GM Ben Finegold's Blog: Musings of a Grandmaster

GM Ben Finegold scored a nice victory against IM Vitaly Neimer in round 8 to help solidify his win.

The Final Day 

The last day of the Spice Cup B and C groups was interesting, not only to see who would win, but also to see who would (and would not) achieve norms. In the B Group, there were two people with chances for GM norms (6 out of 9): Enrico Sevillano and Roberto Mogranzini. Roberto needed 1 out of 2, and in round 8 he lost spectacularly to Marc Arnold (of Kings vs. Queens fame!).

However, the norm was achieved in the last round when he was able to beat GM Mesgen Amanov (who is playing in our Thanksgiving Open next month). Enrico needed 2 out of 2, and although he beat Lev Milman in round 8, he lost to Mac Molner in the last round.

In the C group, Levon Altounian needed 1.5 out of 2 for a GM norm, and he had the difficult task of playing black versus Josh Friedel in round 8. It turned out not to be too difficult however, as they drew very quickly, and now Levon needed to beat me in the final round. Levon got an excellent position due to my terrible 16...Bxf3? idea, but was unable to find the strong 22.Qb3! Instead I drew comfortably, enabling me to win the event, and the norm was missed by half a point.

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Still, Levon scored an undefeated 3 wins and 6 draws (as did Josh) to tie for second. A norm was made in our group by a surprising player, Faik Aleskerov. He surprising? Well, Faik had 1.5 out of 6, and was tied for last place, when, all of a sudden, he won his last three rounds (including winning with black against Eugene Perelshteyn!) and scored an IM norm. An amazing achievement by the 9th-rated player. Faik was the most enterprising player, with 8 decisive games! In contrast, Perelshteyn had 8 draws (Onischuk was not impressed!).

I had one of my best tournaments ever, actually scoring a superfluous GM norm, scoring +4 to win the event outright. I played my best game in round 8 against IM Vitaly Neimer, winning a long positional struggle (with a nice finish!) and was lucky to draw in the last round, as stated previously, against Altounian.

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The A group is at the halfway point. Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez is playing solid chess and leads with 2 wins and 3 draws. Vietnamese superstar Le Quang Liem started on fire with 2 wins with the black pieces, but has since cooled and stands in second now after losing in round 5 to Dominguez in a long ending.

Final Standings of the B and C group, and standings at the halfway point in the A can be found at: http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2011/10/dominguez-leads-spice-cup-at-hal...

I would like to thank Susan and Paul for running a great event and the staff who works hard to make everything possible (Thanks to Peggy, Hal, and Chief TD Bill Snead). And as Larry Christiansen said at the 1983 US Open, 'I would like to thank all of my opponents...'

Finegold wins and loses!

I guess not everything in chess is about me. Let's talk about some others. Here are some tidbits.

• GM Perelshteyn drew his first 6 games! Then he lost, in round 7, with white to the non titled tailender Aleskerov!
• GM Bykhosky is destroying the B group, with 5.5-1.5!
• IM Altounian needs 1.5 out of 2 for a GM norm. He has to play Friedel and me in the last two rounds. The three of us are tied for first with 5-2.
• The "A" group is using a different scoring system than the other groups. A win is worth 3 and a draw 1.
• IM Milman was up four pawns against GM Amanov, and fell into a cute stalemate trick.
• Le Quang Liem is 2-0 with black, and has two draws with white.

I had an up and down day. I beat Kayden Troff in the morning round (I was winning easily, then my bad technique made it interesting!).

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Then I lost a fine game to Josh Friedel. Josh used some home prep, and although I was about equal, I could not take the pressure, and eventually made a couple of errors. 20...Bxd5? was a clear mistake after which I am almost certainly losing. I actually lost on time, although resigning was also a good option!

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I am also interested in getting a GM norm (??!!), and I need 1.5 out of 2 to achieve my goal. I hope to gain at least 10 FIDE this event. I would like to get my FIDE rating back to 2500+. So far, I am 4-0 against NON-GMs, and I play two IMs the last two rounds.

This tournament has been quite fun. Preparation is difficult with two rounds per day, but I burn the midnight oil. I hope I have at least 6.5 points by Wednesday 7 p.m.!

