MI Class Champs!

The Lansing Chess Club would like to congratulate Matt Hassen(class A) and Chris Irwin(class C) on winning their sections with the great score of 4.5/5 undefeated. Well done, Matt and Chris.

January Swiss

Congratulations to Matt Hassen for winning the top
 section with a perfect score! The bottom section
saw a three way tie for first. Congrats to Chris,
Edward and Rod!

      Top Section

--------------------------------------------------
Pair |     Name         |Total|Round|Round|Round|
Num  |     Rtg          | Pts |  1  |  2  |  3  |
--------------------------------------------------
  1 | MATT HASSEN      |3.0  |W   2|W   6|W   4|
 MI |    1968          |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  2 | ERIC FISCHVOGT   |2.0  |L   1|W   5|W   3|
 MI |    2200          |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  3 | ANTHONY NICHOLS  |1.5  |W   6|D   4|L   2|
 MI |    1981          |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  4 | GARY KITTS       |1.5  |W   5|D   3|L   1|
 MI |    1963          |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  5 | BRUCE ROTH       |1.0  |L   4|L   2|W   6|
 MI |    1666          |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  6 | RICHARD WILSON   |0.0  |L   3|L   1|L   5|
 MI |    1663          |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------


        Bottom Section

--------------------------------------------------
Pair |      Name        |Total|Round|Round|Round|
Num  |      Rtg         | Pts |  1  |  2  |  3  |
--------------------------------------------------
  1 | CHRIS IRWIN      |2.0  |W   4|W   3|L   2|
 MI |     1526         |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  2 | EDWARD SECZNEY   |2.0  |L   3|W   5|W   1|
 MI |     1437         |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  3 | ROD SCHAAF       |2.0  |W   2|L   1|W   6|
 MI |     966          |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  4 | CARRIE RANKIN    |1.5  |L   1|W   6|D   5|
 MI |    948P16        |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  5 | THIERRY LAURENS  |1.0  |D   6|L   2|D   4|
 MI |    1013          |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------
  6 | JACK EMAUS       |0.5  |D   5|L   4|L   3|
 MI |    724           |     |     |     |     |
--------------------------------------------------

Toroidal Chess

This blew my mind. Very fun to play, if you like chess variants.

For the non-math geeks, toroidal chess means chess played on a torus, which is math speak for the shape of a donut. A torus is a flat surface that is connected on all four sides. Imagine a chess board (7x7 actually, in this implementation), then bring the two opposite edges together to form a cylinder. Then bring the two ends of the cylinder together to form the torus (donut shape).

One very famous game is played on a torus: Asteroids. Remember this? When your ship flies off the left side you appear on the right, and off the bottom, to the top. So now in toroidal chess, you have a queen that can fly around pieces in the center of the board by going in the opposite direction, across the edges, which are actually meaningless. There are no edges in toroidal chess.

The pieces move almost the same as in normal chess, except for the pawns. With no edges, there is no pawn promotion, of course. And with no edges there is also no strict idea of direction either. So pawns can move 1 square immediately adjacent to it in any "direction", and capture to any square diagonally adjacent to it.

Visualizing this is somewhat difficult. You have two options to choose from: the fundamental domain and the tiling option. Tiling makes it look like there is more material on the board than there really is. It's just an option to make the different directions of attack more noticeable.

The fundamental domain. Note that the white queen and bishop both attack each of black's pawns.

Tiled, clearly seeing the many ways white can attack black.

Tiled, seeing the many ways black can attack white.

Imagine a king that you have to checkmate, but without a corner to do it in. Imagine a king that you must defend from every angle, not just one or two. This is is toroidal chess. We have 9 pieces: a king, a queen, two rooks, two pawns, two knights and a bishop. I haven't figured out why two bishops weren't included, perhaps because nine pieces fit nicely together. But why 2 knights? I'd rather substitute a knight for the other color bishop.

What is apparent is that you need more material to checkmate a king in toroidal chess. I haven't worked out the exact minimum. But king+queen vs king is not enough. I can imagine KQNvK working, but how do you force such a mating position? I checkmated the computer using a Queen and a rook in a game I just played:

Checkmate!

