Chicago Chess Blog

Evanston Chess: Unrated & Quick Quads this Saturday

2012-01-31T11:37:00.000-06:00

Another email cut-and-paste. Both events charge the usual $5 entry fee, experts and above play for free.

Levy Senior Center, 300 Dodge Ave, Evanston, IL 60202

Evanston Chess Presents:
Feb. 4, 2012, 9:00am-1:00pm

Rapid, 5SS G/26+3 second delay

Quads, Non-Rated

This is our experimental tournament. We're trying two things:

"Quick quads" — a format that allows players to fit in three games and still have Saturday afternoon free.

"Unrated" — Have you never been USCF rated? Have you never played a tournament? Were you rated in the past, but haven't played a tournament in years? This is your chance to test (or re-test) the waters of tournament play, without having to make a major investment in time and cash. We will play in regular tournament conditions, and we will follow USCF rules.

Quads

Published USCF Regular Rating (or tournament director's estimate, if the player is not USCF-rated) determines player seeding. Players will be grouped into 4-player quads starting with the top-seeded player. If the bottom group has between 5 and 7 players, the bottom group will be paired as a Swiss section. No byes. Please come planning to play three rounds.

Three rounds. Digital clocks are required and will be set to G/26 plus 3 seconds delay. Some club clocks are available for use by players who do not own clocks.

Schedule: Registration from 9:00 to 9:30 am. Registration/sign-in for pre-registered players will close and quads will be formed at 9:30 a.m. sharp. First Round 9:45 am, rest of rounds ASAP (estimated ending time 12:30 p.m.).

No byes, no lunch break. Out of consideration for your quad-mates, please plan on playing all three rounds.

Send name, USCF number (if you have one), and telephone number to enter@evanstonchess.org

Junior players (under fourteen years) rated USCF 900+ are welcome. Sorry, but we do not accept junior players rated under USCF 900. Must be accompanied by a parent throughout the event.

Bring clocks -- Wheelchair accessible -- No Smoking.

Greater Chicago Primary & Junior High Championships

2012-01-31T06:03:00.000-06:00

This Saturday at the Hilton Northbrook. Details on ICA website.

Spassky turns 75

2012-01-30T18:55:00.000-06:00

Today (already yesterday in France) is/was Boris Spassky's 75th birthday!

Here's a ChessBase interview (still in German for the time being; Google Translate version here). Spassky is now confined to a wheelchair, but he reports that his second stroke only affected one hemisphere, and that he can still speak and think. With a self-deprecating laugh, he adds, "Above all, the side responsible for chess works, and is as reliable as before."

I met Spassky in a Mandarin restaurant in Grenoble in the summer of 1978. It was Spassky who started making small talk with me: perhaps he caught my shock of recognition (I wasn't sure it was Boris, and only found out later that he and Marina indeed lived in Grenoble). Perhaps he simply wondered what a grubby American college student was doing there. I remember that I had mu shu pork, that he asked about my studies, and that we didn't talk about chess. He seemed like a very kind man.

More games from Tim Just Winter Open

2012-01-30T15:57:00.001-06:00

FM Albert Chow annotates more games from the Illinois Tour for ICA's Chess Blog. Featured players include NM Gopal Menon, Robert Moskwa, NM Alexander Velikanov, Patrice Connelly, NM Mark Marovitch, Jonathan Kogen, and Chow himself.

Welcome to the blogosphere

2012-01-30T09:17:00.001-06:00

Three-time Wisconsin state champion Jeremy Kane (now out East) has a new blog. Check out Minor Pieces.

Just another silly Internet game

2012-01-30T06:40:00.006-06:00

As usual, the hapless NN proves unable to cope with the Black Knights' Tango. A double rook sacrifice ends the game. In the final position, I was expecting White to try 18.Nf4 exf4 19.Rae1+, when 19...Be3! ends matters. Instead, he resigned.

Three Americans in the top 14!

2012-01-29T21:39:00.001-06:00

OK, one of them is a dual citizen who plays for Italy: #10 Fabiano Caruana, who is also the strongest teenager in the world after Anish Giri's collapse.

Hikaru Nakamura and Gata Kamsky both recovered from slow starts at Wijk aan Zee to finish in the top half of the Tata Steel crosstable: Nakamura is now #6 in the world and Kamsky (who truly has solved his Topalov problem) is #14.

