Schedule Change

The 5th round match between Staten Island & the Kenilworth Karpovs, originally scheduled for 2/4, has been postponed to Thursday, February 18th at 8:15 p.m.

January Match-ups

Tuesday 1/5 at West Orange, 8 p.m.

• Hamilton 2-0-1 vs. Staten Island 0-2-1

This will be the 1st meeting between the 2 clubs. The former will be looking to stay in 1st place while the latter tries to escape the basement.

• West Orange 1-1-1 vs. Sparta 1-2

Previous meeting : 3/3/2009 at West Orange. W. Orange swept 4-0.

Thursday 1/7 at Kenilworth, 8:15 p.m.

• Summit 1-2 vs. Kenilworth Karpovs 2-1

Previous meeting : 6/29/2009 at Summit. Karpovs won 3.5-0.5.

• Kenilworth Kortchnois 2-1 vs. Kenilworth Kramniks 1-1-1

Previous meeting : 3/05/2009 at Maplewood. Kortchnois won 2.5-1.5.

West Orange 3.5 Staten Island 0.5

On December 1st, West Orange defeated Staten Island 3.5-0.5 for their 1st victory of the season. NM Peter Radomsky, Paul Corcoran & Fermin Arias scored full points on boards 1, 3 & 4.

Schedule Change

The Kramniks-Karpovs match, slated for April 8th, 2010 has been re-scheduled to Thursday, April 1st at 8:30 p.m.

This change will enable the Kenilworth CC to better hold multi-week events.

Kramniks Awarded 3-1 Victory

RE: Use of ineligible player by Summit
From: John Hagerty (GSCL President)

"I support the decision to forfeit board four in the Kramniks-Summit match. The rules are quite clear on this type of situation. Let us all be more careful about eligibility and to make sure that color allocations are correct. Hopefully, there will be no hard feelings on this incident."

Click here to view the match report.

Summit Games Uploaded

The 4 games from last night's Kramniks-Summit match have been added to the 3rd round replay page & zipped PGN file.

Kramniks 2 Summit 2 (Review Pending)

The last-place Kenilworth Kramniks scored upsets on the top 3 boards & earned a 2-2 tie versus Summit.

Don Carrelli, making his season debut, led the way by defeating Simon Thomson on #1 while Greg Tomkovich & Lou Sturniolo notched draws against Donnally Miller & Bob Sherry.

The result will be reviewed because Summit got its win from a player (Ted Mann) who was bound to another team (The Kramniks!!).

All 4 games from the match will follow.

Hamilton Beats Karpovs, Takes League Lead

Charles Miller & Tom Stanics pulled off upsets on boards 2 & 4 to lead Hamilton over the Kenilworth Karpovs 2.5-1.5 & into 1st place.

John Moldovan's win vs. Ed Sytnik was the ex-leaders' lone bright spot :

Moldovan-Sytnik
after 31...fxe3

White mates in 2.

PGN

Next month, Hamilton (2-0-1) plays Staten Island & the Karpovs (2-1) host Summit.

Kortchnois 4 Sparta 0

In the season's most lopsided decision (so far), the defending champion Kenilworth Kortchnois swept Sparta 4-0, using a lineup of Ari Minkov, Mark Schwarcz, Dr. Richard Lewis & Mikhail Kruglyak.

Next month, the Kortchnois (2-1) "visit" the Kenilworth Kramniks & Sparta (1-2) is the home team at West Orange.

2nd Round Annotations

Notes to Corcoran-Moldovan have been uploaded to the 2nd round replay page and PGN file.

P.S. - The sidebar's Games link has also been updated. I forgot to do that last time.

2nd Round Report

Karpovs 2.5 West Orange 1.5

The league-leading, 2-0 Karpovs struggled against a somewhat weak lineup but prevailed; thanks to board 1 win from Steve Stoyko and two huge time-pressure gifts.

Kortchnois 2.5 Staten Island 1.5

Ari Minkov & Richard Lewis won with the White pieces & Mark Schwarcz drew with his namesakes to give the defending champion, 1-1 Kortchnois a win in N.Y.

Sparta 3 Kramniks 1

Sparta received wins by Mark Van Der Veen, Rick Schluter & Russ Avarella. Ziggy Bliznikas's victory was the only bright spot for Kramniks, who have yet to take a match.

