Judit Polgar beats Topalov & Ivanchuk to win in Mexico City

Story at ChessVibes.

Cool Thanksgiving tournament in St. Louis

Join legendary GM Nigel Short along with GM Yury Shulman, GM Ben Finegold, GM Dmitry Gurevich, GM Gregory Kaidanov and others in helping us start a NEW tradition, November 26-28. The CCSCSL presents the 2010 Thanksgiving Open featuring an $11,000 prize fund!

Info here!  The entry fee is under $100 under $120, and the hotel rates are reasonable enough for an impromptu family vacation.  If you're looking for a ride, I might be able to play matchmaker (no warranties, express or implied).

I won't be able to play because of family commitments, but I've extracted an oral commitment (my hopeful interpretation of "maybe") from Claire for 2011.

2010 Illinois Class Championships

Snipped and pasted from my email:

2010 Illinois Class Championship
Saturday December 4, 2010
Holiday Inn Chicago North Shore --- 5300 West Touhy Ave --- Skokie, IL 60077
847-679-8900 --- Google Map

ICA will pay the entry fee for FIDE titled players (FM IM GM WFM WIM WGM) who list Illinois as their residence on their USCF registration.

Free 90 days added to all players' ICA memberships. All they need to do is send their name, section, USCF number and contact details to freemembership@il-chess.org by Feb 28, 2011.

$2,000 Prize Fund Details at: http://il-chess.net/goto.php?a=class

Time control will be Game-60 with a 5-sec delay. All equipment provided. All you have to do is show up, register (or pre-register), and play! --- Register On-line

Round Times: 10:00am, 12:30pm, 3:30pm, 6:00pm (extra 30 minutes provided between Round 2 and 3 for lunch)

Dr. Nunn's guide for the perplexed

From chapter 8 of Nunn's Chess Endings, Volume 2 (I haven't gotten around to buying Volume 1):

8.2 Rook vs Pawns

There are a surprising number of subtleties in endings in which a lone rook faces enemy pawns, and here we shall focus on those which are of greatest importance in over-the-board play.

8.2.1 Hesitation checks

By hesitation check I mean that a piece traveling from square A to square B gives an intermediary check on square C before moving to B.  The point is that if the enemy king is already on its best square, the hesitation check forces the king to an inferior square.  It might seem unnecessary to give a special name to such an elementary concept, but it often helps to have a label to refer to a particular theme.  Hesitation checks play an important role in rook endings and are often overlooked in practice.

 Have another go at it!

Rook endings (or, the love that dare not speak its name)

If you enjoy rook endings as much as I do, you'll love Nunn's Chess Endings, Volume 2.  John Nunn's books are always full of top-rate material, but unfortunately, much of it has often whizzed over my head.  (For example: Secrets of Rook Endings.)  But Nunn has put a lot of work into organizing his mind-bending examples thematically and giving the reader guidance.  The examples are still difficult, but Nunn has never been this reader-friendly before!

For example, here are the first three diagrams in Nunn's book:

Fries Nielsen-Plachetka, Rimavska Sobota 1991

White to play and win

Usually when I get such a position, I have three minutes left on the clock and am reduced to counting on my fingers: "I go here, he goes there, I go here..."

Analysis diagram
White to play and draw

Hey! Didn't I learn in one of my beginners' books that two pawns on the sixth rank always win against an unassisted rook?  And indeed, 1.Rxh3? does lose.  Why?  And where's the darn draw?

Penrose-Perkins, British Championship, 1972
White to play and draw

I found the first position hard and the third position mind-numbingly difficult.  Back with Nunn's guidance in a little bit.

GreenCastleBlock on rook endings

I always learn a lot from Matt Pullin's videos on endgames. He relies on his brain, not a computer engine or database, and he's a very good explainer.



But it just so happens that James Fagan and I had this very ending in 1997. I think Matt misses a win for Black at one moment in his video.

You really should be subscribing to Matt's YouTube channel, GreenCastleBlock!

Kavalek remembers Evans

Mark Taimanov-Larry Evans

USSR-USA match, New York 1955

Black to play

Taimanov has just sacrificed material with 19.Rxc7.  If Black plays the natural 19...Qxc7, White plays the powerful 20.d6.  What to do?

Kavalek annotates this beautiful win by Evans.