Silly Internet game du jour

2012-01-28T16:30:00.001-06:00

The Black Knights' Tango (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6!?) allows Black to get a big attack effortlessly if White plays passively. A case in point:

Gata makes Magnus say a bad word

2012-01-28T12:32:00.001-06:00

Kamsky plays brilliantly in the opening, and the frustrated Carlsen admits he [messed] up, using a Norwegian dialect phrase not suitable for work. Cover your ears, children.

But Magnus buckles down and holds the draw: check it out at The Week in Chess. (Postscript 1/30/2012: GM Ian Rogers hits the highlights of this game in his article for Chess Life Online.)

Nakamura beats Van Wely and moves to number six in the world. Aronian beats Gelfand with Black, and will win Wijk aan Zee tomorrow if he can draw Radjabov with the White pieces.

Game/60 at North Shore Chess Center tomorrow

2012-01-27T20:10:00.002-06:00

Details here. Round one at 10 a.m., or skip round one and begin play a bit before noon.

New CICL bulletin is out!

2012-01-27T14:22:00.000-06:00

In the December issue of The Chicago Chess Player, Chuck Dobrovolny tells us how he won $200 pushing pawns, and Tom Friske shares tactics problems from his online play.

Game of the year?

2012-01-26T12:18:00.000-06:00

Carlsen may be #1 on the ratings list, and Anand and Gelfand may be playing for the FIDE title, but Levon Aronian gets my vote for "People's Champion." Yesterday's win against Anish Giri was extremely cool:

The adventures of Isaac Braswell

2012-01-26T03:09:00.002-06:00

Christopher Girardo - Isaac Braswell

Swiped from the Evanston Chess homepage

My friend and CICL teammate Isaac Braswell rarely backs down from a tactical exchange! (Also, this game gives us an excuse to refresh our memory of the Tarrasch Trap.)

Names omitted to protect the guilty

2012-01-25T08:42:00.001-06:00

Checkmate is a little death: "shah mat," the king is dead. (Pedantic footnote: Wikipedia says I'm wrong. But please don't let facts spoil the following shtick.)

And when we think our own king is about to die, we may experience a series of emotions analogous to Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief. I deny that I'm getting mated (skepticism is healthy!), I'm angry that I'm getting mated (this gets the adrenalin flowing!), I'm desperately trying to avoid getting mated (seeking any possible escape), I'm depressed about getting mated (but hey, it's only a game), and then I finally accept reality and congratulate my opponent for her good play.

And whenever we have to deal with a surprising move, we may go through a miniature version of this drama: "I'm not losing this pawn, I'm angry at myself for blundering this pawn, I'll find a way to avoid losing this pawn, I'm depressed that I have to lose this pawn, ...hmm, maybe I can lose the pawn and stll draw this position."

In any case, these are typical emotions I try to manage during play: perhaps your experience is different! ;-)

With this in mind, let's look at a game from last weekend's Evanston event:

Black to play

Black played the inventive 1...Rd3. White ate the free rook with 2.Bxd3, which Black answered with 2...Ng4, reaching this position.

White to play

White to play sees that there's no way to prevent both 3....Nxe3 and 3...Qxh2 mate, and therefore resigned. Your thoughts?

In chess, unlike life, the bargaining stage may be more productive than the acceptance stage.

January chess roundup

2012-01-25T08:39:00.000-06:00

Dan Leroy highlights the action on the ICA website.

Evanston Three X Three results

2012-01-24T10:59:00.000-06:00

FM Albert Chow swept the Gold section of Saturday's three-round event with a 3-0 score. Chow beat Isaac Braswell with seconds to spare in the final round. Jack Xiao scored 2½-½ against higher-rated players and picked up over 100 ELO in the process.

There was a logjam for first in the Silver Section: Sritej Vontikummu, Tae Moon, Hanson Hao all posted an undefeated 2½-½.

Matthew Ward took the Bronze honors with 3-0.

Maret Thorpe directed the 39-player tournament for Evanston Chess.

FM Albert Chow annotates games from Tim Just's Winter Open

2012-01-23T13:01:00.000-06:00

Enjoy! This is the first of several installments. Players featured in this installment include Vince Hart, NM Sam Schmakel, Andy Applebaum, Jiahua Zhang, Jonathan Kogen, and David Peng.

Albert will be annotating games from all events of the 2012 Illinois Tour.