Hamilton 2.5 Summit 1.5

Hamilton got wins from Joshua Hill & Charles Miller, plus a draw by Tom Stanics; to move into 2nd place.

For standings, board results & games click the sidebar links.

1st Round Annotations

Notes to Moldovan-Lewis & Stoyko-Norowitz have been uploaded to the opening round replay page and PGN file.

Summit 3 Sparta 1

Summit received victories from Simon Thomson, Donnally Miller & Bob Sherry to defeat Sparta 3-1 & join the Karpovs in 1st place.

Schedule Correction

The 2009-2010 schedule, originally posted with erroneous dates for March & April, has been corrected. It now reads as follows:

• Tuesday 3/2 at West Orange 8 p.m.

Hamilton-Kramniks; Karpovs-Sparta; Summit-Staten Island; W.Orange-Kortchnois

• Tuesday 4/6 at West Orange 8 p.m.

Kortchnois-Hamilton; Sparta-Staten Island; W.Orange-Summit

• Thursday 4/8 at Kenilworth 8:30 p.m.

Kramniks-Karpovs

1st Round Games

7 games from Thursday's matches at Kenilworth have been uploaded in java-replay and zipped PGN.

Scores from the other matches would be appreciated. They can be posted as a comment or submitted via e-mail.

Hamilton 2 West Orange 2

On Tuesday, in the 2009-1010 season opener, Hamilton and West Orange played to a 2-2 draw.

The 1st round wraps up next week with Sparta vs. Summit.

Kramniks 2 Staten Island 2

Jim Cole and NM Mark Kernighan rallied the Kenilworth Kramniks from a 0-2 hole and into a draw against Staten Island. It was the first half-point for the former Maplewood franchise, which went 0-5 last season.

The club from N.Y., which had the honor of fielding the league's first female, Melissa Biegel, got middle-board victories from Ed Selling and unrated Alexander Negron.

Several games from this match and the Karpovs-Kortchnois tilt will follow.

Karpovs 2.5 Kortchnois 1.5

John Moldovan and Max Sherer won on the bottom boards to lead the Kenilworth Karpovs to a 2.5-1.5 win over the defending champion Kenilworth Kortchnois.

Sherer won quickly & easily against out-matched Bill Sokolosky. Then, after a draw between Masters Steve Stoyko & Yaacov Norowitz, Moldovan broke through Richard Lewis's defense by returning an Exchange for a winning endgame.

Michael Goeller's victory versus Ian Mangion was the only bright spot for the Kortchnois, who went 5-0 last season.

Next month, the Karpovs play West Orange while the Kortchnois visit Staten Island.

Moldovan-Lewis
after 32...Nh5

2009-2010 Season Opens Tonight

The 2009-2010 Garden State Chess League season opens tonight with Hamilton visiting West Orange.

On Thursday, Staten Island visits the Kenilworth Kramniks while the Kenilworth Karpovs battle the defending champion Kenilworth Kortchnois.

Next Tuesday (10/13) at W. Orange, Sparta plays Summit.

Good luck & good chess to all the teams!

GSCL Story In The Star-Ledger

Sunday's Newark Star-Ledger chess column by Peter Tamburro featured a story on the 2009 GSCL season and Steve Stoyko's 1st-round win against Jackson Hueckel.

That contest (with notes by The Kenilworthian) and 26 others can be downloaded here, in ChessBase format. For PGN, go to the sidebar, 2009 Season In Review and follow the links.

Maplewood Replaced By 3rd Kenilworth Team

Maplewood, which featured 3 or 4 Kenilworth players in every 2009 match, has been renamed the Kenilworth Kramniks.

Jim Cole will remain as captain.

Rule Changes

Here are GSCL rule changes for 2009-10 :

• Players rated <1000 will be considered to have a 1000 rating
  
• Ties in the standings will be broken as follows : 1. head to head result; 2. total game points; 3. games won

For a complete list, see the Rules link in this blog's sidebar.

Site Finished

The GSCL blog/website is done! - just in time for the new season. All the 2009-10 match reports and games will be posted here. The Chess Coroner blog will only feature headlines and links.

Blog Replacing GSCL's Geocities Site

This blog is replacing the Garden State Chess League site at Geocities, which will be closing on October 26th.

Nearly all the data from the 2009 season has been transferred & the framework for the upcoming 2009-2010 season is in place.

TEST

This is a test-post for a possible GSCL blog. Might go with a website instead.