On Monday, April 15, the ACC membership ratified a new set of club by-laws that has been months in the making, and is now finally in effect. The document formalizes the roles of the ACC organizing team in a new, two-tiered structure: directors form a board that governs the club; while officers carry out day-to-day operations. This formal distinction, however, does not prevent many of us from “wearing two hats” as both directors and officers of the club.

The end of the document includes our new pricing policy. Full-year and drop-in membership prices are basically unchanged; the two main changes are a $25 registration fee for new members (the same fee is also charged to renewing members whose memberships have lapsed for more than 30 days), and an increase in annual casual membership from $60 to $80. Discounts and proration are also clarified.

The ACC By-Laws document is now available on our Club page (near the bottom, just above “Our mission”).

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The Toronto Closed Chess Championship is an eight-player Round-Robin tournament that will decide the 2013 Toronto Chess Champion. Sanctioned by the Greater Toronto Chess League, it is hosted once again this year at Annex Chess Club. Here are the results:

Toronto Closed Chess Championship

Toronto Closed – Reserves

Round One – April 15

Toronto Closed Championship:
Birarov 1-0 Tonakanian
Sapozhnikov 0-1 Humphreys
Barron 1-0 Plotkin
Yee 0-1 Song

Toronto Closed Reserves:
Udrea 1-0 Stefanovic
Oliveira 0-1 Nasir
Plotkin 1-0 Chernik
Manalo 0-1 Southam

Games from Round 1

Round Two – April 22

Toronto Closed Championship:
Tonakanian 0-1 Song
Plotkin 1-0 Yee
Humphreys 1/2 Barron
Birarov 0-1 Sapozhnikov

Toronto Closed Reserves:
Stefanovic 1/2 Southam
Chernik 1-0 Manalo
Nasir 0-1 Plotkin
Udrea 1-0 Oliveira

Games from Round 2

Round Three – April 29

Toronto Closed Championship:
Sapozhnikov 1-0 Tonakanian
Barron 1/2 Birarov
Yee – Humphreys (postponed)
Song 1/2 Plotkin

Toronto Closed Reserves:
Oliveira 1-0 Stefanovic
Plotkin 1-0 Udrea
Manalo 1/2 Nasir
Southam 1-0 Chernik

Games from Round 3

Round Four – May 6

Toronto Closed Championship:
Tonakanian 0-1 Plotkin
Humphreys 0-1 Song
Birarov 1-0 Yee
Sapozhnikov 1/2 Barron

Toronto Closed Reserves:
Stefanovic 1-0 Chernik
Nasir 0-1 Southam
Udrea 1/2 Manalo
Oliveira 0-1 Plotkin

Games from Round 4

Round Five – May 13

Toronto Closed Championship:
Barron – Tonakanian (postponed)
Yee 0-1 Sapozhnikov
Song 1-0 Birarov
Plotkin 1-0 Humphreys

Toronto Closed Reserves:
Plotkin 1-0 Stefanovic
Manalo 0-1 Oliveira
Southam 1/2 Udrea
Chernik 1/2 Nasir

Games from Round 5

Round Six – May 27

Toronto Closed Championship:
Tonakanian – Humphreys
Birarov – Plotkin
Sapozhnikov – Song
Barron – Yee

Toronto Closed Reserves:
Stefanovic – Nasir
Udrea – Chernik
Oliveira – Southam
Plotkin – Manalo

Future Pairings

Pairing numbers were drawn on Monday, April 8 …

Toronto Closed Championship:
1 – Birarov, Vladimir
2 – Sapozhnikov, Roman
3 – Barron, Michael
4 – Yee, Lorne
5 – Song, Michael
6 – Plotkin, Victor
7 – Humphreys, Michael
8 – Tonakanian, Stephan

Pairings:
Rd 1: 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5. Rd 2: 8-5, 6-4, 7-3, 1-2. Rd 3: 2-8, 3-1, 4-7, 5-6. Rd 4: 8-6, 7-5, 1-4, 2-3. Rd 5: 3-8, 4-2, 5-1, 6-7. Rd 6: 8-7, 1-6, 2-5, 3-4. Rd 7: 4-8, 5-3, 6-2, 7-1.

