabama well as its new state
champion.
In other news, the National Chess
Day Scholastic tournament (supporting
Children’s of Alabama) took place at
Brookwood Village on October 14, 2017.
TD
Caesar Lawrence
has a report for us on
this nice event.
More recently,
Jonathan Rasberry
succeeded in bringing the title of Troy
Classic Champion home to Troy, and he has
submitted a game with an interesting knight
versus bishop battle for us to enjoy.
Thanks to all these contributors as
well as the various members and friends of
the ACF who sent along photographs. You
are really helping to bring these recent chess
events to life in the pages of the
Antics.
If you recall, last issue we had an
avalanche of young players who achieved
their NM title. Although she is no longer an
Alabama resident,
Rochelle Wu
deserves a
shout-out for recently achieving this title, and
just barely missing the record for youngest
ever female NM awardee. Congratulations,
Rochelle! (At least I can brag that I certainly
“contributed” to this achievement…)
As always, if you have something
(games, annotations, reports, photos, etc.)
Rasberry-Varagona, AL State Ch. 2017, Round 6.
Black to play and force a draw. (See p. 8.)
you would like to submit, please send it to
the
Antics
Editor via the following email
address:
Alabama.Chess.Editor@gmail.com
It is
strongly preferred
for games and/or
annotations to be submitted in .pgn format.
I hope you have fun with the Fall
2017
Antics!
-Scott
Varagona
ACF Membership
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Regular Member
upon the payment of annual dues of
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Regular members may enter ACF tournaments
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to become an
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is required to file the
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$25.00.
Benefits of becoming an affiliate include the
right to bid to host ACF-sanctioned events,
such as the Alabama State Championship, and
to receive advertising through the ACF for your
tournaments.
Fall 2017
Page 3
Alabama Chess Leaderboard
Top 50 Ratings (retrieved from uschess.org on 11-20-17)
1
2
3
4
FM BRADLEY J DENTON
SCOTT VARAGONA
MATTHEW V PUCKETT
BILL MELVIN
2335 26
2293 27
2223 28
2206 29
MOHAK AGARWALLA
MICHAEL B GUTHRIE
CHARLES H ANTHONY
KENNETH JIAO
1869
1864
1845
1842
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
STEPHEN ADAMS
ARDEN QUINLAN MARKIN
STEPHEN JAMES GRAVELING
GERALD A LARSON
TEJAS VINAYAK THORAT
JOSEPH HAMILTON JURJEVICH
JOSHUA THOMAS MCCLELLAN
JOSH DIVINE
GEORGE RUSYNIAK
2201 30
2163 31
2150 32
2133 33
2111 34
2086 35
2085 36
2050 37
2032 38
RHODES PEELE
THOMAS H LAWRY
CHARLES A SMITH
STEVE MENGXI CHEN
RAY DOWNS
TIM BOND
WILLIAM DANIEL FOX
JEFF STORY
NATHAN H SAINT
1838
1831
1828
1826
1800
1800
1790
1780
1771
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
JONATHAN RASBERRY
CHARLES L MEIDINGER
JEREMIAH F DONAHUE
MILES MELVIN III
CHRISTOPHER TREES
AARON DECORD
KIRK D PETTY
TERRENCE W EDINBURGH
ROGER DEAN JOHNSON
2021 39
2002 40
2000 41
1986 42
1949 43
1921 44
1908 45
1901 46
1900 47
JOSHUA N WAKEFIELD
LUIS J MORENILLA
VIKHRAM BALAGEE
KENNETH SLOAN
DAVID HAYES
CAMPBELL A DOBBS
HARRY DUNCAN
MARK PETERSON
CHRISTIAN E FRIEDMAN
1757
1756
1751
1745
1741
1711
1700
1688
1684
23
24
25
JEFFREY BYRD JR
OM BADHE
KENNETH W GOODMAN
1900 48
1892 49
1887 50
DOUGLAS STROUT
LAWRENCE D FISK
JOSHUA HUGH LIN
1679
1672
1672
Page 4
Alabama Chess Antics
State Championship 64: Play-by-Play
By Scott Varagona
As chess players—especially
American chess players—we
can’t help
but attach some special significance to the
number 64. Of course, there is the
obvious reason, but there’s more: Bobby
Fischer finished his magical 11-0
performance at the U.S. Championship in
the year 1964. And, creepily enough,
Fischer was 64 years old when he passed
away. Coincidence?... All superstition
aside, when chess players see the number
64, their eyebrows always perk up. And,
even just subconsciously, we say to
ourselves: “There it is—that
special
number is following us around…”
For sure, the fact that there have
been 64 Alabama State Championship
tournaments is a remarkable milestone.
