La Moyne Splichal Tribute Newsletter
Published: Sat, 02/04/12
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| La Moyne Splichal | |||||||||
ery sad news for Colorado Chess and for all who knew him - LaMoyne S. Splichal, 57, of Denver, passed away January 27, 2012 at his home in Denver.
You can read the obituary here: http://www.stevensonfuneralhome.com/Obits_details.asp?ID=2475.
In the position on the right (from one of La Moyne's games) it is black to move.
Answer below.
La Moyne was a long time club manager of the Denver Chess club. He was the very first chess player that I met when I started playing in Colorado. I remember that he greeted me as a newcomer with a smile, and welcomed me. Later as I got more involved with the Denver chess club, I would assist La Moyne with tournament directing, and organizing events. I would often go over to his apartment at the end of the month, and help him submit the rating reports, and also download the latest rating supplements into the SwissSys pairing software. You never knew what La Moyne was going to be like over the board. He could be brilliant, and could also blunder. I remember La Moyne winning sole first place at the Edward Levy Memorial tournament, which was a huge Bill Goichberg tournament that was held in Denver. It was the biggest tournament that Colorado has had in years and years. Everyone was very happy for him. He won over 1000 dollars in prizes, going a perfect 5 for 5 in the Under 1600, which gave him a rating floor of 1600, which he was usually close to the rest of his playing career. You can see this outstanding performance here: http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200204212180.5-10329515. You can see his full rating history here: http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlRtgSupp.php?10329515. You can see he was a very active player, and was the chief tournament director in 192 events. I remember doing a lot of fun tournaments with La Moyne, such as the Halloween tournament, where people dressed up in costumes, and the 24 hour tournament at Anthea Carson's apartment, which was 20 rounds from noon Saturday until noon Sunday. He didn't own a car, so I often would drive him home at the end of the evening of a weeknight tournament game, and he often rode with me to out of town tournaments as well. I remember him taking the Greyhound bus to Minnesota for the HB Global Challenge tournament, and I think took him about 3 days to get there. He was pretty quirky, and liked things done a certain way. I remember when I was the editor of the Colorado Chess Informant Magazine, I gave him a copy of the magazine in person, to save the organization some money on postage, and so he would get it sooner. But he wanted to get it in the mail, because he liked having the sticker with his name and address on it. lol. He would also get upset if people wrote "LaMoyne" (without the space) or "Lamoyne" (with no capital "M") or anything other than the two word version "La Moyne". I always thought this was funny, because it was such an unusual name, that people were bound to get it wrong. La Moyne was inducted in to the North Dakota Hall of Fame, http://www.ndchess.org/HOF.htm, and I remember him being very proud of that accomplishment. La Moyne had a really great sense of humor. I still crack up at the sign he made that said "Let's have fun on board one" at Anthea's 24 hour tournament, when Dan Avery (who likes to say "Let's Have Fun" at the beginning of the game) was playing on the first board. He was very creative, and took a lot of pride in the little things of a chess tournament. In the obituary it says "In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to your local chess club or favorite charity, in honor of La Moyne.", which says a lot about his love of the game.
You will be missed La Moyne! Thank for you all that you did for Colorado Chess. Rest in Peace. Here is the complete game: [Event "2008 Colorado Open"] 1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Bc4 Bb4 5. a3 Bxc3 6. dxc3 O-O 7. O-O d6 8. You can play through this game here: http://tacticstime.com/?p=2725.
Answer:
24...e3 sets up the dangerous threat of Qxh3 which white must defend against and doesnâ(TM)t have time to save the knight on d2.
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© Copyright 2011-2012 Timothy Brennan, All Rights Reserved. | |||||||||
In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate ~ Isaac Asimov 
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