The Travels of Conrado

Conrado at the Mechanics Instiute Chess Club in San Francisco August 2006

Conrado Salazar has been a Chess Club member for the last five years.

Once a year, he travels to Mexico City, Mexico for five or six months. Conrado also went to California for his daughter's wedding and drove to the San Francisco's Mechanics Institute Chess Club. While traveling, Conrado visits chess clubs and sends pictures to me.

Front Entrance

Inside the club

Inside the club

Outside the club Visit the club website at www.chessclub.org

Here are some pictures from the Mexico City Chess Club.

Rafael Baltazar, IM, México - Rafael on the ICC - We play him on Friday night at the club between rounds on the Internet.

Tournament in Mexico City

I would like to thank Conrado for the pictures!

Ken Fee

New MCA President

I was voted in as the new Missouri Chess Association President on Sunday in Columbia at the MCA Board of Directors meeting.

General News:

1. Charlie Ward has resigned from Region Two.
2. The Missouri Chess Bulletin is online and free for everyone.
3. I may be running the Missouri Class in Columbia in June.
4. The MCA website is going to be updated soon with the help of Tony Rich and the MCA website committee.

Ken F

2006 Missouri Open

After spending 34 hours as a TD for the Missouri Chess Festival, I am finally recovering. We had a record 162 players attend the festival.

Ron Luther won the 2006 Missouri State Championship, and I am proud to say The Chess Club is home to the last two state champions: Ron Luther and Bob Holliman.

Ron offered an early draw in his last round because he was winning on the second tie-break, wins with Black, over IM Michael Brooks. Ron won the $500 first prize and a plaque.

	NAME	Rating	State	1	2	3	4	5	6	Score
1	Michael Brooks	2447	MO		½	½	1	1	1	4.0
2	Kenneth Jones	2320	MO	½		0	½	½	1	2.5
3	Ron Luther	2215	MO	½	1		1	1	½	4.0
4	Bob Holliman	2151	MO	0	½	0		1	1	2.5
5	Tony Dutiel	1807	MO	0	½	0	0		0	0.5
6	Nick Karlow	1756	MO	0	0	½	0	1		1.5

Here is the win which sealed the state championship for Luther.

Jones,Kenneth (2320) - Luther,Ron (2230) [B01] 2006 Missouri Invitational (4^th Round), 9-17,2006

1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.dxe6 Bxe6 5.Nf3 Qe7 6.Qe2 Nc6 7.d4 Bg4 8.Be3 0-0-0 9.d5 Qb4+ 10.Nc3 Na5 11.0-0-0 Bh5 12.h3 Re8 13.g4 Bg6 14.Nh4 Ne4 15.Nxe4 Bxe4 16.f3 Bg6 17.Nxg6 hxg6 18.Qd3 Nxc4 19.Bd4 Ne5 20.Qb5 Jones offered Luther a draw. 20...Bd6 21.Qxb4 Bxb4 22.Bb5 Re7 23.f4 Nd7 24.Bxg7 Rh7 25.Bxd7+ Kxd7 26.Be5 Re8 27.Rd3 Bd6 28.Bxd6 Kxd6 29.Kd2 Re4 30.Rf1

Luther fights for a win being a pawn down!

30...Ra4 31.a3 Ra5 32.f5 g5 33.f6 Rxd5 34.Rxd5+ Kxd5 35.Rf5+ Ke6 36.Rxg5 Rxh3 37.Rc5 c6 38.Ra5 a6 39.Ra4 Kxf6 40.Rb4 b5 41.a4 Ke5 42.axb5 axb5 43.Ke2 f6 44.Kf2 Rd3 0-1

Ron receiveing the wrong plaque but the right check from me!

Okie Chess Festival

The 2006 Okie Master Invitational

After three days of chess in Tulsa at the Okie Chess Festival, I am home and ready for another week of chess at The Chess Club.

Luther playing e4 against Movsisyan in round five.

Ron Luther was finally allowed to play in the Invitational Section if he promised to annotate two games for the Oklahoma Chess Foundation's bulletin. After only scoring 1.5 in 2005, Ron had a much better tournament, scoring 3.5 with keys wins over Thomas Gossell, Movses Movsisyan, and Trevor Jackson. Here is one of Ron's impressive wins.

Luther,Ron (2150) - Movsisyan,Movses (2287) [C18]
2006 Okie Masters Tulsa, OK (5), 03.09.2006

1.e4 e6 2.Nc3 d5 3.d4 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Nc6 7.a4 Qa5 8.Bd2 Nge7 9.f4 Bd7 10.Nf3 f6 11.Be2 c4 12.0-0 0-0-0 13.Qc1 Be8 14.Qb2 Bg6 15.Rfb1 Qc7 16.a5 Be4 17.Bc1 h6 18.Nd2 f5 19.Ra4 Kd7 20.Nxe4 fxe4 21.Bg4 Rb8 22.Qa2 b5 23.axb6 Rxb6 24.Ra1 a5 25.Ba3 Rb5 26.Rf1 g6 27.Bd6 Qb6 28.h3 Nf5 29.Bxf5 gxf5 30.Qa3 Rb1 31.Rxb1 Qxb1+ 32.Kh2 Qb5 33.Be7 Rc8 34.Qd6+ Ke8 35.Bh4 Ra8 36.Qxe6+ Kf8 37.Qxf5+ Kg8 38.Qg6+ Kf8 39.Qxh6+ Kg8 40.e6 Qb7 41.Qg5+ Qg7 42.Qxd5 Rc8

Bob Holliman also know as chessmasterbob.com did well finishing tied for 1st in the challenger section with 4.5 points.

I finished in 8th place with 4.5 points. The tournament was uneventful except for one issue. In round six, I had 4 points and was paired down with a player who had 3 points even though there were 6-7 players with 4 points and a few even with 3.5.

Tim Steiner had told me the night before that the tournament director, Alex Relyea was in an argument with the Berry's who finance the event. Evidently, the Berry brothers wanted the pairings to be fixed in order to create FIDE norms while Alex did not.

Consequently, I was not happy with my pairings and thought it was unfair to fix the pairings late in the tournament. I wanted a chance to play against one of the tournament leaders and was denied that opportunity.

Anyway, who has the gold makes the rules! And the Berry brothers are doing some wonderful work for Oklahoma chess!

I would like to thank the Berry brothers, Alex and his wife, and Tom Braunlich for running a great event. The playing area was well lit, and the prize fund was beyond expectation for a tournament of this size.

Maybe we can take a van to next year's event and bring more players from the club.

Ken Fee

Friday Night Chess Club

The purpose of The Chess Club Blog is to keep everyone up-to-date on what is happening at The Chess Club.

On September 1st, many of the members (Ron Luther; Ken Fee; Bob Holliman; Tim Steiner; and Byron Willianson) are going to the Okie Chess Festival in Tulsa, and Wayne Bartlett will be at the US Senior Open in Nashville, so the club will be only open for casual play. There will not be a Grand Prix Tournament.

The big question now is: Will Luther play in the Invitational instead of the Challenger Section even though his plus 2200 rating should place him in the higher section.

The rumour is that Ron did not annotate a game from last year, so the organizers are not happy with him since they paid his way in 2005.

I will keep you updated on Ron's status!