The clock is ticking....

We're trying to get the Chicago Chess Center open by May 1, 2013, and in the next 35 days, we need to raise another $27,955—give or take a buck or two —to turn this vision into reality.

What's in it for you and me?  The CCC will be a home for serious tournament play virtually ever weekend, and for for individual and group instruction from absolute beginners to advanced levels.  And we want to make it accessible to everyone in Chicago—at the risk of setting an impossibly lofty goal, the CCC aspires to be to chess players what the Old Town School of Folk Music is to guitar players.

If you haven't already visited the CCC's home page, please stop by to learn more!  And if you have already donated, we'd appreciate it if you could consider upgrading your donation level to join our Founders' Court.  It's OK not to donate before December 31st—this stage of our fundraising campaign is open until January 18th, and we appreciate that many charitably inclined folks like to take the tax consequences into consideration.

Finally, if you'd like to make an in-kind donation (whether it be books for the Center's library or that 2005 Mercedes taking up space in your garage), please drop us a line.  We can turn cars etc. into cash via eBay's Giving Works auction program and provide you with the paperwork to making the charitable contribution kosher in IRS's eyes.  (Or if you'd like to go for the Caissic equivalent of sainthood, you can run eBay Giving Works auctions yourself, and the proceeds can be automatically donated to the Center via Missionfish: please don't hesitate to ask for help on this!)

It's been humbling to get so much support from the community: thank you all for you interest and your support!

Jan 5-6 in Oak Brook: Tim Just's Winter Open

Officially, they're calling it the XXVIIIth edition of the TJWO, but it became clear a couple years ago that Tim had lost count, so let's just say it's the "umpteenth" edition of this great event.

Details on the ICA website.

Enter here!  It's a fun weekend that draws a lot of underrated young players.

ChessFlash KnightVision

This looks like a nice app for beginners: training in manuevering the horsie!  Available in Android now; Apple version under development.

The author, Glenn Wilson, wrote the ChessFlash reader used on this blog.

Provisional congratulations....

...to Chicago's newest National Master (a title that's more than a decade overdue, in my opinion). Out of Senn High School, meet NM Tam Nguyen!

Hat tip to Sevan Muradian via Chicago Area Chess.

Soundness never tasted so good

Another silly but amusing Internet blitz game. The reader will doubtless be able to find several thousand refutations of my play. 14.Kc2 e3+ 15.Bd3 looks like a good start.

As for the opening, after my 3...dxe4 we transposed to a Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. White's offbeat 4.Bg5!? seems to score very well in the databases, though I suspect that not too many of the players were GMs. Note that 3...Nxe4 4.Nxe4 dxe4, the Hubsch Gambit, was also possible. Gallagher in his book Beating the Anti-King's Indians (1996) says that "the Hubsch Gambit is not so bad and . . . Black can probably only obtain an equal game." OTOH, John Cox in Dealing with d4 Deviations (2005) says that White "finds it awkward to demonstrate any compensation at all" after 5.Bc4 Nc6 6.c3 e5 7.d5 Ne7 8.f3 exf3 9.Nxf3 c6! 10.Nxe5 Nxd5 (10.d6 Nf5 11.Nxe5 Qh4+) 11.Qe2 Be7 12.Be3 Be6 13.O-O O-O 14.Rad1 Qc7; 5.Be3 Bf5 6.g4 Bg6 7.Ne2 e6 8.h4 h6 9.Nf4 Bh7; or 5.f3 e5! 6.Be3 (6.fxe4 Qxd1+ 7.Kxd1 Bf5 8.fxe4 Bxe4 9.Nf3 Nc6 10.Bd3 Rd8 "may still offer White some chances to hold on") cxd4 7.Bxd4 Nc6 8. Be3 Qxd1+ 9.Rxd1 Nb4.