Illinois Blitz Championships

Saturday's Illinois Blitz Championship was unusually strong, as it was held in conjunction with the U.S. Amateur Team North in Schaumburg.  Let's hope this tradition continues!  Hungarian Grandmaster Denés Boros, a student at Webster University in St. Louis, won the Illinois Blitz Championship with an impressive 9-1 score.

NM Gopal Menon and NM Sam Schmakel tied for second with 8-2; as Illinois residents, they share the 2013 blitz title.

Israeli GM Anatoly Bykhovsky and our own GM Dmitry Gurevich tied for fourth with 7½ points; FM Eric Rosen, FM Albert Chow, NM Erik Santarius of Wisconsin, NM Pete Karagianis, George Li (still 12 years old?), and Aakaash Meduri tied for sixth with 7-3.

Notable results: Gopal shut out Brazilian GM Andre Diamant 2-0.  (But that's not really notable to those of us who have played Gopal.)  And eight-year-old Aydin Turgut shut out IM Angelo Young 2-0 in the first round!  Not sure whether I was jaded or gullible: the A. Turgut-Young result was a forfeit.  (Thanks to Gopal Menon.)

Full crosstables at chessweekend.com.

(Not the) Isaac Braswell Fighting Chess Award

10:56 a.m.

I just read my morning email:

Dude - you posted the wrong game as winner - You posted Li-Gurevich instead of Ngyugen-Gurevich which I had stated! --Sevan

I'll have the real winner up sometime this evening. Until then, enjoy this worthy contender. (To add to the confusion, I have yet another game by Tam Nguyen scheduled to post this afternoon: oy.)

 There were a lot of worthy candidates: organizer Sevan Muradian chaired a committee that selected this game Dmitry Gurevich's win against Tam Nguyen.  The winner and loser split the $250 prize for their enterprising play.

The following game isn't the prizewinner, but it is pretty cool.  Enjoy until I fix the mistake.

***

Dmitry Gurevich had already won two tournaments in the past month: a share of the U.S. Open title and clear first in Indianapolis. Facing his 12-year-old student Zhaozhi (George) Li in round 2, Dmitry wasn’t afraid to take risks in order to win a third event. The light notes below have previously appeared in Chess Life Online.

Zhaozhi Li (2117) – GM Dmitry Gurevich (2529)
[A57]
2012 Illinois Open

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 a6 3.Nf3 c5 4.d5 b5 5.a4 b4 6.Nbd2 g6 7.e4 d6 8.a5 Bg7 9.Bd3 0–0 10.0–0 e6 11.Re1 Ra7 12.Ra2 Re7 13.b3 Rfe8 14.h3 Nbd7 15.Bb2 Nh5 16.Bxg7 Kxg7 17.Qa1+ e5 18.Nf1 Nf4 19.Bc2 Nf6 20.Ne3
 

Black to play 

Gurevich writes, "Here I got too excited after seeing some beautiful checkmating variations."

20...Bxh3?!

After the game, Dmitry suggested 20...Rg8 with the idea of a slow but sure kingside breakthrough.

21.gxh3 Qc8 22.Nh2

Black to play 

22...Qxh3?! 

In retrospect, Dmitry though that 22...Nxh3+, with more than sufficient compensation, would have been more prudent.   But prudence does not win awards for bloodthirstiness....

23.Qd1! 

George avoids Dmitry's fantasy mates.

23.Kh1?? Ng4 and White can only choose which square to be mated on; or 23.f3? N6h5! 24.Qd1

Black to play (variation) 

and now 24...Qg2+! leads to a beautiful smothered mate.

Back to the game:

23...h5 24.Qf3 Qc8 25.Qg3 h4 26.Qf3 Rh8 27.Kh1 Rh5 28.Rg1 Kf8 29.Bd1 Re8 30.Ng2! Kg7 31.Nxf4 exf4 32.Re2 Rhe5 33.Bc2 Nh5 34.Ng4 Rg5 35.Nh2 Rge5 36.Rg4! 

 George is not satisfied with a draw.

36...Qd8 37.Re1 Rh8 38.Qg2 Ng3+ 39.Kg1 Qf6 40.Nf3 Reh5 41.e5 dxe5 42.fxg3 hxg3 43.Be4 R8h6 44.Re2 Qd8 45.Bxg6! fxg6 46.Nxe5? 

46.Rxe5! would have put Black on the ropes.

46...Qf6! 47.Qe4 Rh1+ 48.Qxh1 Rxh1+ 49.Kxh1 f3! 50.Re1 g2+ 0–1 

 

2012 Illinois Open coverage in Chess Life Online

Dmitry Gurevich's game with George Li is featured: check it out!  (The first half of the article covers the U.S. Masters in North Carolina.)

Gurevich-Mulyar

From left: USCF Executive Director Bill Hall, GM Dmitry Gurevich, GM Manuel Leon Hoyos, FM John Bryant

Dmitry Gurevich takes down IM Michael Mulyar in the style of Capablanca: classical minimalism.

I congratulated Dmitry not only for his fourth Open win but also for the great result of his student Zhaozhi (George) Li, who tied for second Expert. (In most years, 6½-2½ would be sufficient for the first expert prize, but a 2199-rated player from British Columbia scored 7-2.) I told Dmitry (who, as always, gave all the credit to his student and portrayed his own role as minor) how George (a sixth-grader!) explained move-order subtleties in the 4.e3 Slav to me.  Dmitry replied, "I know, George is already teaching me stuff, too...."

George Li equal fifth at Barber

Congratulations to George Li and his family for the sixth-grader's wonderful result at the 2012 Barber Tournament of K-8 Champions!

Final results are here!

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!

Illinois Youth Invitational Championships

Results are here!

Congratulations to the winners:

In the Illinois Chess Association Denker Qualifier (High School Invitational Championship), NM Sam Schmakel took clear first with a 4½-½ score, and wins the right to represent Illinois at the Denker Tournament of High School Champions.

In the ICA's Girls' Invitational Championship, Miranda Liu took first on tiebreaks over Penny Xu, each with an undefeated 4-1 score.  Miranda wins the right to represent Illinois in a national event.

In the ICA's Barber Qualifier (K-8 Invitational Championship), George Li took clear first with 4½-½ and wins the right to represent Illinois at the Barber K-8 Tournament of Champions.

Thanks to Sevan Muradian and the North Shore Chess Center for hosting and directing this event, to Warren Program director Pattie Zinski and the ICA Youth Committee members who organized this event for ICA (Brad and Andi Rosen were instrumental, I'm sure there were others), to Vince Hart for his absolutely amazing coverage on this blog (scroll to the many posts below for a treat), and to the players, coaches, and parents who helped make this happen.   Eight-year-old Shreya Mangalam deserves special mention for stepping in as a last-minute replacement, even though she was the youngest and lowest-rated player in the field.  Shreya's score does not reflect her excellent play!

I'll look at some of the games in detail as busy season allows.

Stamnov wins All American Double Class

NM Aleksandar Stamnov scored an impressive 4½-½ to take clear first in Larry Cohen's All American Double Class, held July 2-3 in Oak Brook.  IM Angelo Young, FM Albert Chow, NM Peter Gilruth, and NM Kevin Cao tied for second, a full point back.

Zhaozhi Li and Andrew Pheasant tied for first in the A/B section with 4-1 scores.  Rudy Padilla and Jordan Nach shared B/C honors, also with 4-1.  And Andrew Hochstadt's undefeated 4-1 score was good for clear first in the E/Unrated diviision.

Crosstable here!