Tal Memorial Round 7

This is one of the greatest events of recent years, with wonderful fighting chess.

Alexander Morozevich has lost two games in a row, but seems likely to remain in a massive tie for first place (assuming McShane converts against Kramnik: follow the live action here).  Nakamura is only half a point off the pace, with two winnable games to play!

It's hard to believe that Luke McShane (who just won) does something else for a living....

"it's not a big secret that Garry and me are not the best friends anymore"

Check out part 1 of Peter Doggers's interview with Viswanathan Anand in ChessVibes.

Upcoming Illinois Tour events this summer

The next Tour event is the Chicago Class, July 20-22 or 21-22 in Wheeling.

The Bradley Summer Open is in Peoria on August 25th.  (The link to the Summer Open info is not on the ICA website yet, but the info is on the Greater Peoria Chess Federation website.)

And don't miss the Illinois Open State Championship in Oak Brook this Labor Day weekend!

Shaw, Froehlich, Fei lead Illinois Tour

NM Tenzing Shaw leads the Open Section of the 2012 Illinois Tour with 12 points, closely followed by Jonathan Kogen with 10 points.  NM Sam Schmakel and FM Albert Chow are tied for third with 8.5.

Jim Froehlich leads the Reserve Section with 12 points; Joe Delay and Michael Penway are tied for second with 11.5 points.

Andrew Fei leads the Reserve Scholastic section with 14.5 points.  Akshay Indusekhar is close behind with 13 points, and Jonathan Hrach is in third with 12 points.

Details at the Illinois Tour homepage: please remember that you must be a ICA member to appear in the standings!


Open

Shaw, Tenzing 12.0
Kogen, Jonathan 10.0
Schmakel, Sam 8.5
Chow, Albert 8.5
Amanov, Mesgen 7.5
Mitkov, Nikola 7.5
Brock, Bill 7.5
Shulman, Yury 7.0
Gurevich, Dmitry 6.5
Kasiurak, Zack 6.0
Wilber, Matthew 5.5
Aliyev, Timur 5.0
Karklins, Andrew 5.0
Tsyganov, Igor 5.0
Vishnuvardhan, Arjun 5.0
Ni, Viktorija 5.0
Moskva, Robert 4.5
Young, Angelo 4.5
Shankar, Gauri 4.5
Naff, William A 4.5
Magness, Trevor 4.0
Felecan, Florin 4.0
Rosen, Eric 4.0
Zin, Aung Thant 3.5
Cohen, Lawrence 3.5
Kunche, Nikhilesh Kumar 3.5
Gupta, Saagar 3.0
Luo, Chengliang 3.0
Nibbelin, Mark 2.5
Bourgerie, Dennis 2.0
Flaga, Krzysztof 1.5


Reserve Adult 

Froehlich, Jim A 16.0
Delay, Joe 11.5
Penway, Michael 11.5
Dolson, Carl 11.0
Nach, Jordan 10.0
Hart, Vincent 8.0
Plaines, Theron 7.5
Bungo, Gregory 6.5
Zafar, Mohammed H. 6.5
Leong, Gee 6.5
Villareal, Max 6.0
Lewis, Richard 6.0
Inumerable, Florentino 6.0
Gilvary, Brian 6.0
Cox, William 5.5
Cronin, Mike 5.5
White, David 5.5
Bustamante, Edward 5.5
Karklins, Erik 5.5
Hawn, Stephen 5.5
Craigmile, Charles 5.5
Knox, Terrance 5.0
Berman, Jeremy 5.0
Henderson Jr., S.E. 5.0
Dixon, Jeff 5.0
Gasiecki, Alan 4.5
Freeman, John 4.5
Callahan, Tom III 4.5
Lewis, Otis 4.5
Gamino, Everado 4.5
Barbian, Matthew Richard 4.5
Peterson, Gregory 4.5
Harvey, Frank 4.5
Mei, Mike 4.5
Titov, Fedor 4.5
Kreisman, Philip 4.0
Doyle, Dennis R 4.0
Griesmeyer, Walter J 4.0
Tums, Valdis 4.0
Duffy, James 4.0
Ammann, Keith 4.0
Feldman, William 4.0
Kosteris, Dimitri 4.0
Djordjevic, Vladimir 3.5
Damocles, Joe 3.5
Canavan, Dylan 3.5
Ancheta, Rene 3.5
Willmore, Floyd E. 3.5
Jackson, William 3.5
Doyle, Dennis C. 3.0
Vigants, Alberts 3.0
Cohen, Frederic 3.0
Gasunas, Anthony C 3.0
Richmond, Dr. M. Barrie 3.0
Levine-Weinberg, Adam 3.0
Coleman, Mark S 2.5
Marchert, James Sr. 2.0
Dupee, Arthur B 2.0


Reserve Scholastic

Fei, Andrew Yueyang 14.5
Indusekar, Akshay 13.0
Hrach, Jonathan 12.0
Pena, Christian 10.0
Peng, David Tianjian 9.5
Meduri, Aakash 9.0
Brown, Ethan 8.5
Daniels, Jason 8.5
Zinski, Maximilian 8.5
Qazi, Rafeh 8.0
Lehmann, Spencer 8.0
Harihara, Caeley 8.0
Sun, Abe 7.5
Liu, Miranda 7.0
Bian, Alex 6.5
Swan, Jr, Charles 6.5
Jungo, Mark 6.0
Adve, Anshul 5.5
Curcio, Jack 5.5
Stevens, Matthew 5.0
Spiegel, Evan 5.0
Hu, Alex 5.0
Chinitz, Michael 5.0
Dzelilovic, Adil 5.0
Margolin, Jeremy 5.0
Kavouras, Christian D 4.5
Yang, Matthew 4.5
Shepherd, Duncan 4.0
Paykin, David 4.0
Conjeevaram, Sahil 4.0
Biondo, James 4.0
Provine, Shayne 3.5
Watford, Everett A 3.0
Gant, Jourdain 2.5

Braswell Memorial Blitz results

I've known for a long time that Michael Auger and William Aramil are infinitely better blitz players than I am.  But I really got a kick out of losing to the third-place finisher, George Li. 

It's one thing to lose a game by overlooking NxK or to draw a game because one fails to look at the clock when one's position is overwhelming and one's opponent flagged several seconds earlier, which happened in my games with other honorable opponents.  It's another to get squashed like a bug in a theoretical line, which is what George did to me.  I forgot the event was USCF blitz-rated, and shouted in horror, "My position is wretched!" or something like that.

"SHHH!!"

(Only slightly more quietly): "But it is wretched." 

After the game, I peppered George with move-order questions in his deadly 4.e3 Slav, and he was kind enough to answer them.  George is 12 years old.

Crosstable here. The three prizewinners received enormous chocolate bars: Isaac would have approved

Before the event, organizer Maret Thorpe was honored by Mike Cardinale of the Illinois Chess Association for her past & current contributions to ICA. Thank you, Maret!