To celebrate, I have put together two
articles on the event. This first article
gives a round-by-round replay of the
tournament through my eyes, with
highlights from my games and notes on
key games by my competitors. Then, in
the next article, we take an in-depth look
at what I believe to be the biggest game
of the tournament: Markin-Varagona,
from Round 4. Here we go…
round was Om Badhe’s upset victory
over defending state champion Bill
Melvin. Sometimes Bill goes for these
aggressive Queen’s Gambit Accepted
setups as Black (with an early …e5), but
this time it backfired. He delayed castling
for so long that Om was able to crash
through with a Bxf7+! sacrifice that Bill
could not accept. A pawn down and with
a miserable position, Black continued to
fight on, but the result was almost
inevitable:
1-0.
A huge win for Om, and a
terrible blow for Bill—who, nonetheless,
has come back from such first-round
mishaps to win championships in the
past.
My tournament got off to a
slightly shaky start. I had a big positional
advantage against Mohak Agarwalla’s
King’s Indian, but then missed a tactic:
Varagona (2282) - Agarwalla,M (1873)
64th AL State Ch., Round 1
Round 1
Most of the first-round matchups
ended “appropriately,” with the higher
seeds taking down their lower-ranked
opponents. Still, the big story of the
Fall 2017
Page 5
31...Nf5!
Whoops! I can’t touch that knight,
for obvious reasons… I’d had
millions
of
chances to make luft with h2-h3 earlier,
but neglected to do so. Now I can’t
retreat my queen because the rook on a7
is lost, so I have to plunge ahead.
32.Rxe7 Nxd4 33.Re8 Nc2
Going after b4—but now, I have a
chance to turn the game in my favor:
34.Bg4 f5 35.exf5 Kf7
well, but you also need luck. Well, I think
I used up a whole year’s worth of luck to
win my round 2 game against Chris
Trees. I tried playing the Czech Benoni as
Black (as I’ve done successfully many
times this year), but this time I pushed
too far and tumbled into a strategically
busted position. Yet just when all hope
seemed lost, Chris blundered a bishop for
nothing and resigned two moves later.
Perhaps, after my tragic state tournament
last year, the chess gods have decided to
smile upon me this year?...
Once again, the top seeds showed
their might in this round. Tejas Thorat
took down Roger Johnson, Arden Markin
took out Aaron Decord, Jonathan
Rasberry beat Jeffrey Byrd, and Charles
Meidinger defeated Sarvagna Velidandla.
Round 3
The most interesting game of this
round was, no doubt, Markin-Rasberry. A
Two-Knights Caro-Kann occurred in
which Jonathan (as Black) went for the
line with …Bc8-g4-h5—one
of the most
hair-raising lines in the entire variation.
Tremendous complications ensued, but in
the end this long game ended in a draw.
I finally “woke up” after my
previous two lackluster games and was
alert enough to capitalize on Tejas
Thorat’s knight misstep:
Varagona (2282) - Thorat,T (2079)
64th AL State Ch., Round 3
36.Rxc8! Rxc8 37.fxg6+ Nxg6 38.Bxc8
and White went on to win (1-0). Thank
goodness Mohak missed that trick at the
end; otherwise, the game would have
started really getting out of control...
Round 2
I always say: to win an Alabama
State Championship, you need to play

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