Not a Bad Day

Monday was good to me, as I went 2-0 to take the lead in the "C" group with a score of 4-1. I played John Bartholomew in round 4, and I got a little edge with white. The position was extremely complicated quite early, and we both took gobs of time. I was able to reach an ending with an extra pawn, but my technique was not great, and John had good drawing chances. But, the clock got the better of my opponent and I was able to win after some time trouble errors. The time control in our group is g/90 with a 30 second increment throughout.

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The afternoon round saw me have black against Matthew Herman. Matthew has amazingly gained 300 FIDE rating points in one year, and was clearly looking to get an IM norm. We played a lot of theory in a Sicilian (3.Bb5) and my opponent seemed to know things a bit better than I, as I used 25-30 minutes to weave my way to move 15 or so, and my opponent still had all of his time remaining! Then, something odd happened....after 14...Qb6 my opponent went into the longest think of the tournament! He had been thinking for about 30 minutes, then left the board to use the bathroom! He came back, and thought another 25 minutes or so! He then played the expected 15.Bxd5 exd5, then banged out 16.Qd2? The idea is to transfer the queen to the kingside with 17.Qf4. This was easily prevented with 16...f6 (maybe he thought I would never play f6...). He then immediately played 17.e6?! Now black is just better after 17...Bd6 and I can win the pawn on e6 and stop Qf4. The rest of the play was not best, as we both made errors. I made it to a winning endgame, then played the horrible 34...a5?? I rather quickly saw that 35.Nd3 forks two of my pieces, but my opponent also did not notice this move, and I was able to win after further errors. Better lucky than good I suppose.

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Finegold wins? 

Yes, occasionally I win (although maybe it doesn't seem like it). My game was about equal most of the way, then my opponent (Aleskerov) blundered with 20.Rfc1? missing 20...Nc4! After that he fell apart due to a bad position and little time. I am tied for first with 2-1.

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Josh Friedel and Levon Altounian also won and are also tied for first! Andre Diamant bounced back from a round 2 disaster (losing a position that could not be lost!) and won against Matthew Herman. Perelshteyn-Bartholomew was drawn, the only draw of the round!

Standings in C Group after three rounds:

1-3 Finegold, Friedel, Altounian 2-1

4-7 Diamant, Perelshteyn, Bartholomew, Neimer 1.5-1.5

8-10 Troff, Herman, Aleskerov 1-2

A close field! Tomorrow I am white against Bartholomew at 10AM and black against Herman at 3PM. Once again, go to http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/ for pics, videos, standings, games, etc.

Round 2 draw against Perelshteyn

I was white against GM Eugene Perelshteyn today, and we drew rather quickly (the game took over an hour, but only 13 moves). It was a boring game, but we still analyzed some interesting variations for over 30 minutes afterwards. Three games have finished this round in my group, and including yesterday's results, only 1 game has been decisive!

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Yesterday was tough for sports fans here, and for me, as Texas Tech lost to Kansas State, and the Tigers were eliminated by the Rangers in the ALCS.

There are 2 games per day, each at 10AM and 3PM (The A group only plays one game per day). The A group starts at 2PM. In round 3 (3PM start) I have black against SM Faik Aleskerov.

Finegold Draws in Round 1 of 2011 Spice Cup

Here I am, on the road again, there I am, up on the stage, here I go, playing GM again, there I go, turn the page. Lest you think Bob Seger is playing in the Spice Cup, it is another former Ann Arborite. 

I was black in round 1 against GM Andre Diamant. This is my third black against Andre in three games (all here in Lubbock) and another rather easy draw. I was able to play e5 pretty early, and equalized without much difficulty. Not the most exciting game, although with two rounds per day to follow, excitement will follow as well.

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There are three groups in the Spice Cup this year, with the "A" group being a category 17 event! Group "B" is category 10, and my group, Group "C" is category 8. The "category" of an event simply denotes its average FIDE rating. The higher the category, the higher the average rating. 

Live games are being broadcast at monroi.com. Standings, pictures, games, videos, and anything else chess related can be found at Susan Polgar's blog, http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/

I am black against GM Eugene Perelshteyn bright and early, 10AM Central time Sunday morning. Wish me luck, I'll need it!