2009 Class Championships Round 1 of 6
on 11/11/09 7:00 PM 30/60, SD/60, 5 sec delay
This popular annual event awards trophies to the winners and bragging rights for the whole year! This year since there has been such great interest in the shorter time control of G/90 versus our normal 40/90, SD/60, (in fact the last tournament had twice as many players in the G/90 section) we are trying out an intermediate time control of 30/60, SD/60. This is a 4 hour game, half way between the 3 hour G/90 and the 5 hour 40/90, SD/60. So those players who like to get home early will be streched a little bit, but we should be done just after 11 PM instead of the very tough after midnight that the full time control permits. So I hope this compromise will work out, but we will see, it is just an experiment.
Entry Fee: $25, must be paid by round 2 or there is a $5 fine. Two byes allowed, last round bye (on 12/16/09) must be requested before the start of round 2.
There are 5 Sections with a total of 62 players so far :
"The Masters" (12 players so far)
Bd 1 Fausto Robles - Raoul Crisologo 0-1
Bd 2 Alejandrino Baluran - Mario Amodeo 1/2-1/2
Bd 3 Jamieson Pryor - Ben Barquin 1-0
Bd 4 Jim Humphrey - Roberto Aiello 1-0
Bd 5 Paul Agron - Mariano Lozano 1-0
Bye: John Funderburg, Jason Qu
Class A (16 players so far)
Bd 10 David Delgadillo - Bob Defore 1-0
Bd 11 Dayne Freitag - Buddy Morris 1-0
Bd 12 Tom Fries - David Saponara 1/2-1/2
Bd 13 Chris Wonnell - Robert Draper 1-0
Bd 14 Fawsi Jose Murra - Esteban Escobedo 0F-1F
Bd 15 Pejman Sagart - Damani Fair 1-0
Bd 16 Shaun Sweitzer - Chuck Ensey 0-1
Bye: Joel Batchelor, Alfredo Deleon
Class B (13 players so far)
Bd 18 Ron Rezendes - Mayra Murra 1-0
Bd 19 Julian Rodriguez - Jerry Soelberg 1-0
Bd 20 Philip Skiba - Tom Kuhn 1/2-1/2 Phil is a house player
Bd 21 Steve Perry - Matt Souza 0-1
Bd 22 Fred Borges - Rocio Murra 0-1
Bd 23 Erik Marquis - Brian Kelly 1-0
Bye: Daniel Barone, Mark Lawless
Class C (11 players so far)
Bd 25 Robert Samuel - James Coulston 0-1
Bd 26 Robert Henderson - Karl Lindberg 1-0
Bd 27 Roger Wathen - Jim Krooskos 1-0
Bd 28 James Sturtevant - Cristhian Garcia 1/2-1/2
Bd 29 Patrick Edwards - Rob Dieringer 1-0
Bye: Jerry Qu
Class D and below (10 players so far)
Bd 30 Arnold Berlin - Darryl Woodson 1-0
Bd 31 Bill Murray - Shaun Sullivan 1-0
Bd 32 Maria Murra - Monica Ness 0-1
Bd 33 Michael Herzog - Edgar Lopez 1-0 Mike is a house player
Bd 34 Keith Wetterer - Tom Lavoy 0-1
Bye: Samuel Odedina
Please email chucnglo@aol.com to join this event or request a bye.
Tentative Pairings for Round 2 will be posted on Thursday night.
I have been away from chess for a few months and intend to get back into the swing of things within the next few weeks.
ReplyDeleteI am a tad disappointed with the time controls in the Class Championship. 30/60 is really just a little faster than a gambito. I imagine most games are essentially over in 30 moves. As in a gambito, a time control of 30/60 practically means you are in time pressure from the start. For my part 30/90 G 30 seems better. With that time control at least you have time for one good think. But with 30/60 you really don't have much choice but to blitz out your moves every 120 seconds.
Still, I do like the gambitos, so somewhere there must be a happy medium.
Good Luck to all and I will be seeing you soon!
John Rinaldo
Thanks for your comments John, the message board seems to be quiet lately, maybe this will stir things up! Time controls are always a HOT topic... There are basically two camps, those who like the really long controls like yourself and then those who prefer to get home at a reasonable hour and don't mind speeding things up a bit. I hate to tell you, but the way of the world is moving towards faster time controls, even in FIDE. I like your suggestion of 30/90, G/30, we will definitely try that one next year. I disagree that this time control is almost as fast as a Gambito, this is a 4 hour game, way more than twice as long as a Gambito (one and a half hours). Plus many people play their first 6 or 10 moves rather fast (book moves or pet lines), so then it is much easier to make it to 30 moves without too much trouble. Most game are NOT over after 30 moves, they are just getting warmed up. I'd rather have that last hour for the 2nd 30 moves than only have 30 minutes for the end of the game (with 30/90, SD/30), but that is just my preference. I would love to hear others chime in on this topic...
ReplyDeleteHey:
ReplyDeleteI just checked the games being played at the Tal Memorial in Russia. After 6 rounds over 50% of the games were over by move 31 and 60% by move 40
Although, it is true that most players play the first 6 or 7 moves fairly quickly by move 10 most club players are on their own and are already in a pretty complex middle game. It is my opinion and seems to hold out in most games, the most difficult part of the middle game exists from move 12 to 25. This is the part of the game that burns up the clock!
Additionally, Even if the game isn't over by move thirty, for the most part the game is effectively decided by then! One player usually has such an edge that the result is just a matter of technique.
Randomly looking at Capa's best games in Golombeck's book, over half were over before move 37. And remember he was possibly the greatest endgame player in the history of the game, so many games are included just because they are end game gems.
A claim that most players prefer shorter time limits doesn't seem to be supported by the most popular tournament held in the US. Such as the World Open, National Open, North American Open, US Open etc. Although in these tournaments the first few rounds can be played on a shorter day schedule, however, when the rubber hits the road, the games revert to 40/2 SD ! hr.
Of course the San Diego club players may prefer quicker time limits and that makes sense since the rounds start at 7 and most players have to get up early the next day!
So expediency trumps longer time controls.
In the old days, the Wednesday Night games at the Marshall, Manhattan and Steiner clubs handled the late games with adjournments. That worked out quite well! But with computer analysis, I guess that is no longer practical. However these clubs held their most important club tournaments with rounds on Friday night. Games on Friday allowed for games to continue to conclusion. Or in the 1940s and 50s games were played at the incredibly slow time limit of 40 in two and a half hours!and then even on Friday night, games were adjourned.Really fun times were had with the team tournaments. Again, adjournment was usual. Then the whole team would pour over the adjourned position to find the best moves. Really contributed to a feeling of esprit de corps, even among rivals!
Considering all of the above factors, it seems to me that 30/90 SD30, is probably the best compromise. With five second delay, in most cases the advantage gained in the middle game over the first thrity moves should be sufficient to carry over to victory in the last thirty minutes.
Additionally, the 30/90 means that blunders during the middle game are less likely to be a result of time pressure.
As always life is easy, chess is hard!.
John Rinaldo
Hi Chuck,
ReplyDeleteWe appreciate if you could also remember to announce our weekly chess960 gathering on Thursdays.
Thanks :)