|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
Chessville
Advertise to Single insert:
|
The four zonal winners were: Western Conference: IM Dmitry Zilberstein, North California, and IM Mark Ginsburg, Arizona. Eastern Conference: IM Andrei Florean, Michigan, and Bradley Denton, Mississippi. The Eastern Conference zonal final went to a tiebreak after Florean and Denton won a game apiece in the G/60 match-up, with Florean going through 2.5-1.5 after winning the Blitz playoff. In the Western Conference zonal final, Zilberstein beat Ginsburg 1.5-0.5. The resulting East vs. West showdown thus proved to be a testament to the reliability of Prof. Arpad Elo’s rating system, with the two highest-rated players in the competition making it to the Final and the deciding U.S. Championship qualifying spot. And in that final, the match went down to a fifth and deciding ‘Armageddon’ game, with both players tied at 2-2 after winning their white games in the G/60 matches and Blitz matches, as Florean (with the advantage of Black, and thus only needing to draw) took the title 3-2. This unique event demonstrates that online chess and over-the-board chess can indeed be a perfect mix – even for one of the world’s most famous national championships. First, each player in the tournament had to prove themselves OTB by winning (or scoring highly in) their relevant State championship to be invited, then they had to play online on the ICC (both double-round all-play-all Blitz in the 4 zonal groups, and then Game 60 (proctored) in the finals), with the player being crowned State Champion of Champions going forward to the U.S. Championship next March in San Diego. Click here to download a PGN file with six games from the Conference Zonal Finals.
Click
here to see the winning game from the finals,
All the rules and regulations for this
U.S. Championship Qualifying event can be found at
www.uschesschampionship.com, and at the
ICC site. For more information about the U.S.
Chess Championships or the events surrounding the 2006 games, please visit
www.uschesschampionship.com.
America’s
Foundation for Chess
Founded on the hope of making chess a subject taught in
every school in the United States, AF4C,
www.af4c.org a nonprofit organization, is committed to making chess a
larger part of America's cultural fabric — accessible in schools and in
popular culture. AF4C hopes to elevate the profile of chess in America so
that it will soon become a regular part of every child's classroom
experience. Internet Chess Club
Founded in 1995 in Pittsburgh, the for-profit ICC (www.chessclub.com)
is one of the first premium sites on the Internet with a club house that’s
open 24/7. Now in its 11th year, the ICC is regarded as the
premier online chess service, with over 30,000 members, 1,600 Grandmasters,
more volunteers, and more loyalty from its members than any other classical
game service on the Internet. About NTC Foundation
|
The
|
||||||
|
||||||||
Last
year's 