Garry @ Google

From the amazing Authors@Google series: another hat tip to Daniel Parmet.

Cheaper than long-term care insurance

Study suggests that chess postpones dementia.

"Even my good games are bad...."

Matthias Pfau and I played an interesting opening variation in our Chicago Industrial Chess League game last night.

Interested in submitting games to the ICA's chess blog?  Contact Maret Thorpe to find out how!  (The current publishing process is a little tricky, so if you want to send PGN to me, I can help you publish until we get the process smoothed out.)

Levon Aronian wins 2010 World Blitz Championship

Crosstable here!

In the field of eighteen, Aronian, Radjabov, Carlsen, Gelfand, and Nakamura were the top finishers.

The field was amazingly strong: Fabiano Caruana (top player in the world age 18 and under) and Ruslan Ponomariov (former FIDE World Champion) finished at the bottom of the crosstable.

World Blitz Championship - after 28 rounds

Aronian leads, Carlsen in clear 2nd; Nakamura tied for 5th, having recovered from a disastrous start.

Crosstable here!

Three tournaments to choose from on Saturday 11/20!

For scholastic players, there's the 37th Kumbaya event in Skokie.

The McHenry Chess Club will be running quads at the Elgin Holiday Inn open to all.

And there will be a swiss system and pizza (but no Swiss cheese?) in Orland Park.

We report; you decide.

K-8 event (three sections) at Whitney Young this Sunday 11/21

Three sections: K-2, K-5, and K-8.  Details on the ICA Calendar!

And welcome to Dynamic Chess, Inc.!

Kings & Queens CC Event on Sunday, 11/21

Cut & pasted from the Internets: please note that this event is NOT USCF-rated! [nor are the rules of the uscf followed -mp]

Academy of Intellectual Games

Kings & Queens Chess

www.Kqchessclub.com       

 Chess Tournament

OPEN to ALL players – Novices to Masters – are welcome!

                            (USCF membership not required)

SUNDAY, November 21, 2010.  1^st round will start at 10:00 a.m.

At Temple Judea Mizpah:  8610 Niles Center Road, Skokie, IL 60077         

Doors will open at 9:00 a.m.

     5 rounds Swiss - time control G/25 (or G/22 +3 sec)

             Please bring your own chess clocks, if you have them !!!

                   There are 3 separate sessions – ALL PLAY 5 Rounds SWISS:

        OPEN and 2 Scholastic: Advanced and Beginners

$300 in Prizes is guaranteed to the first 5 places in OPEN session: 

1^st - $120; 2^nd - $80; 3^rd – 50; 4-$30; 5- $20.

Top three in each advanced and beginner sessions will receive trophies.

 Family team prizes will be distributed as well across all 3 sessions.

Any number of players from the same family may enter -- the top two individual results will be counted.

The entry fee:

[…]

$35 per player at the door

Register in advance by Internet or phone and save money:

www.aoigames.com/tournaments.htm,

The field is limited to 200 players. FREE Parking.  Food will be available for purchase 11:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. [...]

You may obtain further information by calling these numbers:

(847) 657-9686, (847) 207-2819, 847-778-5259 or (847)-414-3730

E-mail:  lana@energy4action.com

Evans-Opsahl, Dubrovnik 1952

I'd guess that this is probably Evans's best-known game.  Nothing flashy here, but I don't know of a better introduction to the minority attack in the Queen's Gambit Declined.  You'll find beginner-friendly annotations of this game by Evans himself in Chess Catechism and by Irving Chernev in The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played.

GM Larry Evans, 1932-2010

Larry Parr pays tribute at Chess Life Online.

I, Robot

Hat tip to Daniel Parmet, who found this on Natalia Pogonina's blogNat:



Magnus Carlsen is one of the spectators.

Twitter posts....

GMHikaru Hikaru Nakamura

Sometimes it is much more enjoyable to read Stieg Larsson and drink green tea than playing stress filled chess which destroys your nerves!

from Moscow, Moscow

13 hours ago

GMHikaru Hikaru Nakamura

One of the single most disappointing oversights in my whole career. However, I am going to destroy Grischuk like a baby in the blitz.

from Moscow, Moscow

14 Nov

For the context, see Chess can be a cruel game or, even better, the wrap-up report at Chess Life Online.

Is this calcuation or pattern recognition?

