Marshall chess club championship
The 97th Championship took place in the middle of December over two weekends and finished just before Christmas. My flight from Vegas was delayed because of harsh weather conditions. Back then I did not realize yet that more obstacles on my travelling are still to come. The winter was in full swing. The two weekend format gave a lot of time to prepare because of limited number of participants. It was obvious that most likely all top players are going to play each other. The eventual tournament winner Aleksandr Lenderman took some early byes. So did Robert Hess. I had some shaky moments in the beginning when losing against Mathew Hermann in round three. This loss was really heartbreaking. Having computer evaluation more than +18 I managed to lose in mutual time trouble. Still after round five I was only half a point behind tournament leader Sergei Kudrin. We met in round six and because this game was in the next weekend I had a lot of time to prepare. Kudrin plays the same openings for years, so I had a lot of work to do.
After this game I shared leaderboard with Lenderman who took two byes in the beginning having some cold. I was playing with black and instead of playing solid I tried some sideline in Kings Indian defense. Not a smart choice. One moment there was a kind of a phone ringing on the table front of my opponent. He quickly jumped up and run to tournament director office. I then realized it might be that his mobile phone was ringing. Nothing happened afterwards and I did not complain as well. Later I was told that tournament director, arbiter told Lenderman that if Jaan is not complaining about the phone he is not forfeiting him. We were playing under FIDE rules, so the mobile phone ringing is penalized no question asked. My logical assumption was that arbiter should do it not me. I was too shy to demand the free point and eventually lost the game.
I somehow pulled myself together and next morning won complicated game against local GM Mikheil Kekelidze. Last round draw secured the second place. Later I asked opinion of other grandmasters and their opinion was that I should demand free point against Lenderman. In other hand I did not like to win a tournament in such a way. Ofcourse I was hoping that arbiter does the dirty job for me. I won the Marchall Chess Club Championship alone four times. Having the most wins in this historical championship and I hope to win it again next time and not with the help of mobile phone. The final table with results.
Jaan Ehlvest