Thursday, January 22, 2009

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.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

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!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Michigan Top 100 - January 2009

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

Monday, January 5, 2009

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.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

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.