Take the darn pawn, Gauri!

2012-01-20T12:57:00.001-06:00

Here's the game featured at the end of yesterday's YouTube coverage of the Whitney Young - Glenbrook South match.

The caption for this blog post is of course tongue-in-cheek. 8...Qxb2 is the famous Najdorf Poisoned Pawn: objectively, it's the best move in the position, but players who haven't done their homework are asking for trouble.

For more coverage of the tournament from a frankly biased CPS perspective (I'm cool with that!) and for some quality trash-talking in the comments, see the Chicago Public League Sports Blog.

Whitney Young vs. Glenbrook South

2012-01-19T08:12:00.001-06:00

Whitney Young wins a close one at last weekend's Glenbard South Chess Tournament, but any team that can beat Whitney Young on three of the top four boards is a force to be reckoned with....

Slow start for Americans in Wijk aan Zee

2012-01-19T00:53:00.000-06:00

Big shoes to fill?

After four rounds of Tata Steel Chess, last year's winner Hikaru Nakamura and reigning U.S. Champion Gata Kamsky are both 1½ points behind leaders Aronian and Carlsen. Macauley Peterson reports at Chess Life Online. (Teenager Fabiano Caruana, who learned to play chess in Brooklyn but now represents Italy, is only half a point behind the leaders.)

Check out the action Thursday morning: play begins at 7:30 a.m. Chicago time.

ballot-box stuffing

2012-01-19T00:34:00.001-06:00

US Chess Federation members, do you want a chance to win a free copy of Frank Brady's Endgame?

Enter this contest by sending an email to Jennifer Shahade with your USCF ID, mailing address, and the magic words, "Fischer-Unzicker, Siegen 1970." (You're allowed to choose a different Fischer game, but why bother?)

Illinois Tour Standings

2012-01-17T19:26:00.000-06:00

After one event!

http://www.il-chess.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=167

The formula looks rather darn simple: you get one point for playing in each event, then one point for every point scored. But in order for you to claim your rightful place in the Tour standings, you'll need to renew your ICA membership.

Play in Evanston this Saturday ($5, such a deal)

2012-01-17T11:54:00.002-06:00

FM Albert Chow will be there! Another email cut-and-paste....

Levy Senior Center, 300 Dodge Ave., Evanston, IL 60202

Evanston Chess Presents:

Jan 21, 2012

9:00am-5:00pm

Three x Three, 3SS G/65 delay 5

Three Sections, USCF Regular Rated

Our guest master will be FM Albert Chow

Section Gold: 1700 and over

Section Silver: 1200 - 1699

Section Bronze: Under 1200 and Unrated

1600 - 1699 may play up to Gold.
1100 - 1199 may play up to Silver.
Published USCF Regular Rating determins eligibility.
Unrated players may be placed up at TD discretion.

From time to time Evanston Chess pays one or more titled players to play in our events. We usually do not pair them against each other. Even if they should lose (it does happen) we may pair them with the highest score groups.

Three rounds. Digital clocks are required and will be set to G/65 plus 5 seconds delay. Accelerated or decelerated pairings at TD discretion. Sections may be combined at TD discretion.

Registration from 9:00 to 9:30 AM. Players must check in by 9:30 am; players who arrive late will receive a half-point bye for the first round. First Round 9:45 am, last round over roughly 5:00 pm. No Lunch Break: We need to be finished by 5:00 PM, so there will be no extra time between rounds for lunch.

You may take one half-point bye in any round but the last.

Entry fee is $5, please pay cash (no checks) at the door. Masters and Experts play free.

Send name, USCF number, and telephone number to enter@evanstonchess.org

Junior players (under fourteen years) rated 900+ are welcome. Sorry, but we do not accept junior players rated under 900. Must be accompanied by a parent throughout the event.

Bring clocks. -- Wheelchair accessible. No Smoking.

Wijk aan Zee round 1

2012-01-14T11:57:00.000-06:00

Follow the live action at Tata Steel Chess. Kamsky and Nakamura both drew with White: several games are still in progress.

"Library is heart of a neighborhood"

2012-01-12T14:39:00.000-06:00

And the Rudy Lozano Public Library is the heart of the Pilsen chess community. The city's budget cuts now mean that Rudy Lozano and the city's other neighborhood libraries are only open five days a week.

Story in today's Sun-Times.