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Lower-rated Arch Bishops secure draw

By on September 22, 2010 in

Week five was shaping up to be a tough one for the Arch Bishops. With GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Yury Shulman off to the Olympiad, our board three, GM Ben Finegold, was bumped up a couple seats and some bench players had to fill in behind him. Instead of our usual rating average of 2500+ we were down to a mere 2345 and, for the first time, lower rated than our opponents. With a little luck though, we were able to wade through the beginning of our Nakamura/Shulman-less stretch and hold a draw (white won on every board!).

London Chess Classic: 2010

By on September 20, 2010 in

LONDON, September 14, 2010 -- Expectation is building for the strongest chess tournament ever to be held in Britain, when eight of the world’s best players meet for the second London Chess Classic, running from December 8-15, 2010 at the Olympia Conference Centre. Tickets are now on sale (www.ukgamesshop.com) both to watch the super-grandmasters and to play in the wide range of subsidiary events.

Arch Bishops draw Miami Sharks

By on September 17, 2010 in

Week four was a topsy-turvy one for the Arch Bishops. If you looked at every board about an hour into the match, you would think our last two boards would win and our two GM ringers would lose! It didn't quite end up that way, but it was close. We ended up tying the match with our bottom boards getting 1.5/2 and our GMs lucky to scrape together .5/2. All things considered we shouldn't be too unhappy with our result, as we were missing 2700-GM Yury Shulman. Also, this was the first time board four (manned by yours truly) didn't lose for our team.

A Saint Louis Signature Event

By on September 16, 2010 in

[imagefield_assist|fid=6802|preset=frontpage_200x200|lightbox=true|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=200|height=200]The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis will be participating in this year's Great Forest Park Balloon Race and Balloon Glow on Friday, September 17, and Saturday, September 18. Our balloon will launch at 4:45 p.m. on Saturday, and there are a number of fun and exciting events surrounding this great St. Louis tradition!

On Friday, the Balloon Glow will offer spectators a spectacular view of all of the hot air balloons lit up on the ground of Central Field in Forest Park.

Victory in Saint Louie

By on September 10, 2010 in

After underachieving in the first couple of weeks, the Saint Louis Arch Bishops finally weaved together enough points to win their match against the Dallas Destiny. In case you were wondering why I didn’t use words like “we” and “our”, it is because board four was held down by Executive Director Tony Rich in my stead. To be honest, neither of us wanted to lose and let our team down, and considering our opponent would be about 300 points higher rated, it was a tough “destiny” to avoid. Our line-up did however still consist of the big three: Lebron, Wade, and Bosh (more commonly referred to as Nakamura, Shulman, and Finegold). They ended up winning the match with 2.5/3, as our GM-titleless fourth board was not so lucky.

Fashion show and viewing party at Bar Italia

By on September 08, 2010 in

District Championship Update

By on September 04, 2010 in

Felecan fells Shulman to secure draw

By on September 03, 2010 in

The draw for Chicago was, in some respects, a victory as the Arch Bishops fielded a dream team on boards 1-3 of GM Hikaru Nuakamura, GM Shulman and GM Ben Finegold..

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I Want Some Action!

By on September 02, 2010 in

2010 Chess Olympiad Preview

By on August 30, 2010 in

The FIDE Presidential race between incumbent Kirsan Ilumzhinov and challenger Antaoly Karpov has been attracting most of the media attention to date, but that will likely change as soon as the Chess Olympiad begins on September 21.

The 39th in a series of competitions dating back to London 1927, the 2010 Chess Olympiad will be held in Khanty-Mansiysk in Western Siberia not far from the confluence of the mighty Irtysh and Ob rivers. A rapidly growing oil town and home to a population of 62,000, Khanty Mansiysk may be almost 1,800 miles from Moscow but is well known to the chess world for hosting the 2005, 2007 and 2009 World Cups.