On April 23, 2001 the Huntsville Chess Club was visited by two time USCF Grand Prix points winner Grand Master Alek Wojtkiewicz. With a rating of 2680 he was fifth on the USCF highest ratings list. Just off his victory at the Space City Open the day before he dropped by our club to give a lecture and a simul before heading back to New York.

Lecture

The lecture was on a game he played against GM Khalifman at Linares in 1997. GM Wojtkiewicz fell into a line that GM Khalifman had prepared in the Queen's Gambit / Slav Defense that was defined by 7) g3!? This was the first time GM Wojtkiewicz had ever seen this move. The following play was incredibly sharp but GM Wojtkiewicz continually found the only moves that didn't lose the game, until he came up with a novelty of his own with 19)...Bc8! GM Khalifman apparently did not consider this move in his home preparation. It busted the line and GM Wojtkiewicz ended up winning the game despite the time trouble he was in due to the complications. This win helped him tie for first place in the tournament.

Simul

After the lecture we arranged the tables for the simul. The rules were that GM Wojtkiewicz would get the white pieces in all the games, the players had to make their moves in his presence, and each player could pass up to three times. There were only 10 HCC members participating. The low turnout proved to be a disadvantage for us because GM Wojtkiewicz moved incredibly fast! He averaged about 3 - 5 seconds a move and never spent more than 15 - 20 seconds on any one move. It didn't take him long at all to dispose of us one-by-one.

Here are most of the simul games. The fast pace is the excuse that I'm using for all the mistakes that were made... but that just exemplifies the great blitz player that GM Wojtkiewicz is. Many of us had real good games going at some point before succumbing to the Grand Master.