U.S. Open decompression

Back from Madison!  I dropped 42 (!) rating points.  There's some rough justice: I'd been playing poorly & somehow gaining ELO.  At the U.S. Open, I played well enough to have a mediocre event: my opponents did not permit me that luxury.

As for real players: NM Sam Schmakel (right in below picture) was still in contention for the national title in the final round, but lost to IM Mackenzie Molner (left) in yesterday's final round. Schmakel, FM Eric Rosen, and NM William Aramil all finished with 7-2 scores, a full point off the 8-1 score posted by IM Molner, GM Julio Sadorra, and GM Joshua Friedel.


MSA crosstable here.

William Aramil at the U.S. Open

It's really not fair to William and his excellent tournament to show this game: he has five wins and two losses to Grandmasters.

Illinois Chess Association affiliate upcoming events

Hot off the e-mail press, courtesy of ICA Secretary (and Immediate Past President) Tom Sprandel.

This Saturday in particular looks like a great day for players and students at all levels.  The North Shore Chess Center is hosting GM Robert Hungaski for a lecture and simul (great for adults and advanced students), William Aramil and Carl Boor are teaching in Oak Park (great for all young players), and UNAM Chicago in conjunction with the Chicago Chess Center is hosting Super Bowl quads with a $10 entry fee (such a deal).

Whether it's sixty degrees or six below, play chess this weekend!

Highlights later this month include the U.S. Amateur Team in Schaumburg on Feb. 15-17 and the Illinois Blitz Championship on Saturday the 16th at the same site.  Travelers should mark their calendars the K-8 Championship in Bloomington and the Greater Peoria Open (an Illinois Tour event).

For more events, see the ICA Tournament Calendar.

Affiliate Events

Date	Title with ICA Link	Location
2013-02-02	NSCC - GM Robert Hungaski Lecture and Simul	Skokie
2013-02-02	Dynamic Chess Oak Park Monthly Lecture	Oak Park
2013-02-02	Super Bowl Quads at UNAM Chicago	Chicago
2013-02-03	North Shore Chess Center Game-45 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-02-09	North Shore Chess Center Game-60 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-02-09	Village of Park Forest Chess Challenge?New Location	Homewood
2013-02-09	Wheaton Christian Scholastic Chess Tournament	Winfield
2013-02-10	2nd NSCC Scholastic	Skokie
2013-02-15 2013-02-17	2013 U.S. Amateur Team Championship -- North and Illinois Blitz C	Schaumburg
2013-02-16	Scholastic Class: Studying GM Lev Aronian	Skokie
2013-02-16	Central Illinois Holiday Scholastic Chess Tournament	Jacksonville
2013-02-16	Illinois Blitz Championship	Schaumburg
2013-02-16	Dynamic Chess Unrated Tournament in Oak Park	Oak Park
2013-02-18	IECS Naperville Scholastic Chess Tournament	Naperville
2013-02-23	Thomas Middle School Chess Tournament for Grades 6-7-8	Arlington Heights
2013-02-24	1st Skyrocket Chess Tournament	Glenwood
2013-02-24	1st Skyrocket Chess Tournament	Glenwood
2013-03-03	North Shore Chess Center Game-45 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-03-09	NSCC - GM Alexander Shabalov Lecture and Simul	Skokie
2013-03-09 2013-03-10	2013 Illinois K-8 Chess Championships	Normal
2013-03-10	North Shore Chess Center Game-60 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-03-17	3rd NSCC Scholastic	Skokie
2013-03-30 2013-03-31	17th North American Amateur - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-04-06	NSCC - GM Nick de Firmian Lecture and Simul	Skokie
2013-04-07	North Shore Chess Center Game-45 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-04-13	North Shore Chess Center Game-60 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-04-14	4th NSCC Scholastic	Skokie
2013-04-20 2013-04-21	Greater Peoria Open -- ILLINOIS CHESS TOUR	Peoria
2013-04-27 2013-04-28	18th North American Amateur - Plus Score Event	Skokie

National K-12: finals

Final results are in from Orlando. Trash talk: were I allowed to play hors concours at age 54, I am confident I could win the 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-grade sections, and I think I could be competitive all the way through eighth grade. (But against the high schoolers, I'd be hopelessly outclassed.)

Congratulations to Sam Schmakel, who tied for the 11th-grade title: unofficially, Sam is second on tiebreaks.

 Nathaniel Kranjc and Gavin McClanahan tied for fifth in the 10th-grade section.

Matthew Stevens tied for second in the 6th-grade section.

Shreya Mangalam was playing for the 4th-grade title in the final round.

Stolen from NM William Aramil's Facebook page:

Nationals in Orlando has officially ended. Overall, it went pretty well. I didn't find anytime to go to Disney World though.

Whitney Young won a National Blitz Championship!! Two players placed 4th and 5th. Two pairs of teammates came in 3rd and 4th in bughouse. The Seniors came in 4th place as a team in the main tournament.

Sam Schmakel did it AGAIN and is a National Co-Champion for all 11th graders!! He was a champion his freshman and sophomore year of high school. Can he win next year and make it a clean sweep for all four years of high school? I don't think it has ever been done!?

