Alberta Chess Report

Alberta Chess Report ● August 2013 6
GM Eric Hansen
is perfect at AB
Active
Championship
By: Vlad Rekhson
The AB Active Championship typically
switched between Edmonton and Calgary;
however, with the resurgence of the Red-
Deer Chess Club, this year’s event took
place in between the two cities.
The event was held at the Red-Deer Lodge
hotel and attracted 23 participants ranging
from Grandmaster to novice levels. GM
Hansen decided to use this opportunity to
get a little bit of practice before the start of
his summer tournaments. He was
dominant as he normally is and won the
tournament with 5/5. On his way Eric had
to defeat masters: Dale Haessel, Vladimir
Pechenkin and Alex Yam. The only one
who gave Eric some real challenge was
Alex but eventually he succumbed to
pressure in a mutual time
pressure. Second place was shared
between FM Vladimir Pechenkin and Jim
Daniluk with 4/5 each. Best Under 2000
was the new Albertan-Projjwal
Pramanik. Projjwal scored 3.5/5. Best
under 1600 was taken by Suresh Kadavil
of Edmonton with 2.5/5. A special
recognition must also be given to Ben
Boody, who in his first ever tournament
scored 3/5 including wins over two
experienced A class players! Alexey
Taranik did a great job with the
organization of the event, as he had to deal
with normal organizational issues, as well
as two injuries! Yes, you read it right there
indeed were two injuries in a chess
tournament. As the local children finished
their games quite fast they had to wait
quite a while for their next game to start,
which meant some running around which
lead to those injuries. Both had to
withdraw from the event, but they will be
back! Full standings can be seen at:
New Banff Chess Club
By: Vlad Rekhson
Banff, AB is a home of the newest Chess
Club in the province. The resort city
opened its chess club on April 11 th and it
continues to grow steadily. Bec Johnson
took on the responsibility of creating the
chess opportunity for the local residents
she found a place and advertised it for the
local community. As I made my first trip
for the opening of the club, I was
pleasantly surprised to see a double digit
attendance by the local community which
included men, women and children. The
atmosphere was very friendly and the
location by the town library is great, even
though it looks like a different location
GM Eugene Perelshteyn is playing a local
player, during a day trip to Banff, May
14th. GM Wesley So is in the background
visit which took place on July 11 th
included an organization of a small casual
tournament. I expected that pretty much
everyone in attendance would be a
beginner, but that was not the case. While
the majority of the players indeed played
in their first event, there were a couple of
rated players, as well as, Jerry Kobalenko
who did not have a rating (didn’t play
competitive chess since the age of 13) but
managed to win the tournament with a
perfect 4/4 and followed it up by beating
me 2/2 in blitz!
The Banff Chess Club meets every week
on Thursday at 7 pm. The next event
which will be CFC rated will take place on
September 12 th . The competition will start
at 5:30 pm and everyone is welcome to
come. www.banffchess.com
Banff Chess Club
Pioneer Room, 107 Bear St.
The new club meets every Thursday
at 7 pm.
banffchess.com
http://albertachess.org/2013ABact.html
may have to be arranged in the near future.
My first visit included bringing some
chess equipment and helping teach the
game to some new members. My second