Like déjà vu all over again

Earlier this month, I showed you a trap in the Fort Knox Variation of the French Defense where White traps Black's queen on f6 with 8.Bg5! Bxf3 9.Qd2! and if 9...Qxd4, 10.Bb5+. Here's a variant of the same trap with the players' c-pawns exchanged. This requires a small refinement by White, but Black's queen stays trapped. Note that if only future GM Sherzer had read Chernev's The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess, he wouldn't have fallen into this trap!

Sacking the house

The following game is a bit sloppy, but the conclusion is entertaining. I'm now 149-0-0 on GameKnot. The streak will end very soon. Seriously.

University of Illinois ties for first in Pan-Am Intercollegiate

Results are in from this weekend's Pan-Am, hosted by Princeton University.  The University of Illinois finished in a five-way tie for first place with four teams that offer full chess scholarships.  Illinois drew Cornell and the University of Chicago, and won its other four matches. Crosstable is here.Congratulations to the Illini!

 The team includes three names long familiar to Chicago chess players, Eric Rosen, Aakaash Meduri, and Michael Auger. The Illini's fourth board, Xin Luo, scored a spectacular 6-0.

Look for story on Chess Life Online shortly. In the meantime, here's a game from U of I's last-round win over Columbia University, which proves once again that queen endings are too hard for mere human beings:

Tough nuts to crack

Burgess-Shulman

Here is Jon Burgess' crushing win over GM Yury Shulman from the 2004 Chicago Open. Jon looks like the GM here, dominating the game from move 17 until the end. His notes, and advice to competitors, are here.

Nakamura wins U.S. Championship

Nakamura, after winning (as Black) against Kamsky, had a half-point lead over Kamsky going into the last round. Naka had White against Seirawan, who was having a horrible tournament, while Kamsky was Black against Robert Hess. The safe, "professional" thing to do would be to play solidly against Seirawan and keep an eye on Kamsky's game. If it looked like Kamsky was going to draw or lose, Naka could draw and clinch the win; if it looked like Kamsky would win, Naka could press for the win against Seirawan. Instead, Naka trotted out a "Brand X" line against Seirawan's French (1.e4 e6 2.f4?!), which is almost never seen (less than a third of a percent of the games with the French Defense) and gives Black a plus score! The critics (including me) would have said "What was he thinking!" if Naka had lost. But no, it worked like a charm - Naka crushed Seirawan, while Kamsky drew. This gave Naka the championship by a full point, undefeated, 8.5/11 (6 wins, 5 draws). This is comparable to Fischer's typical score in U.S. Championships. Congratulations to Hikaru Nakamura on his gutsy play and incredible performance!

Friedel ½ - Finegold ½

Hmm. Ben Finegold guaranteed victory, then played the passive 4...Bd7 variation of the Rubinstein French. It's not necessarily bad match strategy, but one would think that it's not fair to one's teammates to say the Blaze "are going down next week" without trying to win one's own game as Black.

Friedel got an edge, Finegold defended correctly: the draw was logical.

The bishop also moves backwards

I don't know whether it's fair to call a blunder in a blitz game one of the biggest in chess history, but this game (played just a couple hours ago) led to Vassily Ivanchuk's elimination from the World Cup.

Alexander Grischuk and Peter Svidler, both of Russia, will play for the World Cup title. Ivanchuk and Ruslan Ponomariov, both of Ukraine, will play for third place and automatic qualification to the next World Championship cycle. Follow the action here, beginning well before dawn on Friday.

A heartbreaking loss for Ivanchuk!

The French Defense was Fischer's bête noire, too

So now we all know what to play against Eric until he solves his opening problem!  Seriously, it's common for 1.e4 players to have difficulties with certain semi-closed openings.  The extra tempo isn't as valuable as the specialist's knowledge that the player of the Black pieces often has.

Black to play

18...Rd5!? was a very creative Exchange sacrifice by Guo!

Altounian-Shulman, U.S. Championship Round 2

This game highlights a major practical disadvantage of the French Defense at the international level: if White only wants a draw, it can be very hard to win.  In this game, Altounian is facing one of the world's strongest practitioners of the French, and he chickens out with the Exchange Variation.  

If you want to play the French against an amateur like me, this is less of a worry: check out John Watson's Play the French.