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GM Slugfest - October 2006

Clint Ballard

To my surprise, I was invited to play in Clint Ballard's (see photo to right) GM Slugfest in Bellevue, Washington, October 13-15, 2006.

The purpose of the tournament was to test Clint's BAP scoring system, which rewards fighting chess by giving Black 3 points for a win, White 2 points for a win, or Black 1 point for a draw. All other results score zero. So the typical score for a decisive game is about 2.5 points, while the score for a draw is 1.

There is an excellent article about the tournament at Chess Life Online and the USCF rating of the GM Slugfest is here.

Here is the opinion of GM Joel Benjamin. His opinions are always estimable, but note that he did not play in the tournament, and that he lumps 30-move rules together with Sofia rules. Both are methods that have been used to avoid short draws, but they are not the same.

My notes to all of my games appear in the BCCF Email Bulletin, in six issues 108 (.PDF). 109 110 111 114 115

or see all my notes in the PGNtoJS javascript reader: here.

I enjoyed the tournament, and I think that the BAP system does indeed encourage fighting chess.

I did want to render the results in round-robin crosstable format. That loses the round-by-round excitement, but allows one to sit back and contemplate how efficient the pairings were. It is typically regarded that the more results close to the diagonal (the Xs below), the better the pairings.

3 = win with Black; 2 = win with White; 1 = draw with Black; d (0 points) = draw with White; 0 = loss.

# Player Mi Ft Se Ak Sh Fr Br Bc Re Pr Ko Ta Pe Ma BAP Pt
1 Mikhalevski X d . 0 . . . 3 2 2 . . . 3 10 4½
2 Ftacnik 1 X 0 . 3 2 . . 1 . . 2 . . 9 4
3 Serper . 3 X 2 1 . . d . 0 . . 3 . 9 4
4 Akobian 2 . 0 X 2 . 1 . . 1 . . 2 . 8 4
5 Shabalov . 0 d 0 X . 3 3 . . 2 . . . 8 3½
6 Friedel . 0 . . . X 0 d . . 3 3 2 . 8 3½
7 Berry . . . d 0 3 X . 2 3 . . 0 . 8 3½
8 Becerra 0 . 1 . 0 1 . X . 3 2 . . . 7 3
9 Readey 0 d . . . . 0 . X . 2 . 3 2 7 3½
10 Pruess 0 . 3 d . . 0 0 . X . 3 . . 6 2½
11 Koons-Neff . . . . 0 0 . 0 0 . X . 2 2 4 2
12 Tangborn . 0 . . . 0 . . . 0 . X . 3 3 1
13 Peres . . 0 0 . 0 2 . 0 . 0 . X . 2 1
14 May 0 . . . . . . . 0 . 0 0 . X 0 0
# Player Mi Ft Se Ak Sh Fr Br Bc Re Pr Ko Ta Pe Ma BAP Pt

There were 7 draws in 40 games, 17 wins by White, 16 by Black.

Lubomir Ftacnik

Here is GM Lubomir Ftacnik, who had a nice win with Black over GM Alex Shabalov in the 5th round. 1. e4 c5 2. Na3 d6 3. c3 Nf6 4. g3 g6 5. Bg2 Bg7 6. Ne2 O-O 7. d4 Nbd7 8. O-O Rb8 9. Nb5 Qb6 10. a4 a6 11. Na3 Qc7 12. b4 e5 13. dxc5 dxc5 14. b5 c4 15. Rb1 Rd8 16. Qc2 Nc5 17. b6 Qe7 18. Nxc4 Nfxe4 19. Ba3 Bd7 20. Nb2 Qe6 21. Rbd1 Bf8 22. Rfe1 Qf6 23. Nc1 Ng5 24. Qe2 Bc6 25. Qe3 Nf3+ 26. Bxf3 Qxf3 27. Qxf3 Bxf3 28. Rxd8 Rxd8 29. Bxc5 Bxc5 30. Ncd3 Bxb6 31. Nxe5 Rd2 32. Nxf3 Bxf2+ 33. Kf1 Bxe1 34. Nxd2 Bxd2 35. c4 Be3 36. Ke2 Bd4 37. Nd3 f5 38. Nc1 Kf7 39. Nb3 Bg1 40. Kf3 Ke6 41. Na5 Bb6 {White resigns: 0-3}

Be that as it may, the game voted the favourite by slugfest7.com visitors was IM David Pruess vs. Jonathan Berry from the 6th round. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. d4 exd4 5. Bg5 Bb4+ 6. Nbd2 f6 7. Bf4 a6 8. Bc4 d6 9. O-O Ne5 10. Bxg8 Rxg8 11. Nxd4 Bc5 12. c3 Qe7 13. Bg3 Bg4 14. Qc2 g5 15. Rfe1 h5 16. f3 Bd7 17. Nf1 h4 18. Bf2 h3 19. Ne3 hxg2 20. Nd5 Qd8 21. Qb3 Rh8 22. Qxb7 Rb8 23. Nxc7+ Kf7 24. Qd5+ Kg6 25. Nce6 Qg8 26. Kxg2 Bxe6 27. Nxe6 Bxf2 28. Kxf2 Rxb2+ 29. Ke3 Rhxh2 30. Nd4 Qc8 31. c4 Nxc4+ 32. Kd3 Ne5+ {White resigns: 0-3}

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URL: This web page is:   http://members.shaw.ca/berry5868/gmslug.htm    Last modified March 2, 2007