Toronto Closed Reserves:
1 – Udrea, Chris
2 – Oliveira, Rodrigo
3 – Plotkin, Mark
4 – Manalo, Pepin
5 – Southam, David
6 – Chernik, Dmitry
7 – Nasir, Zehn
8 – Stefanovic, Miroslav

Pairings:
Rd 1: 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5. Rd 2: 8-5, 6-4, 7-3, 1-2. Rd 3: 2-8, 3-1, 4-7, 5-6. Rd 4: 8-6, 7-5, 1-4, 2-3. Rd 5: 3-8, 4-2, 5-1, 6-7. Rd 6: 8-7, 1-6, 2-5, 3-4. Rd 7: 4-8, 5-3, 6-2, 7-1.

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Spring is here in the Annex. The bicycles are back on the street (not that cycling season ever ends for some), the flowers are blooming, the Hot Docs festival is under way, and Annex Chess Club is launching our 2013 Spring Fling chess tournament starting April 15.

New sections

With many of our top players playing in the Toronto Closed, we’re lowering the section rating cut-offs by 100 points to even out the sections. The top section is now designated as over-1800 CFC (with players over 1700 admitted by request), the middle section is 1400 to 1799 (with players over 1300 allowed to join), and the bottom section is under-1400. Previously, section cut-offs had been 1900 and 1500, with a similar 100-point grey zone.

Round One – April 15

We’re off to a great start. Even with the Toronto Closed running and borrowing several of our top players, we still have 38 players in the club Swiss.

Round Two – April 22

After two rounds of play, Bill Evans is leading the Crown section, with 2.0/2. In the U1800 section, there’s a three-way tie for first among Josep Sobrepere, Jack Maguire, and Adrian Chin, all with 2.0/2. There’s a three-tie in the U1400 section, too, with Ian Prittie, Bradley Yee, and Richard Morrisson sharing first place, all with 2.0/2.

Adrian and Richard are new to the club, and evidently off to a good start. Welcome to all our new members!

Round Three – April 29

With another win, this time over Daniel Sirkovich, Bill Evans is still leading the Crown section, with 3.0/3. In the U1800 section, it’s down to a two-way tie for first between Jack Maguire and Adrian Chin, both with 3.0/3. Finally, Bradley Yee is now in clear first in the U1400 section, with 3.0/3.

Round Four – May 6

Every section now has a clear leader. In the Crown section, Tyler Longo has taken over the top spot with a win over Bill Evans. Tyler now has 3.5/4. In the U1800 section, Adrian Chin has taken sole possession of first place with a win over Jack Maguire. Adrian is still perfect with 4.0/4. And in the U1400 section, Bradley Yee continues to dominate, now standing at 4.0/4.

Round Five – May 13

While the Leafs lost a heartbreaker in Boston, we held the final round of our Spring Fling. In the Crown section, Tyler Longo took a zero-point bye, but still had sufficient points to take first with 3.5/5 after Hayk Ogenesyan beat Bill Evans to finish with 3.0/5 each. In the U1800 section, Adrian Chin drew his rival Hooshang Abbarin to take first with 4.5/5. Hooshang finishes half a point behind with 4.0/5. Finally, in the U1400 section, Bradley Yee drew Jean-Marc David to finish a point ahead with 4.5/5. Congratulations to all the winners!

Full standings are below.

Next Monday is a holiday, and Round 1 of the new ACC Backyard Barbecue Swiss starts on May 27 at 7:30. Please arrive to sign up by 7:00 or email us to register or (if you’ve already signed up) to request a bye.

Final Results after Round 5

SwissSys Standings. ACC Spring Fling: Crown section

SwissSys Standings. ACC Spring Fling: U1800 Section

SwissSys Standings. ACC Spring Fling: U1400 Section

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Annex Chess Club is proud to host the 2013 GTCL Cup, Toronto’s Rapid Team Chess Championship.

Chess players and chess clubs around the GTA are putting together teams of four to compete in team-versus-team match play on Monday, April 8, at 918 Bathurst, Toronto, home of Annex Chess Club. Send us your four players and your team name!

Here are the details:

When: Monday, April 8th, start time 7:00 pm
Where: 918 Bathurst, Great Hall, Annex Chess Club
Teams Composition: Four players, plus one alternate (optional)
Team Categories: Championship (no rating limit) and U1800 (team’s top 4 players’ average CFC regular rating under 1800)
Format: 5-Round Team Swiss – both team categories in a single playing section
Rounds: Round 1 at 7:00 pm, with subsequent rounds’ expected start times every 45 minutes
Time Control: Game in 15 minutes, with a 5-second increment from move 1
Entry Fee: $5 per player or $20 per team (free for ACC members)
Registration: On site between 6:30 and 7:00 pm or preferably in advance by e-mail
CFC Quick-Rated: Players must have up-to-date CFC membership
Single Players: If you don’t have a team, come on out anyway – we’ll be putting teams together on site

Organizer: Marcus Wilker, Annex Chess Club
Arbiter: Alex Ferreira

May the best team win!

