6th May, 2003

THE Generation Chess International tournament at New York's famed
Manhattan Chess Club was won by American International Master Eugene
Perelshteyn, who dominated the novel event aimed at eradicating from the
game the farce of the 'grandmaster draw'.

Despite a last round loss to Estonian top seed Jaan Ehlvest,
Perelshteyn's margin of victory over his nearest rivals was a full point
- a performance that also secured the University of Maryland Baltimore
County student and team captain a grandmaster norm.

The new-styled event prohibited players from making draw offers before
move 50; the only caveat being that of a repetition (or even stalemate),
of which the tournament only had five. Most of the games from the
tournament turned out to be hard-fought encounters as many of the
players were forced into "re-discovering" the endgame in chess. By its
conclusion, nearly 80% of the games (with an average of 51 moves per
game) proved decisive compared to the more usual figure of 50% in such
events.

The worst offending tournament on record for the abuse of GM draws was
the 1999 Petrosian Memorial, where the ten players "competing" found a
fitting way to pay tribute to the 9th world champion Tigran Petrosian -
they managed 42 draws from 45 games, and at an average of just 26 moves!

Final standings: 1 IM E Perelshteyn (USA) 6.5/9; 2-4 IM I Krush (USA),
GM J Ehlvest (Estonia), GM L Christiansen (USA) 5.5; 5 GM L Yudasin
(Israel) 5; 6-7 IM A Simutowe (Zambia), IM V Akobian (USA) 4.5; 8 IM M
Bluvshtein (Canada) 3.5; 9 FM S Muhammad (USA) 2.5; 10 IM W Paschall 2.

E Perelshteyn - J Ehlvest
Generation Tournament, (9)
Accelerated Dragon
1 e4 c5 2 Nc3 g6 3 Nf3 Bg7 4 d4 cxd4 5 Nxd4 Nc6 6 Be3 Nf6 7 Bc4 0-0 8
Bb3 d6 9 f3 Bd7 10 Qd2 Nxd4 11 Bxd4 b5 12 0-0-0 a5 13 a4 bxa4 14 Nxa4
Qb8 15 Kb1 Bxa4 16 Bxa4 Rc8 17 Qd3 Nh5 18 Qb3 Qc7 19 Bb6 Qc4 20 Rd5 Qe2
21 Rg1 Nf4 22 Rxa5 Rxa5 23 Bxa5 Ra8 24 Qb6 Bd4 25 Qxd4 Rxa5 26 b3 Nxg2
27 Qd1 Nf4 28 h4 Qf2 29 Qe1 Qb6 30 Ka2 Ne6 31 Rg4 h5 32 Rg2 Nc5 33 Rg5
Ra8 34 Ka3 Rb8 35 Qc3 Qa6 36 Rd5 Rc8 37 Qd2 Qf1 38 Qd1 Qf2 39 Rd2 Qe3 40
Qe2 Qc3 0-1

JOHN B HENDERSON