Illinois Chess Database update coming soon

I received my update of ChessBase's Mega Database 2013 a couple weeks ago.  This gives me a good reason to stop procrastinating and update the Illinois Chess Association's Illinois Games Database in the next month or so.  I expect to have the update completed before March 1st: might take a bit longer for the goodies to appear on the site.

Folks who make substantial contributions to the database (please send me your games in PGN or CBV format) and/or who are current members of the Illinois Chess Association as of February 28, 2012 (time to renew!), can, upon request, receive the PGN file of the completed 2013 database.

Submitted games should have been played under tournament conditions by an Illinois resident or in an Illinois event.

We're particularly interested in adding missing games of the friends we've lost in the past year: Morris Giles, Jon Burgess, Tom Fineberg, Isaac Braswell, Ron Washington, and Fidel Serrano, among others.

Daaim Shabazz remembers Tom Fineberg

Barack Obama was not the first
Alinskyite radical community organizer in Hyde Park:
in 2003, Tom Fineberg led a chess sit-in in Harper Court

Read Daaim's wonderful tribute on The Chess Drum.

Tom Fineberg

Prof. Daaim Shabazz of The Chess Drum shares sad news with ICA President Tom Sprandel:

Mr. Sprandel,

I am a Chicago native and played board 1 at CVS for Tom Fineberg. We won the city championship in my senior year in 1980 and prior to that won city in 1975 with Marvin Dandridge on board 1. I am still active, but now reside in Florida.

I received regrettable news from his daughter Marjorie that he has passed away on Sunday with his friends and family with him. I would like the Illinois chess community to know about this because he was considered a legend in Chicago. He did a lot of volunteer work after retiring from teaching.  He ran the Tuley Park chess club and hosted numerous venues there. He will be missed.

Tom was 89 years old when he died on May 27th.  I don't have a link to an obituary yet (though the death notice is already on USCF's In Passing).

It's hard to overstate Tom's importance to the Chicago and Illinois chess community: he and Maxine changed countless lives for the better.  More to follow....