Saturday, September 10, 2011

Yury Shulman annotates...

...his come-from-behind win in the Chicago Blaze match.

Check it out!

ICA Metro VP Mike Cardinale and I briefly discussed the following position:

Shulman-LaRota
White to move

Mike noted that the non-standard 19.Kd2! (with the idea of 20.Rxh7! followed by 21.Rh1+ and 22.Qg6+) looks awfully strong.  But Yury notes that he had an even stronger continuation.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Chicago Blaze blog

Tom Panelas maintains the Blaze's team blog, which currrently features Albert Chow's and Trevor Magness's thoughts on last week's match, and the Game of the Week.

Board 1: Yury Shulman 1 - Fabio LaRota 0

The best game of the round: LaRota does his best to pull off a big upset. But grandmasters make their living off the endgame. After 46.Kh2, would you have preferred 46...Nc5 or 46...Nf6? What's the difference?

Board 2: Eric Rodriguez 0 - Josh Friedel 1

No, the Sämisch Variation does not lose by force. But Josh Friedel's win is also very smooth. I enjoy sacking the Exchange for the two bishops myself, but in this game, the bishops have no scope.

Board 4: Alejandro Allen ½ - Todd Freitag ½

Todd stepped in for NM Sam Schmakel, who couldn't play last night for personal reasons. Despite being outrated by 250 points, Todd drew comfortably.

The position after 18.g3 has been reached before: materialist that I am, I'd snap the pawn on h3. But unappeatizing as the broken kingside pawn structure may be, White never really challenged Black in the ending.

Chicago Blaze 3½ - Miami Sharks ½

Last night's U.S. Chess League match was another one-sided affair, but Miami did not field its big guns.  So two games into the season, cries of "Break up the Yankees!" are premature.  But any team that can field Dmitry Gurevich on third board will cause matchup problems for opponents.

White just sits on Black and pushes the d-pawn through: one of those games that makes you think that the Modern Benoni is hopeless.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Evanston Chess G/65 this Saturday, Sept. 10!





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

Evanston Chess Presents:
Saturday, Sep 10, 2011, 9:00am-5:00pm

Three x Three, 3SS G/65

Three Sections, USCF Regular Rated

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.

Your opinion, please

We are currently scheduling tournaments for 2012, which will be held in January, March, May, July, September and November. We might also add one extra tournament in April, June or October, perhaps a different format from what we've been doing. Possibilities include rated blitz, rated quads, an unrated G/40 or suggest something. Let us know what you'd like to see by emailing us at enter@evanstonchess.org.




New state champions

Grandmaster Mesgen Amanov, International Master Angelo Young, and FIDE Master Aung Thant Zin are the 2011 Illinois Open Co-Champions!  Young lost to Amanov, but was the only player to win five games.


Aung Thant Zin, Mesgen Amanov, and Angelo Young

Crosstable here: even without Yury Shulman (recovering from the World Cup), this was one of the strongest championships in recent memory.  It was a particular honor to have three of our grandmasters (defending champion Dmitry Gurevich, Nikola Mitkov, and Amanov) playing in this event for two years running.

Akshay Indusekar won clear first in the Reserve Section with a 5½-½ score.  Crosstable here!

Thanks to the Illinois Chess Association, Chess for Life LLC (Tim Just and Wayne Clark), chief TD Sevan Muradian, and all who made this weekend's event possible.

More to follow!