Author: gerold daniels
Date: 10:46:20 07/14/05
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On July 14, 2005 at 13:35:46, Vladimir Xern wrote: >On July 14, 2005 at 04:21:56, Kurt Utzinger wrote: > >> Of course not: the winners were Zackary Stephen (1398 USCF-Rating) >> and Steven Cramton (1685 USCF) two American chess amateurs -:) >> Kurt > >This long-winded story may shed a little more light on the two winners than >their ratings may indicate, but I hope that they won't be offended: > >Recently, I was an assistant at a local chess camp of 30 kids in NC, USA. The >other boy assisting lives in NC with his parents during the summer, but attends >a boarding school in New Hampshire (where the two winners are from). This boy >told me that he had recently taken up chess, and as part of his school's chess >club, is coached by Steven Cramton. I found this all rather remarkably >coincidental, because the camp took place a week after this freestyle tournament >that I had eagerly followed on the ChessBase website. Being under Cramton's >tutelage, he shed a few more details about them than I had read. He said that >they were both vastly underrated. Zackary, he told me, was around 1800-1900 >USCF despite his outdated 1398 rating. Still an amateur, nevertheless. >However, Cramton, he said, was likely of international master or grandmaster >strength. Naturally, I thought that this student may be embellishing just a >little. Noticing my skepticism, he told me of how Cramton had demolished a >local New Hampshire IM in an offhand game and routinely defeats the masters at >their NH chess club. He added that Cramton hadn't played in a tournament in >"forever" to explain for his low rating. > >The two, in their ChessBase interview, said that their specialty is opening >preparation and analysis. This was corroborated by my fellow assistant >unknowingly, whose tournament repertoire was formed by Cramton. I mean >unknowingly because one of the more "advanced" students at our camp was curious >about opening play and so my friend played through a line about 14 moves and >said "Well, the two book moves are so-and-so and so-and-so..." His words >sounded suspiciously inconclusive, so I inquired further. Trying to dodge the >issue, he finally revealed, "Well, there's a 'secret' move here that nobody is >supposed to know about." His repartee's intonation seemed to say, "that theory >doesn't know about." Subsequent discourse confirmed this, and revealed that >this "secret" move was a TN cooked up by his coach Cramton. > >So, for what it's worth, there's my story. Nice story Xern. So what is the secret move. Do tell. :) Gerold.
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