This one is for Maret Thorpe, who thinks I've gone off my rocker!



Felix Zemdegs set a Rubik's Cube solving record in Melbourne this weekend. Trust me, you have time to watch.  (If you give one to me, I should be able to solve it in five minutes or so: there was a time when I was much faster....)

The more interesting question: how does Felix (who is the best of many lightning-fast expert solvers) do what he does?  I'd suggest that the answer might be of interest to chess players, and others.....

Jason Rihel has a wonderful first-person account at the Boylston Chess Club blog.

I'll post the high school results later....

...but in the meantime, you might enjoy this link to event photographer Betsy Dynako's website. 

November Chicago Industrial Chess League bulletin

Read it while it's fresh!

All Grade results (6th, 7th, and 8th grades)

There was a three-way tie for first in the 42-player 6th-grade section: Alec Feygin, Akash Mattu, and Colton Longstreth, all with 4-0 scores.  Steven Do, Brayden Estes, Riley Brands, Nate Tracy-Amoroso, Matt Szarkowicz, Abraham Cornejo, Barry Brookins, and Harrison Burns tied for fourth with 3-1.

Joey Bikus and Allen Guo tied for first in the 47-player 7th-grade section.  Phillip Parker-Turner, Jason Kitson, Samuel Heil, Ryan Toepfer, Justin Wang, Jonathan Hrach, Niresh Kuganeswaran, Narayan Karthik Karra, Elliana Faletsky, Alexander Pilia, Mark Jungo, and Michael May all scored 3-1 to tie for third.

Maximilian Zinski and Chase Walbert went 4-0 to tie for first in the 8th-grade section, which drew 48 players.  Nathaniel Kranjc and David Dlott drew each other in the final round to finish with an undefeated 3½-½.

More photos:

Chess can be a cruel game

You can play like a genius for 84 moves, and throw it all away in time pressure:

Grischuk-Nakamura, Tal Memorial 2010

(finished just a few minutes ago)

Black to play and win

There are two reasonable ways to threaten mate on g3: 84....Qe1 and 84...Qf3.  Both moves have problems: after 84...Qe1, White can try to set up a stalemate defense by allowing ...Qxg3 and running the king to h1.  After 84...Qf3, 85.Nxe5+ seems to force a draw: or does it?

Which move would you choose?

Grischuk-Nakamura continues

Both players are close to playing on the 30-second increment alone.  Nakamura is probably winning, but Grischuk has serious drawing chances.

Jonathan Speelman is commenting live on ICC.

All Grade results (4th & 5th grades)

First, a few more pictures:

Miranda Liu won the 67-player 4th-grade section with a perfect 5-0.  Chetan Reddy and Jonathan Tan drew with each other and won the rest of their games to take equal second with 4½.  Matthew Stevens, Jack Xiao, Nikhil Kalghatgi, Cassie Parent, Adarsh Mattu, Ricky Roman, Brian Chung, and Andrew Lim tied for fourth with 4-1 scores.

Anshul Adve and Jack Curcio tied for first in the 58-player 5th-grade section with a draw against each other and wins in their other four games.  James Wei, Abe Sun, Haoyang Yu, Shayna Provine, Lorenzo Barbin, Andrew Fei, Daniel Bronfein, and Mihir Bafna tied for third with 4-1 scores.

Amazing...

Nakamura (playing right now!) is on the cusp of tying for first in the Tal Memorial.  (Mamedyarov lost to Gelfand...)

Great live video stream here.

All Grade results (Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd)

Unofficial nose count was 505 players!

Kindergarten: Nikolai Rhodes scored a perfect 5-0; Huaye Jeffrey Lin took second with 4-1.

1st Grade: William Zhu swept the field 5-0; Ivan Mitkov, Aydin Turgut, and Noah Greenberg tied for second, again with 4-1.

In the 50-player 2nd Grade section, Jason Daniels and David Wallach tied for first with 5-0; Ricky Wang, Vishal Chandrasekar, Shreya Mangalam, Owen Power, Christopher Gora, and Stevan Kamatovic tied for third with 4-1.

Vincent Do (USCF rating of 1643!) won the 69-player 3rd Grade section with a perfect 5-0.  Nathaniel Sobery took clear second with an undefeated 4½-½.  Harrison He, Ranadheer Tripuranaeni, Eric Gan, Henry Curcio, Ishaar Ganesan, Allan Lopez, Ezra Boldizsar, Christopher Yang, and Brian Suganraj tied for third with 4-1

Tamara Golovey knows a little bit about teaching chess:

she was the first teacher of Boris Gelfand, who just led Israel to a 2010 Olympiad bronze

The younger players played in the school library

Deep study of the initial position pays dividends

No Hindi required

Hat tip to ChessBase.

Let's be less obscure....

Chess is certainly not a substitute for a liberal education (see the sad example of Bobby Fischer), just as, contra Wagner, a healthy culture requires a lot more than opera.  But chess, like music, adds immensely to a liberal education.  

One small example: in this information age, chess gives us insights into both the tremendous value and the sharp limits of computing operations.  My friends and I can't hope to compete with Rybka, but there's lot of chess understanding that we have--that YOU have, gentle reader--that hasn't be programmed into Rybka. and won't be, for years to come.  The human brain is uncannily good at "instinctive" knowledge: recognition of "fuzzy" patterns that computers can't interpret.  A simple example: CAPTCHA.  Experts often find it difficult to articulate the nature of their expert knowledge: see Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide for a wonderful introduction to this topic.

So what was the link to protein folding in the previous post all about?  Molecular biology is an information science, one in which computers are essential to research.  But humans can sometimes outperform computers in protein folding!  Keep in mind that the computers, as in chess, can calculate millions of more "variations" per second.  

And now I must do my football picks for the office pool....I picked New England, Detroit, and Buffalo last week, and finished dead last in a field of nineteen.

"Top Titled Players Endorse ICA's Program for Chicago Public Schools"

Jerry Neugarten reports on his group's proposal to bring free chess instruction to all of Chicago's Title I public schools.  

Bringing the joy of creative thinking to disadvantaged children is one of the greatest things we can do as a community!  Chess education will never be as popular as music education, another medium for prodigies.  And if you'll permit me a bit of heresy, chess education shouldn't be as important as music education.  (I rest my case.)  But I know from personal experience that chess introduced me to certain new ways of thinking that are particularly important in an information economy.

Of course, Chicago will soon have a new mayor, and Chicago Public Schools will soon have a new CEO, so it's hard to say how this proposal will play out.   (Did you know that the outgoing Ron Huberman is only 38 years old?  He probably knows something about developing prodigies....)

Check out the endorsement letter itself: cool signatures!

Original blog entry edited to correct hyperlink errors....any remaining weird hyperlinks are deliberately obscure. :-)

Oh, let's go ahead and embarrass Trevor

Follow the link for the charming explanation....Mom looks great then and now.  

Your present blogger, on the other hand, needs to lose weight AND grow hair.

"Blaze Game of the (final) week"

NM Jeremy Kane annotates a creative struggle between Grandmasters Gurevich and Becerra.

Calling all computer gurus

If one were looking for a meat-and-potatoes laptop mainly for chess (ChessBase / Rybka, etc.), is this Toshiba a reasonable choice?  There's already an AMD Toshiba in our family: price (about $450) and features (4 GB RAM) seem just fine .

But I was wondering if there was a better price/performance sweet spot.

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....

"Chicago Poised to Shine at Illinois All Grade"

Mike Cardinale previews this Saturday's event on the ICA website.  Rumor has it that preregistrations are already over 450 players!

Register here!   No onsite entries!

This event is free for the first 300 K-8 children on the Illinois Free and and Reduced Lunch Program. Verification from participating schools is required.

Nakamura may have missed a win against Kramnik today....

@GMHikaruHikaru Nakamura

Insane game against Kramnik today. Gotta love how we both didn't know what was going on and Rybka is like, "haha, you stupid idiots!"

7 hours ago via web Favorite Undo Retweet Reply

Nakamura breaks into top ten on live ratings list

How about that!

We had fun yesterday!

Check out Betsy Dynako's photo gallery (you may need to enter your email first).

Our condolences to the Taylor family

To lose a loved one is always painful.  But to lose such a fine young man as Choice Taylor, who was a senior at Maine West....there are no words.

Story here.  Our condolences to the Taylor family and to his friends at Maine West.

"Florida Hurricane"

Tom Panelas wraps up the Blaze's playoff loss to Miami (so I don't have to...!)

