2007 KCC Championship, Round One

Stoyko-Kernighan
White to play.

John (The Chess Coroner) Moldovan offers excellent coverage of first-round action in the 2007 Kenilworth Chess Club Championship, which began Thursday night. He has annotated his own well-played draw against NM Scott Massey, who continues to struggle against the French, and includes both zipped PGN and java replay of two other games. The most spectacular of the three was clearly Steve Stoyko's win over Mark Kernighan, where Steve made an impressively intuitive Exchange sacrifice rather early in the game and built his strategic advantages into a brilliant victory in the endgame (see diagram above). This one is a gem and I look forward to seeing John's notes.

I have opted out of this year's competition due to work and family commitments. But I hope to visit frequently as a spectator and look forward to brining you some of the action in these pages. I am glad that John has decided to join the open section, since that means we can look forward to seeing the games at his blog.