Chess Academy won the GTCL Cup in 2012

CCC Commandos won the U1800 prize

Grab a flyer for this year’s event.

Results

It was a busy night at Annex Chess Club, with sixteen teams (over 64 players!) playing in this five-round rapid tournament, along with a busy club casual section – and final registration for the Toronto Closed.

In the end, Hart House Chess Club carried off the GTCL Cup, ending several years of Cup ownership by Chess Academy. Congratulations to Bindi Cheng, Haizhou Xu, Geordie Derraugh and Jonathan Yu! It came down to the final round with Hart House playing Chess Academy, needing a draw to clinch. Bindi accepted a draw in his game with Nikolay after ensuring that his team had 2/3 on the other boards.

Among U1800 teams, the Titans took first by half a point with 2.5/5. Congratulations to Vinorth Vigneswaramoorthy, Ammar Khairullah, and Arhant and Atharva Washimkar!

Check out the pictures of the event that Egis took!

Here is the team wall chart:

Pre-registered

CCC Commandos (defending U1800 champions!)
1. Will Rutherdale (1761)
2. Greg Beal (1719)
3. Bob Armstrong* (1637)
4. Ken Kurkowski (1550)

Willowdale Chess Club
1. FM Michael Barron (2265)
2. Michael Kimelman (2206)
3. Alexander Strugach (1949)
4. Dmitry Chernik* (1998)

Scarborough Chess Club – Junior (a.k.a. “Isolated Pawns”)
1. Jeffrey Xu* (1936)
2. Wenyang Ming (1771)
3. Kevin Yie (1658)
4. Harry Zhao (1591)

The Blackmar Diemers
1. Ulli Diemer* (1641)
2. Jack Maguire (1497)
3. Bill Thornton (1496)
4. George Supol (1459)

Annex Chess Club
1. Liam Henry (2250)
2. Pavel Peev (2213)
3. Bill Evans* (2022)
4. Tyler Longo (1981)

Annex Chess Club – Junior
1. Zehn Nasir* (2188)
2. Joseph Bellissimo (2034)
3. Daniel Zotkin (1896)
4. Daniel Sirkovich (1782)

Hart House Chess Club
1. Bindi Cheng (2517)
2. Haizhou Xu (2347)
3. Geordie Derraugh* (2236)
4. Jonathan Yu (2136)

Aurora Chess Club
1. Egidijus Zeromskis* (2213)
2. David MacLeod (2084)
3. Mickey Stein (1857)
4. Alisher Kishkimbayev (1150)

Knights of Chess
1. Victor Plotkin (2390)
2. Vladimir Birarov (2242)
3. Mark Plotkin (2193)
4. Pi Nasir (1907)

Chess Academy
1. Nikolay Noritsyn (2585)
2. Konstantin Semianiuk (2293)
3. Liza Orlova (2119)
4. Sergey Noritsyn (2043)

Chess Academy – B (a.k.a. “Meatheads”)
1. Roman Sapozhnikov (2411)
2. Michael Song (2354)
3. Alexandru Florea (2117)
4. Ben Blium (1954)
5. Justin D’Souza (1625)

* team captain

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Magnus Carlsen, the world’s highest-rated player, may now become World Champion. Carlsen will take part in the 2013 Candidates tournament – to be held in London, UK, March 15 to April 1.

This double-Round-Robin tournament will determine the official challenger for the world title. The challenger will then play a championship match against current World Champion Viswanathan Anand.

The article from the Guardian “Chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen enters endgame for world title” provides quite a good preview.

The 2013 candidates are:
1. Magnus Carlsen (NOR)
2. Vladimir Kramnik (RUS)
3. Levon Aronian (ARM)
4. Teimour Radjabov (AZE)
5. Alexander Grischuk (RUS)
6. Vasily Ivanchuk (UKR)
7. Peter Svidler (RUS)
8. Boris Gelfand (ISR)

Check the official site of the London 2013 Candidates Tournament for live games and the latest results.

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