15th ICSC World Deaf Chess Championships

[Christopher Kreuzer]

It's currently raining here in Kazakhstan. Staying in a health resort/sanatorium on the outskirts of Almaty with a group of chess players from England (and a couple of players from Scotland) taking part in the events being held by the ICSC (International Committee of Silent Chess). I would link to the website, but it has no results.

The first round started late! First put back by the organisers and then delayed by an impromptu blitz game between the number one seed GM Yehuda Gruenfeld and FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. That ended in a draw, and then England's representative in the World Individual Deaf Chess Championships, Lewis Martin, drew against Gruenfeld in round one (and had winning chances!). An excellent result. Currently, Lewis is on 2.5/4 (three draws and one win) with 7 rounds to go. Des Masterson is representing England in the Deaf-Blind Championships, with two others playing for England in the Open event (me and Barry David).

The weather was better for the opening ceremony. Some pictures are on the FIDE website:

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... ships.html

If you scroll down about halfway, there is a picture of the England representatives with the FIDE President.

Have to go now, as it is dinner time, and the Blitz Championship starts in an hour or so. Then it is sightseeing tomorrow.

[Alasdair MacLeod]

Thanks for the update Chris.

Yes, the lack of website input about what's happened in the tournaments so far is disappointing, hopefully that will be put right asap. I have already emailed the Kazakh organisers about that. Barry did pass onto me the latest news after 3 rounds where Lewis not only drew against GM Gruenfeld (ELO 2436) but also drew against Strzelecki (ELO 2074) - EDIT: this is correct after all - and Reutov (ELO 2164). Latest news just in: Round 4 Lewis beat Pogoskin (ELO 2130)

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the experience so far.

It would be great if you could continue to post any latest results here, I'll be eagerly waiting for them!

[Richard James]

If you scroll down about halfway, there is a picture of the England representatives with the FIDE President.

...who appear to be referred to as Great Britain, even though there were also Scottish representatives.

[Alasdair MacLeod]

Yes, an annoying mistake about Great Britain - it obviously should be England. This occasionally happens when abroad for international tournaments. Maybe they watched too much of the London 2012 Olympics having to see all those medals that Great Britain won

We have made a complaint about that and should be referred to England in every instance. Barry will feed back to me any news on this front. The ICSC board consists of 2 Englishmen so the strength of feeling on this isn't just confined to the EDCA group!

[Alasdair MacLeod]

Thanks to the Russian Deaf Chess Organisation's website there's some photos;

http://chessdeafrussia.ucoz.ru/

It also includes a link to a list of participants along with the latest results/standings after 4 rounds;

http://chessdeafrussia.ucoz.ru/_ld/5/51 ... 2-ICSC.pdf

In the 5th round Lewis beat Janchivnyambuu (ELO 2012) then just now in the 6th round lost to the reigning ICSC World Champion Veselin Georgiev (ELO 2358). So he has 3½/6 so far.

Elsewhere, in the Open Barry David is on 3½/5, Chris Kreuzer 3/5 and in the Deaf-Blind Des Masterson is on 0/5 + bye.

[Alasdair MacLeod]

The latest results/standings for all tournaments after yesterday;

http://chessdeafrussia.ucoz.ru/_ld/5/51 ... 3-ICSC.pdf

[Alasdair MacLeod]

Thanks to a tip-off from a Hungarian chess player via the EDCA Facebook page, we now have the latest bulletin up to round 9 which was played yesterday;

http://chessdeafrussia.ucoz.ru/_ld/5/51 ... 4-ICSC.pdf

The photos page has been updated further;

http://www.chessdeafrussia.narod.ru/photoalbum65.html

As you can see Lewis Martin is now on 4½/9 with 2 rounds to go. Klasan (Serbia) and Anarkulov (Uzbekistan) are leading with 7/9. In the first link you will be able to see how the other English players are getting on in other tournaments. It also includes the results/standings for the ICSC World Blitz Championship.

[Alasdair MacLeod]

Round 10 has just finished today and the bulletin produced;

http://chessdeafrussia.ucoz.ru/_ld/5/51 ... 5-ICSC.pdf

[Alasdair MacLeod]

Here's the final bulletin from Kazakhstan with all the final results and standings;

http://chessdeafrussia.ucoz.ru/_ld/5/51 ... 6-ICSC.pdf

Lewis Martin won in the last round which was small consolation for him having lost the previous 2 games. So he finishes on 5½/11, 50% on his debut is a good performance and he had a tremendous start with his draw against GM Gruenfeld so this is definitely something to build on for future ICSC events. He was 12th= (16th after tie-break) out of 28 participants.

Vladimir Klasan (Serbia) is the new ICSC World Champion with 8½/11 ending the 12 year reign of IM Veselin Georgiev (Bulgaria) who had to be content with the bronze medal. Alisher Anarkulov (Uzbekistan) took the silver medal in 2nd place.

In the Open Chris Kreuzer finished strongly winning his last 3 games to end up with 6/9, finishing 5th= (7th after tie-break) out of 37 participants. Barry David aimed for 50% or better and that was what he got with 4½/9 finishing in 18th= (20th after tie-break). In the Deaf-Blind event, Desmond Masterson won his final round game so avoiding a whitewash and got 1/11 and came 10th out of 11 participants.

Hopefully we will be able to see some games published online but I think there's a better chance of me becoming a Grandmaster than seeing games appearing on their website or elsewhere. Many thanks to Barry for relaying the latest results back to us and also big thanks to the Russian Deaf Chess Federation for the pdf documents with results and standings as well as photos. I believe the credit there belongs to Alexander Beliakov, their President.

Alasdair MacLeod, Secretary, English Deaf Chess Association

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A rather late codicil to this thread, two links the 2-part version of a report on this event that I wrote, and which was published by Chessbase:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8624
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8627

These articles were briefly mentioned in another thread last week, but I said the links should go in this thread, so here they are (have been too busy until now to get round to this). I'm still not entirely sure (not having ever done a blog or published an article like this before) what the pros and cons are of the various forms of publishing available in this day and age. Maybe that sort of thing is best discussed in a more general thread. I do also want to try and reconstruct the game that features in the video, but that is definitely something for another thread (which I'll start now).

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm still not entirely sure (not having ever done a blog or published an article like this before) what the pros and cons are of the various forms of publishing available in this day and age.

I think you did well to get two features on the ChessBase site, which I would imagine is widely read. By comparison, the Hastings Congress has struggled for coverage there, with daily reports not being considered sufficiently newsworthy.