Michigan Top 100 - January 2009

1	GM ROGELIO ANTONIO JR	2593
2	IM BENJAMIN P FINEGOLD	2561
3	FM FRED LINDSAY	2409
4	BILL J CALTON	2320
5	AARON E KAHN	2302
6	SETH HOMA	2280
7	LEYUN WANG	2276
8	JUSTIN DALE DANIEL	2260
9	FM NATHAN SOLON	2227
10	DMITRIY N OBUKHOV	2213
11	DENNIS SEAWALD	2208
12	JIM MARFIA	2205
13	ERIC V FISCHVOGT	2203
14	MARK JACOB FINEGOLD	2200
15	KEVIN CZUHAI	2200
16	JOHN R BROOKS	2199
17	ARIEL S LEVI	2194
18	SILVIO CUNHA PEREIRA	2193
19	TIMOTHY J MCGREW	2170
20	AMEER SHAWKY GHOBRIAL	2160
21	JAMES CANTY III	2159
22	THOMAS HARTWIG	2153
23	ROBERT E O'DONNELL	2152
24	DYLAND XUE	2124
25	MANIS DAVIDOVICH	2114
26	ROBERT B CIAFFONE	2104
27	DAVID HAHN	2100
28	CORNEL FERENTI	2090
29	EUGENE BRUMLEY	2087
30	CVETAN NESTOROVSKI	2072
31	TONY PALMER	2064
32	MICKEY D MALOY	2062
33	JILESH RAJESHKUMAR GANDHI	2060
34	ALISHER SANETULLAEV	2051
35	PETER LINN	2049
36	MORGAN EVERETT	2029
37	SALAH CHEHAYEB	2028
38	JASON C MORRIS	2027
39	ANDREW SCHILLEMAN	2022
40	BRADLEY KEITH ROGERS	2015
41	WILLIAM E FULLER	2014
42	ROGER ROJAS-SUAREZ	2009
43	KRISHNAN SUDHARSAN	2007
44	LINEAS BAZE	2003
45	RON FINEGOLD	2003
46	REYNALDO P SANTIAGO	2000
47	THOMAS J MAZUCHOWSKI	2000
48	BARRY E ENDSLEY	2000
49	ANTHONY T NICHOLS	1999
50	TIMOTHY M MORONEY	1992
51	ANDREW JOHN KOBALKA	1991
52	GJERGJ DODAJ	1984
53	JENNIFER M SKIDMORE	1973
54	ATULYA ARYA SHETTY	1971
55	GARY KITTS	1970
56	PRASHANTHA N AMARASINGHE	1961
57	STANLEY J JAROSZ JR	1958
58	RATKO BOJANOVIC	1957
59	GARY PRATT	1957
60	VESTER LEE WILSON	1956
61	BRONSON GENTRY	1953
62	MAGDALENA MATYSZEWSKA	1951
63	WILLIAM W RHEE	1948
64	ANDREW G CATLIN	1944
65	MICHAEL BOWERSOCK	1935
66	EDWARD E BALL	1925
67	FREDERICK H LAHR	1914
68	MATT J HASSEN	1913
69	ALEXANDER LEHMANN	1910
70	DR SISIRA K AMARASINGHE	1909
71	MARSHALL J QUANDER	1906
72	JEFF R ALDRICH	1905
73	GREGORY E BAILEY	1905
74	JACK P WOOD	1904
75	MICHAEL SMITH	1903
76	JEREMY T SCHEIDT	1894
77	DANIEL H BOLDA JR	1892
78	JUSTIN L BROWN	1888
79	MANMOHAN DAS	1888
80	JACOB DAVID FORTUNA	1885
81	WAYNE GENE HICKEY	1884
82	BRAD W HILL	1884
83	DON L VANDIVIER	1884
84	C EDWARD FEE	1881
85	ATTILA T LEHOTZKY	1881
86	JOHN M GATTINGER	1881
87	ASHLEY CARTER	1873
88	TODD M MCAULIFFE	1872
89	BENSON SELITSKY	1869
90	JUSTIN BRERETON	1863
91	EDDIE SHELTON BARBER	1862
92	RONALD WILLIAMS	1859
93	SHAWN W BALE	1857
94	TONY D WEST	1853
95	BENJAMIN J BRANDT	1853
96	RANDALL BROOKS	1850
97	JEFF ALSON	1847
98	ZORAN STOJANOVSKI	1845
99	LOYD GENTRY	1842
100	RICHARD C HENKE	1840

December Swiss

With the January Swiss being this weekend, I  thought I'd post the results of the December Swiss.  Tony likes to copy all the text over and format it nicely.  I'm just going to link to the results page from the USCF website.

Tony doesn't like to take the credit he deserves.  This is his website: he started it.  I just work here.

V.E. Vandenburg

Sadly, Mr. Vandenburg passed away last week at the age of 104. His life memorial was held Friday afternoon and was attended by many in the Michigan chess community.  

Apologies for the late posting, I didn't find out until club on Friday myself.  I didn't know Mr. Vandenburg personally, but everyone that does has always spoken highly of him.  I'm confident his memory will live on for a long, long time.  The Vandenburg Cup will certainly remain one of Lansing's annual tournament events.

Please, if anyone has fond memories to share, post them in the comments.