The jury had originally recommended death, but his sentence was commuted to life and Bloodgood was occasionally let out to play in tournaments. Then one day in 1974, Bloodgood overpowered a guard at the guard's home. Bloodgood and another murderer-inmate cuffed the officer to a bed, stole his guns and fled to New York with their girlfriends.
There was never a good explanation of why Bloodgood was at the guard's house, but the guard said he and Bloodgood were preparing for an upcoming tournament. The resulting scandal brought down the state's prison bureaucracy.
When Bloodgood's defense attorney, Berry D. Willis Jr., heard that Bloodgood had died he later commented, "That's the only good news I had in the month of August.”
In 1974, the USCF had organized and sponsored three international tournaments within less than a year. The tournaments were intended to provide American masters the opportunity to obtain intenational titles and FIDE ratings.
These events were important because foreign organizers wouldn’t invite many American players because they either lacked titles or had no or a low FIDE rating. To invite them to international tournaments would have meant that it would lower the category rating of the tournament and increase the score that would be required to achieve IM and GM norms.
By far the strongest of these events was Los Angeles 1974. The importance of FIDE ratings was clearly seen in the case of Norman Weinstein who had a USCF rating of about 2500, but no FIDE rating. Consequently, for FIDE category purposes his rating was considered 2200. As a result of having to consider him rated 2200 instead of the more accurate 2500, the score required for an IM norm was 6.0-5.0 instead of 5.0-6.0 and the GM norm was 7.5-3.5 instead of 6.5-4.5.
An interesting sidelight was that Bobby Fischer was living nearby in Pasadena at the time, but, as expected, he didn’t even show up to visit. However, his friend Svetozar Gligoric did visit Fischer at his apartment one evening.
The first off day featured a barbecue at the Piatigorsky mansion in Santa Monica and Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976) treated (?) the attendees to a poolside performance on his Stradivarius cello. Antonio Stradivari built between 70 and 80 cellos in his lifetime, of which 63 are extant. Piatigorsky actually owned two dating from the early 1700s. They are worth several million dollars each and one is displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the other was bequeathed to his grandson. By the way, the Piatigorsky’s house was demolished in 2014.
The tournament turned out to be a close race...Gligoric was the favorite, but it was close. After Gligoric lost in round 7, Florin Gheorghiu calculated that it would take 7 points to at least tie for first and so he was content to play draws in the last 4 rounds. He was wrong because Gligoric scored 3.5 points in his last four games.
IM Julio Kaplan came close to making his first GM norm while Edmar Mednis (untitled at the time) missed his IM norm. Andy Soltis, also untitled at the time, was the drawing master and only had two decisive games; he beat Gligoric and lost to Lengyel. For some reason Soltis did not seem to even try to win any games.
IM Anthony Saidy started well, but then started slipping. Norman Weinstein was one of the promising younger players and he had had good results recently, but was tired from having just played in the National Open and Lone Pine. Kim Commons wasn’t playing well and salvaged his results by somehow managing to save a lot of “lost” games. In the penultimate round a win from a promising position against Larry Kaufman would have given him the required plus one for the IM norm, but he lost instead. Jim Tarjan, another promising player was too tired from his extensive European tour and turned in a lackluster performance.
Larry Kaufman was a tough fighter, but not up to standard in this tournament while Dutch GM Levente Lengyel started with three draws, but then had skein of six games in which he defeated Soltis and Kaufman, but the stretch also included four losses.
For IM Bernard Zuckerman the tournament was a disaster. He didn’t play all that badly, but while playing for a win against Julio Kaplan in the last round a horrible hallucination in a better endgame cost him a Knight and the game.
In the following game Mednis’ opponent was Kim Commons (July 23, 1951 - June 23, 2015). Commons’ name won’t be familiar to younger players, but in the 1970s he was one of a crop of promising young players who abandoned chess for a business career.
Commons said he wanted to become a “Grandmaster in real estate” and he eventually owned properties in California and Arizona, including a strip mall in Tempe, Arizona where he opened a music club named Club Red and a sports bar named Red Owl.
A messy divorce in 2014 and other economic issues forced him to sell the strip mall and he relocated Club Red to Mesa, Arizona where it continues to flourish today.
Known to those in the music
business for his calm and friendly demeanor, Commons passed away at
the age of 63 on Tuesday, June 23rd
in 2015 after suffering a major stroke over the weekend.