Overall, most players played well and gained rating points. Good job to the Whitney Young team!

Braswell Memorial Blitz results

I've known for a long time that Michael Auger and William Aramil are infinitely better blitz players than I am.  But I really got a kick out of losing to the third-place finisher, George Li. 

It's one thing to lose a game by overlooking NxK or to draw a game because one fails to look at the clock when one's position is overwhelming and one's opponent flagged several seconds earlier, which happened in my games with other honorable opponents.  It's another to get squashed like a bug in a theoretical line, which is what George did to me.  I forgot the event was USCF blitz-rated, and shouted in horror, "My position is wretched!" or something like that.

"SHHH!!"

(Only slightly more quietly): "But it is wretched." 

After the game, I peppered George with move-order questions in his deadly 4.e3 Slav, and he was kind enough to answer them.  George is 12 years old.

Crosstable here. The three prizewinners received enormous chocolate bars: Isaac would have approved

Before the event, organizer Maret Thorpe was honored by Mike Cardinale of the Illinois Chess Association for her past & current contributions to ICA. Thank you, Maret!

William Aramil, hypermodern Shirov

One thinks of the c6-d5-e6 triangle as an incredibly sturdy defensive formation for Black.  NM William Aramil simply goes around the triangle and mates Black's king in a miniature. Very cool, very impressive!

This win was worth $1,533.34 to William, who took a share of second in the Under 2300 section with an undefeated 5½/7   The loser, NM Kevin Wasikuk of Minnesota, was an even bigger winner: he had already clinched the $5,000 first prize in the section by winning his first six games.

Catching up with the ICA website

Lots of good stuff on the ICA website just in the past week!

• Leo Vilker on NM Ken Wallach's win in Highland Park and the amazing Awonder Liang
• Jon Burgess on Sam Schmakel (hey, Maret, please add HTML permalinks as a feature!)
• Jeff Wiewel on Yury Shulman at the US Championship
• Jon Burgess on the Scott Silverman Memorial and NM William Aramil's draw against GM Mesgen Amanov

If you go to the main ICA page and scroll down to "Chess in Philly," you'll be able to play through Aramil-Amanov in Chess Flash (sorry, no permalink available).  Mesgen showed me the game afterward: he explained that William blundered a pawn in the opening (the right idea is to play Nh4 before Qb3, as in the game continuation, 8...Bc2! just wins a button).  But after that inaccuracy, Aramil defended flawlessly (when pawns are on one side of the board, R+N are much stronger than R+B).  33.Re5! is a particularly good defensive move.  

K-12 chess camps this summer

As always, no endorsement, express or implied! (NM William Aramil and I were playing on adjacent boards in the last few rounds of the Philadelphia Open.)

Summer Chess Camps

June 20th-24th, 2011 at Whitney Young High School, 211 S. Laflin, Chicago, Illinois

July 18th-22nd, 2011 at Grace Episcopal Church, 924 Lake Street, Oak Park, Illinois

August 1st-5th, 2011 at Creativo! School, 5407 W. Devon, Chicago, Illinois

August 8th-12th, 2011 at Grace Episcopal Church, 924 Lake Street, Oak Park, Illinois

Experienced Tournament Section (Whitney Young Camp Only)
Featuring International Grandmaster Dmitry Gurevich
--2009 US Open Champion
--2010 Illinois Open Champion
Open to all 4th-12th grade chess players. Players should be regular participants in USCF rated chess tournaments. Space is limited.
Advanced Entry Fee - $300 (until 3/31/11); Regular Entry Fee - $350
Time - 9am to 3pm

Scholastic Section
Featuring National Master William Aramil
--2003 Denker National High School Champion
--Author of Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess Openings
--Trainer of 2011 Whitney Young High School State Champions
Open to K-12 chess players of all levels
Details: Advanced Entry Fee - $200 (until 5/31/11 for WY, 7/1/11 for OP, and 7/15/11 for Creativo); Regular Entry Fee - $250
Time - 9am to 2pm (Extended time from 2pm to 3pm for an additional $25/week)

Both sections include daily lunch, t-shirt, and recreation time at the high school gym (WY) and at nearby parks.

Register Online
For more information contact Paul Kash at paulkash@dynamicchessinc.com or (773) 512-2811

Hello from Philadelphia

How can anyone lose the White side of the Catalan in 24 moves?  I just did, and I've got eight rounds of torture to go!

GM Amanov and NM Aramil are both here: of course, they were paired against each other.  (They're still playing: looks drawish.)

NM Andrew Karklins lost to an IM in the first round.

Chicagoans at the Philadelphia Open

Jon Burgess notes that IM Angelo Young is playing Kamsky on Board 1 right now!

Fifteen-year-old NM Adarsh Jayakumar (soon to be moving back to Chicagoland from Texas) beat GM Eugene Perelshteyn in Round 2 earlier today.

In the same round, NM William Aramil nicked GM Alexander Ivanov for half a point earlier today (hardly an upset, however):

Check out the live action at Monroi.