Evanston Chess Club Tri-Level

Thirty players turned out for Saturday's Tri-Level.  NM Ken Wallach, NM Jon Burgess, and Robby Hecht tied for first in the Gold Section with 3-1 scores.  Eduard Baev, Mark Spitzig, and Haoyang Yu tied for first in the Silver/Bronze section with 3½-½ scores.

Crosstable here!

North Shore Chess Center Game/45

Miomir Stevanovic won yesterday's four-player quad at the North Shore Chess Center. Crosstable here.

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!

If you're not going to the banquet today....

G/45 + 10/sec increment tournament

We are holding a G/45 + 10/sec increment tournament today at the North Shore Chess Center. Based on numbers this can be a series of quads (3-rounds) or a regular swiss tournament (4 rounds). 

Entry fee is $20 for non-chess center members and $15 for chess center members. 

Registration starts at 12:30pm with Round 1 @ 1pm. All equipment is provided. 

Prizes:

• 1st place - Free entry to the 2010 Illinois Class on 12/4/2010 and a 3-month extension to a 1 year chess center membership

• 2nd place - 50% off entry fee to the 2010 Illinois Class on 12/4/2010 and a 3-month extension to a 1 year chess center membership

• 3rd place - 3-month extension to a 1 year chess center membership

The North Shore Chess Center is located at 5500 West Touhy Ave Suite A, Skokie, IL 60077. You can visit our website at http://www.nachess.org/nscc or our Facebook Page at http://www.facebook.com/ChessCenter for more details on memberships, events, etc. 

Quad tournament in Elgin November 20th

Details on the ICA website!

Leonid Bondar posts an even score at the World Senior

Chicagoland's Leonid Bondar scored 5½-5½ at the World Senior Championship in Arco, Italy.  The 11-round event just ended yesterday.  Crosstable here.

Larry Kaufman tied for first once again, placing fourth on tiebreaks.  He reports at Chess Life Online.

A cute trap...

...as highlighted by Yasser Seirawan in his wonderful online commentary at the Internet Chess Club.

Aronian-Kramnik

Tal Memorial, Round 1

White to play and win

Only one move wins: everything else appears to lose!

Tal Memorial round 2: Nakamura shares the lead

Today in the Tal Memorial, Hikaru Nakamura pulled off a cool combination:

Hikaru Nakamura - Pavel Eljanov

After 25...h6: White to play

The knight on g5 is under attack: where to put it?

26. Rxd5!

Nowhere!

26...Rxd5 27. Ne4! 

White is temporarily down an entire rook, but Eljanov has no way to take advantage.

27...Qc4 28. Qxc4 Nxc4 29. Nxd5 Re8?! 

The engines suggest 29... Rd8 as a better defense, but 30. Ne7+ (and not 30.Nf4? Re8 embarrassing the knight on e4) 30... Kf8 31. Nf5 Rd5 32. g4 h5 33. h3 leaves White with a pleasant pawn-up ending.

30. Nef6+ gxf6 31. Nxf6+ Kf8 32. Nxe8 Kxe8 

Nakamura puts Eljanov away quickly:  crisp clean style reminiscent of Fischer. 

33. Rb1 Nd6 34. e4 b6 35. e5 Nb7 36. Rb4 Nc5 37. Rh4 Kf8 38.Rxh6 Kg7 39. Rc6 Nxa4 40. e6 1-0

The full game score is available at The Week in Chess and the official site.

Tal Memorial: Nakamura draws Round 1

If you're at the office like me, you may enjoy following on chesspro.ru.  (Don't be put off by the Cyrillic!)

Today's big game: Aronian takes down Kramnik.  Wang Hao may have Shirov in trouble (game in progress: Shirov resigns).

Grischuk-Eljanov still in progress.

Karjakin wins an interesting ending against Gelfand.

Carlsen withdraws from the World Championship Cycle

Story at The Week in Chess:

To: FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov & FIDE World Championship Committee.

Reference is made to the ongoing World Championship cycle.To: FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov & FIDE World Championship Committee.

Reference is made to the ongoing World Championship cycle.

The purpose of this letter is to inform you of my decision not to take part in the planned Candidate Matches between March and May 2011.

After careful consideration I’ve reached the conclusion that the ongoing 2008 - 2012 cycle does not represent a system, sufficiently modern and fair, to provide the motivation I need to go through a lengthy process of preparations and matches and, to perform at my best.