Edmar J Mednis - Kim S Commons
Result: 1-0
Site: Los Angeles
Date: 1974
Sicilian: Richter-Rauzer
[...] 1.e4 c5 2.♘f3 ♘c6 3.d4 cxd4 4.♘xd4 ♘f6 5.♘c3 d6 6.♗g5 The venerable Richter-Rauzer Attack in which white is threatening to double black's Ps after Bxf6. It also avoids the Dragon Variation which at one time was greatly feared. After ...e6, Rauzer introduced the modern plan of Qd2 and 0-0-0 in the 1930s. White's pressure on the d6-pawn often compels Black to respond to Bxf6 with ...gxf6 which weakens black's K-side P-structure, but in return black gains the two Bs and a central P-majority. 6...♕b6 7.♘b3
7...e6 8.♗xf6 This is rarely played. 8.Qd2 and 9.O-O-O is the main line.
16...♕xa5 17.a3 h5 18.b4 Setting a trap and Commons falls for it. Retreating the Q with either 18...Qa6 or 18...Qb6 or 18.. .Qc7 keeps the position even. 18...♕xa3 Commons traps the Q, but it's his own. 19.♘d5 Surprise!
7.♗e3 ♕xb2 8.♘db5 ♕b4 9.♖b1
9.♗d2 and white can repeat moves if he wants a quick draw. 9...♕c5 10.♗e3 ♕b4 11.♗d2 ♕c5 12.♗e3 ♕b4 Draw
9...♕a5 10.♗d2 ♕d8 11.♘d5 ♘xd5 12.exd5 ♘e5 and white is slightly better. 8.♕f3 is an interesting move that was my favorite back in the 1970s. 8...♗e7 9.O-O-O a6 10.♕g3
8...gxf6 9.♗e2 ♗d7 10.O-O ♗e7
10...O-O-O 11.♔h1 h5 12.f4 h4 13.a4 a6 14.a5 ♕c7 15.♘a4 h3 16.♘b6 ♔b8 17.g3 ♘e7 18.♗f3 f5 19.♘xd7 ♖xd7 20.c3 fxe4 1/2-1/2 Spraggett,K (2584)-Miroshnichenko,E (2615)/Kapuskasing 2004
11.♔h1 ♖g8
11...O-O was played in Jolly,J (2345)-Barbot,P (2461)/Saint Quentin FRA 2015. 12.f4 ♔h8 13.♗h5 ♘a5 14.♕d3 ♖ac8 15.♘xa5 ♕xa5 16.f5 ♕e5 17.♕h3 with equal chances.
11...h5 This worked out for black in Klokas, K (2193)-Vragoteris,A (2336)/Ermioni GRE 2006, but the result was because of the rating difference, not the merits of the move. 12.♗xh5 O-O-O 13.f4 ♖h7 14.♗f3 f5 15.exf5 ♕e3 and white is much better, but managed to lose.
12.f4 O-O-O 13.♕d2 ♔b8 14.♗f3 ♖g7 15.♖ae1 ♘a5 16.♘xa5
16.♘a4 is interesting and would require careful play on black's part. 16...♗xa4 17.♘xa5 ♕c7
17...♕xb2 would lose at once. 18.♖b1 ♕a3 19.♖xb7 ♔c8 20.♕d4 ♖d7 21.♕xa7 ♖xb7 22.♕xb7 ♔d8 23.♖b1 wins
18.♖c1 with an unclear position with chances for both sides. 19.♖a1 won't work... 19...♕xb4 20.♖fb1 ♕c5 and the Q has gotten away leaving black with equal chances.
19...♕a6 (19...exd5 20.♖a1 ♕b2 21.♖fb1 wins the Q.) 20.♖a1 ♗a4 21.♘xe7 ♖e8 The N can't be saved, but white now gets a crushing attack. 22.b5 ♕xb5 23.♕xd6 ♔a8 24.e5 ♗xc2 25.♘c6 ♗a4 26.♘d8 26.Rfb1 mates in 7 which is a move quicker. As it is white still mates so Commons resigned.
26.♘d8 ♕b6 27.♗xb7 ♕xb7 28.♘xb7 ♖c8 29.♖xa4 ♖xg2 30.♖xa7 ♔xa7 31.♖a1 ♖a2 32.♖xa2 ♔xb7 33.♖b2 ♔a8 34.♕a3#
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