Helen Warren honored at ICA banquet

From left: Les Bale, Tim Just, ICA president Tom Sprandel, Vince Hart, honoree Helen Warren, Jerry Neugarten, Jim Warren, 40% of Jim Brotsos...

Photo Betsy Dynako

Banquet organizer Andi Rosen reports....

Best game prize: 1982 Midwest Masters

The Midwest Masters tournaments are one of Helen Warren's great legacies.  Here's Erik Karklins's amazing game that won the best game prize in the inaugural event.  Look for notes to this game (based on the gracious loser's annotations in the Illinois Chess Bulletin) in the December 2010 Chess Life!

A letter from Tom Sprandel

   
   
  Illinois Chess Association
  
Dear Chess Friend:
GM Dmitry Gurevich, GM Yury Shulman and IM Florin Felecan will be at the banquet to honor Helen Warren.  We'd love to have you there too.
Below is an invitation to the 2010 Illinois Chess Association banquet honoring Helen Warren, founder of the ICA Warren Junior Program. I hope you’ll be able to attend. 
Helen’s vision and tireless work has helped foster the growth of the state’s top youth chess players. Be sure to read Bill Brock's tribute to Helen Warren.  It's on the front page at http://il-chess.org/. I think you'll enjoy it.
The Warren program has a simple mission: to identify nationally ranked Illinois chess players
ages 7 to 18, and provide them with opportunities to study with masters and grandmasters and to participate in high-level invitational events. The program nurtures the highest-potential Illinois students so they can compete on a national and international stage, and provides students with an opportunity for rigorous study that will give them skills to become leaders in other fields as adults.
The program serves more than 35 Illinois children who are currently ranked among the top U.S. chess players for their age in the country. Many are academically gifted, and benefit greatly from the in-depth study required to learn chess at an advanced level. The program funds intensive individual instruction for those with financial need, organizes group instruction, and sponsors state high school and girls invitational competitions, with prizes for winners to attend U.S. national championship tournaments.
If you can’t make it to the banquet, I hope you’ll consider making a contribution in Helen’s
honor to this worthwhile cause. You may purchase tickets online at http://shop.il-chess.org/ or, you may mail your ticket order or donation to: ICA Warren Junior program, c/o Andrea Rosen, 8214 Keystone Ave., Skokie, IL 60076. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tom Sprandel, President
Illinois Chess Association, Inc.






ICA Banquet
Honoring Helen Warren
Former ICA president and founder, Warren Junior Program
Recipient of the ICA's Broughton Award for outstanding service to chess in Illinois.
Sunday, November 7, 2010, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
 Buca Di Beppo, 90 Yorktown Road, Lombard
Dear Illinois Chess Association Members and Friends,

 We hope you’ll join us at a luncheon honoring Helen Warren, one of the ICA’s original founding members and founder of the Warren Junior Chess Program. Back in 1992, Helen recognized that the state’s top junior chess talent needed mentoring and support in order to develop their full potential. Eighteen years later, the Warren Program continues to provide the top junior players in Illinois with         financial assistance for private and group instruction, and sponsors invitational events for the state’s top high school and female junior players.
MENU (Served Family Style):
 Apple Gorgonzola Salad
 Caesar Salad
 Ravioli al Pomodoro
 Chicken Limone
 Cheesecake
 Soft Drinks, Coffee and Tea
PROGRAM: Remarks by Fred Gruenberg
Blitz chess with Warren Scholars
Note: The ICA annual meeting will take place at the restaurant from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., immediately preceding the banquet. All ICA members are welcome to attend.
TICKETS
$30 Regular
 $60 Patron
 $100 Benefactor
 $250 Sustaining






To reserve your place, go to Banquet Tickets
or send check made payable to Illinois Chess Association, Inc. and # of tickets desired to:





Andrea Rosen 
 ICA Warren Program Director 
8214 Keystone Ave 
Skokie, IL 60076.
Be sure to include your email address to             receive confirmation.
All proceeds will benefit the ICA Warren Junior Scholar Program.
Individuals or companies who purchase tickets at the Benefactor level or above will be acknowledged on the ICA website.

Grandmasters Gurevich and Shulman....

...will be among the guests honoring Helen Warren at the ICA Banquet at Buca di Beppo in Lombard, Sunday, November 7, at 1 p.m.

Won't you please join us, too?

