Thursday, August 6, 2015

LSS World Championship Final 2013 Finished - Sinisa Loinjak WIns Again

     After nearly two years, the LSS World Championship Final 2013 was decided. Sinisa Loinjak (CRO) won the event with 10 points out of 16 games ahead of Alan Sassler (USA), who also scored 10 points, with 0.25 Sonneborn-Berger-Points less.
     Loinjak has won the title now for the third time. The event was decided in the very last game when Sassler could only achieve a draw against former LSS WCH winner Alex Bubir. Achieving a second win against this opponent would have put the crown of the LSS World Champion onto his head. It was a tight event as the next to last place player scored only 2 points less then the winner. (The last place finisher  withdrew about six months after tournament started, forfeiting all his games). 
     As is typical in this day of a dedicated computer and an engine vs. a dedicated computer and an engine, Loinjak's score was +2 -0 =12 (not counting the two wins against the withdrawn player).  This was a 9-player, double round event and not counting the withdrawn player, the guy who finished in 8th place scored +1 -3 =10, also not counting the two forfeit wins against the withdrawn player. A grand total of 7 games were decisive. 
     Loinjak is a Senior International Correspondence Master with the ICCF, a title which he was awarded in 2011. His rating is 2530. I was going to post a game from the event, but decided what's the point? Who wants to play over a game between engines? Also, I realized that my puny 4-core Toshiba Satellite laptop running Komodo 8 isn't going to show anything!  
     With draws in correspondence chess at unacceptable numbers I am beginning to think that Arno Nickel may have the solution. His solution is a new scoring system for different kinds of draws. 

   Barring a mouse-slip what are the chances that I will ever play another correspondence game (at the time we used post cards!) like this again? 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment