Illinois Blitz Championship pre-entries

Advance entries are here.  Hmm, four GMs, one correspondence GM (playing blitz!), two IMs, three FMs, one NM, and (scariest of all) George Li and Aydin Turgut.

If you pick "online entry" from the dropdown box, you'll be able to enter.

I won't be at any of this weekend's great events (work: bummer), but I will be stopping by the Amateur Team on Sunday afternoon.

Advance entries for US Amateur Team - North

It's already a very nice field!

Save a few bucks and enter your team before Friday!

US Amateur Team North - well, that was fun!

It's tax season, so this post is going to be far shorter than it deserves to be.  

171 players on 39 teams had a lot of fun this weekend!  GM Alexander Shabalov played for a team from Pittsburgh: GM Dmitry Gurevich (who won Saturday night's Illinois Blitz Championship) was a constant spectator.

GM Dmitry Gurevich 

2012 Illinois Blitz Champion

(swiped from Brad Rosen's Facebook page)

Full team results are here.  The event is already rated: MSA reports here.
Congratulations to the Chess X-Men (NM Mariano Acosta, MN Tenzing Shaw, NM Scott Allsbrook, and Dmitri Sergatskov) for keeping the USAT North title in Chicagoland!

Maret Thorpe was both an assistant TD and the sponsor of two Evanston Chess Club teams: her report is here. If you friend the South Suburban Chess Club of Greater Chicago, you can see lots of cool event photos! Thanks to TDs and organizers (who I'm not naming only because I'm afraid I'll leave a key person out!) for a very smooth and enjoyable event!

U.S. Amateur Team North in Northbrook this weekend!

Details here! You still have just enough time to put a team together, or come and kibitz.

Preview on Chess Life Online. Again, the location is Crowne Plaza Hotel, 2875 N. Milwaukee Ave., Northbrook, IL 60062. But there's a very dangerous typo in the article: if you go to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and not Milwaukee Avenue, you will be disappointed....

 I'll be playing for Evanston on Friday and Sunday: see you there!

Where to play this weekend?

On Saturday, there's the Lincoln-Way West Open in New Lenox.  Outside the metro area, there's the Route 20 Rated Beginners' Open/Open Swiss in Freeport.

And we've already mentioned the Blaze fundraiser in Skokie.

On Sunday, there's the 67th Knights Quest in Northbrook.

Next weekend, it's the 4th Annual Chicago Class in Wheeling.

As always, look to the ICA Tournament Calendar for info on upcoming events!

And of course, there's always the Chess Pavilion.

State Blitz Championship tomorrow night!

Begins at 8 p.m. tomorrow in Northbrook!  Instead of watching a movie, play ten blitz games!

More info here!

Register here!

ICA STATE BLITZ CHAMPIONSHIP
FEBRUARY 19, 2011

Crowne Plaza, 2875 N Milwaukee, Northbrook, Illinois 60062, (847) 298-2525,

$79 Room Rate (single, double, triple, quad) Includes FREE Breakfast Buffet!.

$79 Hotel Room Rates - Free Breakfast Buffet with room - And More...

Bring Sets, Boards, & Clocks

$500 b/30

1st: $150 & Title (determined by tiebreaks)

2nd: $125

3rd: $50

U2200: $47

U2000: $46

U1800: $45

U1600: $44

U1400: $43

UN can win top prizes only

ENTRY FEES & info

$25 received by 2/16 USPS

$25 on-line by 2/18, 6 PM

$30 at the site

5 Rounds

2 Games with each opponent

Round 1: 8 pm

(and as available after that)

Byes Round 1 only

Chess Party of the Year starts tonight / tomorrow!

You still have a few hours to put together a team for the U.S. Amateur Team North (Crowne Plaza, 2875 N. Milwaukee, Northbrook).  Seriously....there's a split first round: if you can't play tonight at 7 p.m., your team can begin play tomorrow a.m.

Enter here!

Read all about it here!

Andi Rosen tells us that there's a Wisconsin team with GM Friedel on first board and former Wisconsin champion Alex Betaneli on third board!

US Amateur Team: February 18-20, Crowne Plaza, Northbrook!

More info at the ICA website!  Tim Just and Glenn Panner are organizing, so you know it'll be a quality event.