| Jul-19-10 | | laskerian: The ethical attitude displayed by Parker Zhao in deviating from the Krush-Melekhina game is something to be admired. Although that netted him a loss against Robson, I think he earned a lot of respect in going his own way. |
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Jul-19-10
 | | beenthere240: /Robson is "running away"? Half point lead. |
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Jul-19-10
| | beenthere240: Shankland's last game was a brutal attack. Fun for sadists to replay. |
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Jul-20-10
 | | FSR: Very weird to compare the Junior and Women's championships. The two tournaments were held simultaneously, had the same number of players/rounds, and were similar in strength. In the Junior championship, 6/9 got you a tie for first. In the women's championship, 7.5/9 got you a tie for second! |
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Jul-20-10
 | | Landman: Great quote from Warren Harper: "In open tournaments, you lose a couple games, you play a weak player and then you can boost your confidence back up. But in this tournament, you lose five games in a row, and you play Ray Robson." http://saintlouischessclub.org/news... |
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Jul-20-10
| | FSR: Shankland beat Zhao in the first playoff game to advance to the final Armageddon game against Robson. Shankland had Black and received draw odds (i.e. a draw would give Shankland the championship). Shankland played the Caro-Kann, Robson responded with the Fantasy Variation (3.f3), got nothing, sacrificed a pawn to try to do something, still got nothing, then in gross time pressure blundered a piece and lost. Congratulations to Sam Shankland! He just demonstrated the world's weirdest way to win a championship: announce right before the tournament that you're retiring from chess; lose your first two games; score 5-1 in the remaining games, which is good enough to tie for first after both of the players ahead of you falter in the last round (Robson losing and Zhao only drawing an ending two pawns up); then win both your games in the Armageddon playoff. I hope Shankland reconsiders his decision to quit the game. He is obviously a very talented player. |
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Jul-21-10
 | | Bdellovibrio: So this is the elusive norm for Mr. Shankland? |
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Jul-21-10
| | FSR: I don't think so. I haven't heard anyone mention that. I don't think there were enough high-titled players to make a GM norm possible (Robson was the only GM and Shankland the only IM). Moreover, 6-3 isn't a very impressive score; I doubt that it would be a GM norm. |
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Jul-21-10
 | | sisyphus: Certainly you'd need more titled players for norms. Just for reference, Shankland's performance was 2539, less than his rating of 2563. Also I think these are USCF ratings, about 100 points higher than the FIDE equivalent. Thanks to the Saint Louis Chess Club for posting the entire webcast of the final game. It was shocking to see Robson fall behind on time so quickly in an even position. |
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Jul-24-10
| | turbo231: Congratulations to Shankland for a job well done! |
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Aug-05-10
 | | goldfarbdj: Man. I still think of Sam as the 1600-rated preteen I used to play in Berkeley. A lot can happen to a kid in six years. |
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