Round One Report

First of all, let me give you everyone a laugh and tell you about one of my most embarrassing experiences ever. Have you ever seen the Southwest Airlines commercials, you know, the ones that end with the punch line "wanna get away?"

Let me paint the picture. I am a Tournament Director at the event, as well as doubling up as MonRoi live/onsite coverage, and even tripling up as keeping on top of this website. The pairings for the 1st round came out a few minutes late and so I gave MonRoi's to players I know and kept score of the other games myself.

On board two I see the names Dan Wolf and GM Tigran Petrosian. I think to myself "wow, the great Tigran Petrosian is playing in this event!" Play starts and this board is moving much quicker than the other games. Suddenly Petrosian, an oldish looking fellow after playing chess at a high level for so many years, plays an attacking move and Wolf, a young kid obviously on a hiding to nothing, ignores it with his own counter-attack. I watch the position develop as Petrosian sacrifices the exchange for an attack, which looks pretty strong. Petrosian then decides to sacrifice another piece (a knight on f5), which is declined and the piece stays en-prise for a few moves before Wolf has the gall to actually take it. Wolf, surprisingly, has seen a good defense and ends up in a position a whole rook up. Eventually, after what I presume was about 30 minutes looking for a perpetual check, the great Petrosian plays a check, Wolf plays the right king move and Petrosian resigns. An upset on board two of about 400 points!

When the score popped up on my screen, it was then that I realized it said Wolf 0-1 Petrosian. I looked at the pairings sheet I had and gasped in horror when I realized these guys had been playing with the wrong colors. I grabbed Wolf and let him know that when he marks up the results, he has to cross out the names and reverse them. He looks at me, and then tries to ask in his broken, but understandable, English "I mark up the result 0-1?" I try to explain again what has happened and that he should reverse the colors, thinking that I was going to probably have to go to the results room and do it for him. At that point, IM Mesgen Amanov comes over and, since we know each other, I try explaining it to him and then he explains everything in Russian to Wolf. After Wolf and Amanov talk together a little in Russian, Amanov then says "so Nakamura was playing with the wrong color?" (Referring to Nakamura playing on board 1.) I said "no, he was playing with the wrong color, he should have had white," pointing to Wolf. I got a confused look. So again, I say "Mr. Wolf should have had white but mark it up as 0-1 and change the names." Suddenly Amanov said "but this is Petrosian."

This is now the point where the voice over would come in and say "wanna get away?" After apologizing profusely to GM Tigran Petrosian for my, ahem, misunderstanding, I crawled away back to my little desk to get back on with my duties, thinking about what a stupid idiot I looked like! Tomorrow, when I get organized a little, I will take photos of the players so that hopefully I can play on the sympathy vote with everyone.

As for the rest of the games from round 1 of the 4-day schedule, GM Hikaru Nakamura (maybe he'll be blogging on his Chicago Open progress?) made relatively easy work of Matt Perry Parry (like he hasn't heard that one before) on board 1 while 7 times Chicago Open Champion, GM Alex Shabalov, out calculated FM Andrew Karklins in a complicated position on board 3. Newly crowned US Champion, GM Yury Shulman, had a fight on his hands with Seth Homa on board 4, surviving to be the last game to finish in the round, but eventually succumbing to a subtle final pawn push in the ending.

Of the other GMs that graced us with their presence in the 4-day schedule, GM Varuzhan Akobian beat CLO blogger, Jonathan Hilton, on board 5, GM Julio Becerra beat Loal Davis on 6, Mexican GM, Gilberto Hernandez, beat David Filipovich on 7, GM Yermolinsky beat Silvio Pereira on board 8 and GM Dashzeveg Sharavdorj beat Leonardo Campiz on board 11.  The only GM to slip a half-point to anyone was GM Alonso Zapata who was held to a draw by Glenn Bady down on board 10.

On board 9 the "quest for 2500" got underway with IM (yes, I've got all my norms) Josh Friedel having to play against his good friend, WFM Iryna Zenyuk. It's always tough to play a friend but unfortunately for Zenyuk, Friedel was in a fighting mood and he managed to finish her off with a neat little mating combination as she suffered in time trouble. This should help him pick up a couple of points in his quest to reach 2500 and secure his GM title.

As you may have noticed, live games are being broadcast here on this site. Also, check out the PGN database as it has a few more games than you can view on the live games viewer. I plan to try and bring you as many live games as possible but there are still a few players out there that just refuse to use the MonRoi for one reason or another.

Tomorrow (noon CST) sees the start of the 3-day schedules and then they all merge in round 3 in the evening. I hope you keep checking in over the weekend and I will try to put up as many reports as possible. Enjoy the show!

Chris Bird