On Tuesday, May 1st the Eric Kemper Memorial tournament will get underway.Eric Kemper was a survivor. He survived the Air Canada crash on the night of December 16,1997. As the plane came in to land, it slammed too hard onto the runway and bounced four times before it stopped. Thank goodness no one was killed in the accident, but about 30 people suffered injuries ranging from broken bones to lots of bruising. After that Eric said he had then to walk, in pain in the freezing cold the long distance to the terminal. I was talking to Eric years later and he said he could still feel the pain.

According to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s final report, the accident occurred after the first attempt to land was aborted only a few seconds from the runway. It was aborted because the plane looked as though it had veered too far to the left and would miss the runway. Heavy fog was also in part, to blame for this crash. On that flight along with Eric was his son Joseph, who is also a good chess player. Joseph will be there to start the tournament off with the opening move.

Eric was a founding member of the Chess Club and through his hard work he managed to bring a lot of players together. Joe Lattyak was another founding member and around 1965 he and Eric had managed to put together enough players to get off the ground. Two of these teams were called The Vikings A and B teams. Larry Monk was captain of both Viking Teams and the embers were Mike Martin, Eric Kemper and Bobby Miller. Other teams were the Bishops, The Associates, The Islanders and The Independents. Eric had a record of a lot of his games, but most of them are lost. However after a lot of searching, I managed to find this week’s game. A Bermudian player will say “it’s a great game”. A British player will say “it’s a brilliant game”. Play the game and see for yourself. I say it’s fantastic.

It is Eric Kemper playing White and Andre Andersen playing Black.

In Diagram 1 Eric opens up Andre’s king’s defense and from here — all Eric’s moves are putting pressure on Andre.

In Diagram 2 Eric has a beautiful knight check and fork But to my surprise he did not capture the queen in his next move, as you can see in Diagram 3.

Diagram 4 shows where it all falls apart for Andre, with the second attack on his queen. And with Eric’s next move the queen will be gone and Andre resigned. A fantastic game for Eric.

Eric Kemper <\m> White

Andre Andersen <\m> Black

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 0-0 6. Be2 Nbd7 7. 0-0 c5 8. d5 Ne8 9. Bf4 Nb6 10. Qd2 Bg4 11. Bh6 Bxf3 12. gxf3 Qd7 13. Kg2 a6 14. Rg1 Rd8 15. Bxg7 Nxg7 16. f4 Qc8 17. Kh1 Kh8 18. f5 Nd7 19. Qh6 Kg8 20. Bg4 Qc7 21. Rg3 Nf6 22. Rag1 e5 23. dxe6 fxe6 24. fxg6 hxg6 25. Bxe6+ Nxe6 26. Rxg6+ Kf7 27. Rxf6+ Ke7 28. Nd5+ Kd7 29. Rxe6 Qc6 30. Rg7+ Kc8 31. Ne7+

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