Jim West On Chess: Ernesto Labate Grand Prix

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Ernesto Labate Grand Prix

Todd Lunna has mailed a letter to all persons who have played at the Westfield Chess Club this year asking for their participation in the Ernesto Labate Grand Prix which will be held on Sunday, November 4th, at Westfield.

As of Monday, October 29th, only 7 players had entered in advance. There is guaranteed prize money of $2,000. In addition to the advertised prizes, Lunna will add an under-1500 prize if there are at least 3 entries below 1500. The entrance fee is $75 at the site, but you may qualify for the early entrance fee of $60 if you e-mail Lunna at lunnaco@aol.com.

The tournament is a 5-round Swiss with time control of game/40. The first round starts at 12 noon, which will feel like 1 o'clock in the afternoon because daylight savings time ends in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Don't forget to turn your clock back! You will need ID to enter the building.

"My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, and have never regarded it as anything else, for all the science and sport involved in it. And, moreover, an art which in some ways is closer to music than it is customary to think. Perhaps chess and music are drawn together by laws of harmony and beauty which are difficult to formulate and difficult to grasp, or perhaps by something else." - Vasily Smyslov