USA 2 1/2 - Russia 1 1/2

Russia vs USA Round 9
Photo © http://chesstv.com

Congratulations to US coach Yury Shulman, to John Donalson, and the whole team!  Get the story at Chess Lilfe Online; also see Mark Crowther's recap at The Week in Chess.

Hikaru Nakamura moved to number 4 in the world with this win over former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik:

Gata Kamsky kept pressing in a position that seemed hopelessly drawn. With no pawns on the baord, rook and bishop versus rook is a theoretical draw, but it's difficult for grandmasters to defend if they can't reach one of the standard defensive setups.

Evanston Chess: $5 tournament on Saturday the 22nd!

The traditional email cut-and-paste follows.

PLEASE NOTE DATE CORRECTION (RESCHEDULED BY LEVY CENTER):

Levy Senior Center, 300 Dodge Ave., Evanston, IL 60202

Evanston Chess Presents:
September 15,22 2012, 9:00am-5:00pm

Three x Three, 3SS G/65 delay 5

Three Sections, USCF Regular Rated

Our guest master will be
FM Kevin "Caveman" Bachler

Section Gold: 1700 and over
Section Silver: 1200 - 1699
Section Bronze: Under 1200 and Unrated

1600 - 1699 may play up to Gold.
1100 - 1199 may play up to Silver.
Published USCF Regular Rating determines eligibility.
Unrated players may be placed up at TD discretion.

From time to time Evanston Chess pays one or more titled players to play in our events. We usually do not pair them against each other. Even if they should lose (it does happen) we may pair them with the highest score groups.

Three rounds. Digital clocks are required and will be set to G/65 plus 5 seconds delay. Accelerated or decelerated pairings at TD discretion. Sections may be combined at TD discretion.

Registration from 9:00 to 9:30 AM. Players must check in by 9:30 am; players who arrive late will receive a half-point bye for the first round. First Round 9:45 am, last round over roughly 5:00 pm. No Lunch Break: We need to be finished by 5:00 PM, so there will be no extra time between rounds for lunch.

You may take one half-point bye in any round but the last.

Entry fee is $5, please pay cash (no checks) at the door. Masters and Experts play free.

Pre-registration is encouraged: Help us start on time. Send name, USCF number, and telephone number to enter@evanstonchess.org

Junior players (under fourteen years) rated 900+ are welcome. Sorry, but we do not accept junior players rated under 900. Must be accompanied by a parent throughout the event.

Bring clocks. -- Wheelchair accessible. No Smoking.

"What Makes a Good Teacher"

Vera Titunik writes:

New York City children start school this week, and, like many parents, I hope that each of my kids will get the perfect teacher. The new book from Paul Tough, “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character,” has given me a new sort of perfection to hope for: someone like Elizabeth Spiegel, the chess teacher at I.S. 318 in Brooklyn.

Paul Tough on Elizabeth Spiegel and her ability to channel Mike Ditka: "She does not hug." But hey, Elizabeth hugged me a couple months ago! (And I'm really not a hugger.)

Mitkov, Gurevich share Illinois Open title

Congratulations to Grandmasters Nikola Mitkov and Dmitry Gurevich, the 2012 Illinois state champions!

Grandmaster in motion: GM Nikola Mitkov (vs. NM Sam Schmakel)

Not the first time: GM Dmitry Gurevich took down Tam Nguyen in the last round

 I'll expand this blog post this evening:-)  soon—I'm waiting for Chess Life Online to publish my report, then I'll use what they didn't....

Here are the final standings.

World news noted

Here's a sad commentary on human nature.  Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Hungary are all among the top teams in the ongoing Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, which means we may see some "interesting" pairings in the coming days.

Personally, I prefer chess to war.

A bizarre ending

One of those games that demonstrates why Grandmasters are Grandmasters. I think there was a double blunder on move 44, but please don't trust this analysis. (If you're looking at this with a computer, please keep the horizon effect in mind: the engine's initial evaluation of the pawn ending may be wildly inaccurate.)

Mitkov, Gurevich win Illinois Open

Congratulations to Grandmasters Nikola Mitkov and Dmitry Gurevich, the 2012 Illinois state champions!

Much more tomorrow.

Ken Marshall in action

The longtime editor of the Illinois Chess Bulletin can push pawns, too, as he proved earlier today at the Illinois Open:

USA 3½ - Lithuania ½

Another Nakamura adventure

Ouch (from yesterday's Canada-Turkmenistan match)

It's called "Labor Day Scholastic Tournament", but...

...the event (run in the same venue as the Illinois Open) is NOT on Labor Day, but on Saturday, September 1st!  So parents, have your child play chess on Saturday, swim on Sunday, and eat hot dogs on Monday.

