Ben Finegold Visiting

Ben is in Phoenix this weekend for some chess-related stuff. Today was a busy day.



Here is a picture of Ben (left in the yellow shirt) playing blindfolded against Atoufi. Ben won.



In the evening, they held a 16-player, 4-round swiss blitz tournament. Here is Round 3, where Ben was playing Grandmaster Sergey Kudrin. The game ended in a draw, when Kudrin accidentally stalemated Ben.



In Round 4, Ben was on board 1 against Grandmaster Jaan Ehlvest. Ben was lost on the board (K+R+N+P vs. K+R) but Ehlvest offered a draw while low on time and Ben accepted. Behind them are Jeremy Silman (International Master) and Kudrin. Ehlvest and Kudrin both ended up with 3.5, whereas Ben had 3. But to Ben's credit, he had the most difficult pairings (e.g. he had to play both Ehlvest and Kudrin, whereas Ehlvest and Kudrin did not play each other).



After the blitz tournament, Ben held a simul. Out of 35 games, Ben officially had 34 wins and 1 draw. But the 1 draw has an interesting story to it. Ben was lost against an 800-rated player (in the picture, Ben is at that player's board). At one point, the guy had two Queens on the board and a pawn about to promote. But Ben used his magic and tricked the guy and conjured up a winning position! But he felt very bad for the kid, so he sacked his Queen for a Pawn for an instant draw.



Here is a picture of the final position of another one of the simul games. The final move was: f8=N Double-Check Mate!