2010 Illinois Chess Association Banquet Honoring Helen Warren

Most of us think of Helen Warren as the emeritus heart and soul of the Illinois Chess Association.  Back in 1961, Helen Hendricks was one of the signers of our Articles of Incorporation (along with our respected friends Jim Brotsos and the late Frank Skoff, future U.S Women’s Champion Eva Aronson, and Peter Wolf).  Along the way (after marrying Jim Warren, an Expert who drew Fischer twice on his 1963 simul tour), she organized umpteen Midwest Masters, the 1989 U.S. Open, a couple of the best U.S. Masters ever, and other events too numerous to mention, she brought World Championship Candidates Viktor Korchnoi and Robert Hübner to Chicago for the 1982 Cloverline International, she founded the wonderful American Postal Chess Tournaments, served for decades in various USCF leadership positions, edited the Illinois Chess Bulletin, and, not least (my apologies for the unavoidable runon sentence), she was the voice of the ICA, even in those years when she didn’t officially have the title of President.  

Life's simple pleasures: blitz chess and beer

Helen Warren vs. Ed Radavicius

1973 Chicago Industrial Chess League Banquet Blitz Championship 

You may not realize that Helen also loves to play chess, and is pretty good at the game, as I discovered at the inaugural Master Challenge in 1979.  Even though the wallchart said my rating was about 450 points higher, I was the one on the run:

Bill Brock—Helen Warren

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. c3 

Almost a decade after the famous Fischer-Petrosian game in Belgrade, everyone in Illinois from senior master to patzer was still playing this line against the Caro-Kann.  Larry Chachere and Allen Kornfeld were among its partisans in the early 1980s, while Dr. Eugene Martinovsky never hesitated to defend the line.  Kornfeld beat the good Doctor in a 1981 Palmer House battle royal after 5...Nc6 6.Bf4 Bg4 7.Qb3 Qd7.  Then-current theory said that 7...Qc8 was a better choice, but fashions change..... 

5...e6 6. Bf4 Bd6 7. Bxd6 Qxd6 8. Nf3 O-O 9. Nbd2 Nbd7 10. O-O Re8 11. Qa4 Nb6 12. Qb3 Bd7 13. Ne5?!  

Threatening to tickle the Nb6 with 13. a4 would have been better.

13...Ba4!

Bam!  Fritz thinks the position is equal, but I think this is one of those positions that humans understand better than Fritz....  Helen looked both happy and determined.

14. Qb4 Qxb4 15. cxb4 Rac8 16. Rac1 Red8 17. b3

If I were to play 17.b5 here, Black looks good after 17...Ne4.  Jim’s visits to the board were becoming more frequent, and I was getting nervous.

17... Be8 18. a4 Nbd7 19. f4 Nxe5 20. fxe5 Nd7 21. Bb5 

21...a6?!

Black would have retained a slight pull after 21...Nb8!

 

I played 22.Bxd7 with relief and ground out a slightly superior ending.  After Helen resigned, I started to explain her missed opportunity, but she cut me off quickly: “Good knight against bad bishop, I understand.”

***

Attentive readers may have figured out that I omitted one of Helen’s biggest accomplishments.  She saw that Illinois had many talented junor players who were stalling at a critical level in their development because they weren’t getting the same quality training as the kids from New York and California (let alone the Soviet Union).

So she did something about it by starting the ICA Warren Junior Chess Program.  Its mission is simple: to identify nationally ranked Illinois boys and girls, and to offer merit-based financial assistance to these students for individual and small group instruction with masters and grandmasters.  The goal of the program is to nurture the highest-potential Illinois students so they can be competitive on a national and international stage.

Currently, Illinois has several dozen boys and girls who are nationally ranked in their age group.  As talented as our teens are, I’m even more excited about our crop of young players.  Success in chess requires a combination of innate talent and hard work.  Intensive mentoring at a young age can propel our talented students to the very top levels of success.  The program works, as evidenced by the results of Warren Junior Chess Program alumni.  For the past four years, Andi Rosen has continued the work that Helen began, maintaining her tradition of excellence.

On November 7, 2010, the Illinois Chess Association will do its darndest to honor Helen Warren's five decades of service.  Please join us at Buca di Beppo, 90 Yorktown Road, in Lombard, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. 

Please follow this link to view your invitation!


And you can purchase banquet tickets here!

(Part of this blog entry was adapted from an article that appeared in the January-February 2006 Illinois Chess Bulletin)