07 August 2010

Rare Bird Sightings

Continuing with Chess960 Tournaments Are Rare Birds, the results from the side event at the 111th United States Open Chess Championship are here: 2010 US Open Championship 'Fisher Random' (oops!). The 14-player event was won by GM Lawrence Kaufman and William Duckworth. Kaufman earned the GM title by winning the 2008 World Senior Championship.

A rare bird I overlooked was CZECH OPEN 2010 "eBRANA OPEN" - turnaj M (= Fischerandom chess event). The 40-player event was won by GM Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia. Official site: Open Championship of the Czech Republic of Fischerandom chess.

Yesterday, GM Alexandra Kosteniuk played a 20-board simul in a much reduced Chess Classic Mainz; see (Almost) No Chess960 @ CCM10 for the first announcement. At the opening ceremony, Chess Classic Mainz 2010, she said,

I am happy that I can play the Chess960 simul and I have to say that I love Chess960! I like to be creative and I really enjoy the Chess960 events in Mainz. For me, Mainz has always been a good starting point: in 2008 I won the Chess960 world championship and after “Mainz” I won the chess world championship and I scored other good results. I hope that the 2010 edition will become a new starting point for a successful chess year again.

In Chess Classic Mainz 2010 Day 1 - Press Conference,
Chessdom.com reported,

Alexandra Kosteniuk played a Chess960 simul on 20 boards. Just 20? Yes, but with 20 different starting positions! Her final score was 18-2: +16=4-0. She needed 3 hours and 13 minutes to complete her simul.

A PDF on the Chess Tigers chess960 site, Simultan mit Alexandra Kosteniuk, reports that she played four different positions, each on five boards. If I discover PGN game scores for any of these events, I'll pass them along.

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