Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Brooklyn Castle

Brooklyn Castle Trailer from Rescued Media on Vimeo.

Review here. These young players are amazing. but jeepers, give me a break: "Just to give you an idea of how incredible these young kids are at chess, if Albert Einstein, who was rated 1800, were to join the team he’d only rank fifth." Have any of these kids mistakenly believed that the cosmological constant was their biggest mistake? Another review here. Thanks to Mike Cardinale and to US Chess Online.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Isaac Braswell memorial service

Per Gloria Johnson of the YMCA, the memorial will be a "very informal" gathering of Isaac's friends from Lawson and elsewhere.  

If you're in the West Loop and want to share a taxi around 10:30 tomorrow, please drop me a line.

PLACE: Lawson House YMCA, 30 W. Chicago Avenue (Chicago and Dearborn), Chicago.
DATE: Tuesday, March 13th
TIME: 11 a.m.

Gloria Johnson, the Executive Director of Lawson House, writes: "[T]he family memorial service will be Thursday at 3:30 p at A. A. Rayner Funeral Home at 318 E. 71st Street . Members of the family plan to attend the memorial service at the Y (1st fl. Lounge this morning at 11A). Residents of the Y put together a memorial altar in Issac’s memory in the lounge and it is so touching."

A wonderful endgame swindle

As we saw from his final game, Isaac Braswell was no pushover in the ending.

I was Isaac's victim in this 1999 game:

White to play
Brock-Braswell, Chicago 1999
Evaluate the position, and find White's best move


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Jasaitas - Braswell, CICL, 3/1/2012

Tony was kind enough to share his notes to this game. These annotations, lighthearted yet informative, were written after Isaac's death, but days before any of us in the chess community learned the sad news. Both players had fun!

The game itself demonstrate that good things can happen to those who persevere in the face of adversity.

(Incidentally, the ratings are CICL ratings, not USCF.  While Tony's rating is probably representative of his current strength (his USCF rating, somewhat stale, is above 2000), Isaac's last USCF rating will be 2075, and he peaked above 2100.)

Three GM events at North Shore Chess Center, right now!

Busy week for the North Shore CC:

GM Georg Meier of Germany (one of Germany's top players, currently #109 in the world) is playing GM Wesley So of the Phillippines (#99 in the world).  Game one of their four-game classical match was drawn today.

And there are TWO GM norm events going on this week: a six-player double round-robin, and a ten-player single round-robin.  Local participants include GM Mesgen Amanov, IM Angelo Young, IM Florin Felecan, and cheesehead GM Josh Friedel.  GMs Bykhovsky (Israel), Boros (Hungary), Diamant (Brazil), Moradiabadi (Iran), and IMs from the USA, Canada, Israel, and Azerbaijan make the fields truly international.

IM Mackenzie Molner might be the best US hope for a GM norm in these events.

More info here!