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Bob Armstrong
10-17-2010, 01:17 AM
Article from Oct. 7, 2010 by Tim Foran on InsideToronto.com, sports section:

North Yorker knocks off world's No. 2

Canada's youngest ever grandmaster has knocked off a granddaddy of the chess world.

North York's Mark Bluvshtein, 22, checkmated the world's second highest rated player, Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov, in the seventh round of the recently completed Chess Olympiad in Russia. Topalov, 35, is the former world champion and only lost his number one ranking to Norway's 19-year-old chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen at the beginning of this year.

"I always felt like I could compete with all the top guys in the world," said Bluvshtein this week, days after returning from the western Siberia city of Khanty-Mansiysk.

The victory by Bluvshtein, leading Canada on "first board" for the second straight Olympiad, helped the national team achieve a surprising 2-2 draw with the eighth-ranked Bulgaria.

As "first board", it was Bluvshtein's job to take on the top player from each nation, including six higher-ranked grandmasters. Individually, he grabbed six of 11 possible points, with four wins, three losses and four draws. Overall, Canada finished the Olympiad with 13 points (four wins, five draws and two losses) in the 11-round tournament, good enough for 37th and higher than its pre-tournament ranking of 53rd.

"This Olympiad (we) showed a lot of potential," said Bluvshtein of the five-member team, which had an average age of only 21. Though Bluvshtein just graduated from York University this summer, he is already the veteran member of Canada's national chess team, having now competed in the last five biannual Olympiads.

Bluvshtein became Canada's youngest grandmaster when he was 16 and still a student at Newtonbrook Secondary School. He is currently one of only three active grandmasters in Canada - the other two now live and work outside the country and did not play for the national team - but he is about to have some company. The Canadian team's second board, Montreal's Thomas Roussel-Roozman, 22, qualified for grandmaster status after going undefeated in 10 rounds and taking seven of 10 possible points.

"He was Mr. Consistency for the team," Bluvshtein said of Roussel-Roozman.

He had even higher praise for his female counterpart, 16-year-old Yuanling Yuan of North York, who was the youngest ever to first board Canada's women's team.

Competing in her second Olympiad, Yuan took 7.5 of 11 possible points by winning seven matches, losing three and drawing one. She had four straight wins in rounds seven through 10 including three against higher-ranked opponents.

"Her level of play is just exceptional," said Bluvshtein, pointing out Yuan narrowly missed out on achieving her female grandmaster status after she lost her final round match.

The Victoria Park CI student has been Canada's top rated female player at the end of both 2008 and 2009.

"She would have a very solid point for being the best Canadian woman ever," suggested Bluvshtein.

Overall, however, the young women's team, which had two other 16-year-olds and three people competing in their first Olympiad, ended up 67th, less than their 58th ranking. The team took points on four wins, five losses and two draws.

While Yuan is returning to school, Bluvshtein is going to try his luck making money from his passion.

"I'm actually playing chess professionally for the next year, so we'll see how it goes," said the world beater, who competed in Barcelona and Nuremberg earlier this summer before the Olympiad and is now in the midst of preparing for a tournament in Corsica next month.

Tim was alerted to Mark's feat by our CFC Press Release # 4/2010, and we subsequently put him in touch with Mark.

Bob

Kerry Liles
10-18-2010, 10:57 AM
Article from Oct. 7, 2010 by Tim Foran on InsideToronto.com, sports section:

Tim was alerted to Mark's feat by our CFC Press Release # 4/2010, and we subsequently put him in touch with Mark.

Bob

The article is also online here:

http://www.insidetoronto.com/sports/article/883602--north-yorker-knocks-off-world-s-no-2

PS (for Mark) - get a better picture for media release...

Bob Armstrong
10-18-2010, 01:25 PM
Hi Kerry:

You have to blame me for the picture. I used it in the press release, though they cropped it a bit.

Bob

Kerry Liles
10-18-2010, 01:52 PM
Hi Kerry:

You have to blame me for the picture. I used it in the press release, though they cropped it a bit.

Bob

I'm glad you at least had a picture - I just thought it was a tad bright (overexposed?).
I am sure Mark has better ones - he should consider giving you a better one for distribution.
Even the one the CFC has is arguably better (although from a little bit earlier time?):


http://www.chess.ca/staff/tn_BluvshteinMark.jpg

Bob Armstrong
10-24-2010, 11:54 AM
I actually have a nice picture of Mark ( may have gotten it off his website at one point - not sure though ), but I'm still waiting to arrange a Picture Posting lesson with my computer friend, so I can post it. Once that happens, I'll try to post it.

Bob