Chicago Class: Class D recap

Congratulations to two Illinois players, David Sye and Terrence Aguinaldo, who tied for first in Class D with 4½-½ scores. (Sye's prize was limited to $500 because he had recently had a rating more than thirty points over the class ceiling; Aguinaldo won a full $1,000.)  Another local player, Ga Luang Liu, shared third place with Hongbin Chen of Michigan and Sean Cramer of Ohio: each won $166.67.

David Sye shares nice analysis of what could have occurred in his pawn ending in the money round in his post on chess.com.

(David titles his post "A complicated endgame position from the Chicago Class," but really, the position is easy if you've taken the time to learn some basic tricks--and there are several cute finesses in this simple-looking position. There might even be lines that David correctly doesn't mention because they're not Black's best try, but are still worth looking at....)

  Class D crosstable is here!

The best thing about tripled pawns...

...is that there are three of them.

In the last round of Saturday's Evanston Tri-Level, Matthew Wilber never really let me in the game.  While I was worried about getting mated, White shifted attention to the queenside and won in spite of the tripleton.  Or because of it!

With this smooth performance, Matthew won the "Liberté" section of the Bastille Day Tri-Level, scoring 3½-½.  NM Jon Burgess, Matthew Stevens, Zachary Holecek, Abe Sun, and Bill Brock tied for second with 3-1 scores. 

Ansari Amir won the Egalité section with a perfect 4-0; David Sye took clear second with 3-1.

Michael Feldmann won the Fraternité section with 3½-½; Kevin Taylor, Brandon Zborowski, Jerry Neugarten, and Blake Wolf tied for second with 3-1.

Thanks to Maret Thorpe and Evanston Chess for hosting fifty players at the Levy Senior Center!