Reigning champion privileges, the long (5 yr) span of the cycle, changes made during the cycle resulting in a new format (Candidates) that no World Champion has had to go through since Kasparov, puzzling ranking criteria as well as the shallow ceaseless match-after-match concept are all less than satisfactory in my opinion.

By providing you with 4 months notice before the earliest start of the Candidates as well as in time before you have presented player contracts or detailed regulations, I rest assured that you will be able to find an appropriate replacement.

Although the purpose of this letter is not to influence you to make further changes to the ongoing cycle, I would like to take the opportunity to present a few ideas about future cycles in line with our input to FIDE during the December 27th 2008 phone-conference between FIDE leaders and a group of top-level players.

In my opinion privileges should in general be abolished and a future World Championship model should be based on a fair fight between the best players in the World, on equal terms. This should apply also to the winner of the previous World Championship, and especially so when there are several players at approximately the same level in the world elite. (Why should one player have one out of two tickets to the final to the detriment of all remaining players in the world? Imagine that the winner of the 2010 Football World Cup would be directly qualified to the 2014 World Cup final while all the rest of the teams would have to fight for the other spot.)

One possibility for future cycles would be to stage an 8-10 player World Championship tournament similar to the 2005 and 2007 events.

The proposal to abolish the privileges of the World Champion in the future is not in any way meant as criticism of, or an attack on, the reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who is a worthy World Champion, a role model chess colleague and a highly esteemed opponent.

Rest assured that I am still motivated to play competitive chess. My current plan is to continue to participate in well-organised top-level tournaments and to try to maintain the no 1 spot on the rating list that I have successfully defended for most of 2010.

Best regards,

IGM Magnus Carlsen

 Carlsen provides brief comments at ChessBase.

Big test for Nakamura

....at the Tal Memorial!  Black against Mamedyarov is not an easy way to open a supertournament!

Previews at ChessVibes and Chess Life Online. 

The games begin at 7 a.m. Chicago time: I'll link to updates sometime tomorrow morning.

Well, that was a bit of a bummer....

The Blaze lost to the Miami Sharks last night 3-1.  BUMMER!

But Miami deserved to win, and the games were interesting.  More shortly....

Miami vs. Chicago tonight at 7 p.m.

You can follow the action in person or online: find out how here!

I'll be joining the match in progress sometime around 9 p.m.

new Carlsen website

Quite logically, it's magnuscarlsen.com!

"It's Win or Go Home Time"

Tom Panelas previews tonight's playoff match for the Chicago Blaze.

A position from the U.S. Game/30 championship

Black to play

Mark Robledo, Jr.-Bill Brock, Skokie 2010

It was a mutual time-scramble, but both players had more than one minute plus delay remaining when the above position was reached.  Black sees that White's king on c4 and pawn on d5 are both on the diagonal of the bishop on f7, and gets an idea.  Is it a bright one?

Evaluate the position: you are invited to use your computers!

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.

Loose ends

Jeremy Kane and Trevor Magness annotate the Blaze's wins from last week (so I don't have to !)

All Grade at Whitney Young November 13th!

From the Illinois Chess Coaches Association blog:

ALL-GRADE SPECIAL ENTRY

2010 ILLINOIS K-12 ALL-GRADE STATE CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

Entry Fee: $125 per High School until Nov 10th. BRING Everybody for the fee of five.

Coaches can pay team registration fee at the tournament or online.

Register your teams at www.chessteachers.org 

USCF Membership required--However, we can provide a one day membership that is valid for this event only. The fee for the one-day membership is $7 per player.

USCF Memberships can be purchased at USCHESS.org. We recommend a yearly membership for each player. 

Presented by  Whitney Young Magnet High School, Chess Education Partners, and the Youth Chess Foundation of Chicago

Individual entry fee is $25/player until Nov 5th.

If you have any questions, contact Paul Kash at pjkash@cps.edu or 773-512-2811

Ivanchuk beats Nakamura in Cap d'Agde finals

Two King's Gambits!  Although Ivanchuk tricked Nakamura into a good-vs.-bad-bishop ending in the first game, Nakamura's anti-King's Gambit system is utterly respectable and fun!

1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6 3.Nf3 f5!?

Coverage at The Week in Chess (games are in drop-down box above the board) and Europe-Echecs.