Cover Story
A Tale Of Two Knights, Golden Recapping the 2003 and 2004 Golden Knights tournaments
By FM Alex Dunne
Time goes by faster as speed increases. What used to take ten plus years now takes seven. Or six. Or less. As communication becomes more and more efficient, correspondence chess tour- naments such as the Golden Knights find the battles end more quickly, not in moves, but in time. The 2003 Golden Knights and the 2004 Golden Knights ended within a month of each other. The first place winners were well recognized names to the correspondence chess (CC) community, but there the similar- ity ends.
The 2003 Golden Knights winner was settled early—On May 6, 2008, John Menke played a draw with Humberto Cruz in the final round. This draw and a semifinal draw also with Cruz were the only points given up by the remarkable John Menke.
John Menke’s rap sheet shows him at the top of his game. His victory in the 2003 Golden Knights and the 2004 Correspon- dence Chess League of America (CCLA) Championships showed his domination of chess by postcard. His victory in the 2004 Electronic Knights championship showed he was equally at home in the electronic media. John’s continued success in
the 2005 CCLA e-mail championship (scoring 9½-½) and a third place finish in the 2005 Electronic Knights showed a remark- able consistency of top flight results.
John, a very private individual, is not much on sharing a lot of details about his life. He is content to let his chess games speak for him. As John passed his 70th birthday this year, he contemplated retirement. After all, in what other sport do you have to wait two years after crossing the finish line to get your name engraved on the trophy? But the siren chess call was too strong. He has re-entered the chess scene, not in the Golden Knights—six or seven years may be too long to wait for a tour- nament win—but in the strong Palciauskas tournament which generally ends in a two-year period, a mere flash of time. And the news from the International Correspondence Chess Feder- ation (ICCF) is that John Menke will be awarded the title of International Correspondence Chess Master at the yearly ICCF Congress in Antalya, Turkey. Congratulations, John!
John’s favorite game from the 2003 Golden Knights was from the preliminary round when he met up with Bleys Rose ...
Semi-Slav Defense, Meran System (D47) John Menke (2101) Bleys Rose (2358) 2003 Golden Knights
1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 c6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 dxc4 7. Bxc4 b5 8. Be2 a6 9. e4 b4 10. e5 bxc3 11. exf6 Nxf6 12. bxc3 Bd6 13. 0 -0 0-0 14. Bg5 Qc7 15. Rb1
White has not been very
successful with 15. Bxf6 when the two bishops have been adequate compensation for the damaged pawn structure.
28
15. ... Nd5 16. Bd3 Interesting. White offers the
c3-pawn and the two bishops for the h7-pawn.
16. ... Nxc3 17. Bxh7+ Kxh7 White’s attacking idea is
clear after 17. ... Kh8? 18. Qd3 Nxb1 19. Ne5 when Qh3 can- not be stopped.
18. Qd3+ Kg8 19. Qxc3 Bb7 20. Bd2
A sophisticated attacking
plan—the bishop retreats to allow the knight access to g5.
Chess Life — August 2011
20. ... Rab8 21. Qd3 f6 After this commital defense,
Menke milks his initiative for all its worth: he probes at Black's weaknesses, improving the position of his pieces with each threat.
22. Qc4 Kf7 23. Rfe1 Rfe8 24. Rbc1 Rbc8 25. Qb3 Qe7 26. Be3 Rh8 27. h3 a5 28. Nd2 Bb4 29. Red1 Ba6 30. Nc4 a4
Rose wants to avoid passive
defense after 30. ... Qc7 31. a3 Be7 32. Bd2 Bxc4 33. Qxc4 Bxa3 34. Ra1 Bb4 35. Bxb4 axb4 36. Qxb4 but he doesn’t
get enough for his pawn in the game continuation.
31. Qxa4 Bb5 32. Qc2 Ra8 33. Nb6 Ra3 34. Rb1 Rb8
-tr-+-+-+ +-+-wqkzp- -sNp+pzp-+ +l+-+-+- -vl-zP-+-+
rt -+-vL-+P P+Q+-zPP+ +R+R+-mK-
After 34. ... Rb8
uschess.org
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