You can enter online for $25 until 6 p.m. Friday!  Enter here.

Labor Day Scholastic Tournament, 9/1/12, DoubleTree Hotel: 1909 Spring Road, Oakbrook, Illinois 60523, (630) 472-6020, (630) 472-6000. $25 Discounted EF USPS by 8/28, $25 Discounted EF on-line until 8/31, 6 pm, $30 at door by 11:30 am, $35 after that, Rnds: 12-1-2-3-4, G/25 Delay 0, Open to under 18 years of age, 2 sections: U1200, U700, 10 individual trophies per section (team trophies not available), Participation award to each player. Bring sets-boards-clocks, none provided. All rules, regulations, and procedures may be superseded by announcements/postings at the site. Ent: Tim Just, 37165 Willow, Gurnee, IL 60031 Info only (847) 244-7954 before 6 PM. e-mail for info only (sorry, e-mail entries not available): registration@chessforlife.com , Checks payable to Chess For Life, LLC, info andPayPal discounted entries until 6 PM 8-31-12: http://chessforlife.com NS, NC, W. 

More info here.

State championship in Oak Brook this Labor Day weekend!

Grandmasters Gurevich and Mitkov, as well as former state champions Aung Thant Zin, Albert Chow, and Angelo Young (apologies if I overlooked someone),  not to mention many strong young masters, are among the preregistrants.  Action begins Saturday, September 1st!

It's not too late to enter!

Sept 1-3. 2012 Illinois Open State Championship. 6R-SS. Open Section (40/90 SD/30 + 30/sec incr). Reserve and Booster Sections (G/90 + 30/sec incr). Doubletree Hotel 1909 Spring Road Oak Brook, IL 60523 - Phone 630-472-6000. $8500 Guaranteed + $250 Isaac Braswell Fighting Chess Award in Open Section. 


3 sections: Open, Reserve (U1800), Booster (U1400). Prizes (non-IL players eligible for max 3rd place in Overall Prizes and 2nd place prize for rating bracket prizes: Open - Overall: $1600-1000-300, (2399-2200): $350-275-200; (2199-2100): $250-200; (2099-2000): $200-100; (1999-1900): $200-100; (1899-1800): $200-100; Reserve (U1800) - Overall: $750-450-225; (1699-1600): $250-200-150; (1599-150): $150-100; (1499-1400): $150-100; Booster (U1400) - Overall: $250-125-75; (1299-1200) - $100-50; (1199-1100): $100-50. Open & Reserve FIDE Rated. Free Entry for IL FIDE titled players (WFM & above). 


EF: $64 by 08/04/2012, $96 by 08/18/2012, $128 thereafter and on-site. No checks at site, credit cards ok. Online registration preferred. No phone entries. Re-entry: $60 with 1/2 pt in first two rds only. Rd 6 bye must committ by end of Rd 2 otherwise zero pt. Players in contention for prizes must play final rd or have 1/2 pt bye committed to by the end of Rd 2 otherwise ineligible for prizes. Special Rules for Playing Up: $10 more if 150 pts or less from cut off of section, $25 more if 151-300 pts from cut-off, $50 more if 301+ pts from cut-off (Example: 1620 wants to play in open, 180 pts from cut-off, pay $25 more to play up).NOTE: Playing up fee paid in cash at the door - players will be registered in their normal rating section unless you come to the TD room to request playing up. 


Schedule: 10am and 4pm each day. Mailed entries: North American Chess Association 4957 Oakton Street Suite 113 Skokie IL 60077. All mailed entries must be received by 8/24/2012. Questions: sevan@nachess.org. No Phone Calls. Advance entries and online registration at: http://www.nachess.org/ilopen2012. 


Hotel: $91/night + tax. Ask for Chess Rate. 


Boards, Sets, Clocks Provided. Must use organizer provided equipment. Chess vendor onsite. August Rating Supplement. Special Workshops: Chess in Education plus TD/Rules Workshop. 1-day Scholastic Event. For registration on the 1-day scholastic event please visit http://chessforlife.com/chess/wint11/scholastic.html. 


USCF and ICA mbrshp required for main event.

Chicagoans in Istanbul

Gata Kamsky & Irina Krush
Tony Rich for St. Louis Chess Club / Chess Life Online

GM Yury Shulman of Barrington is not playing in the 2012 Olympiad; instead, he's the head coach!  The U.S. team (Nakamura, Kamsky, Akobian, Robson; third board Onischuk is cheerleading this round) is playing a strong team from Lithuania right now in round two.  Catch up on the U.S. team's round one results (both men and women) at Chess Life Online.

Sevan Muradian of Chicago (North Shore Chess Center / North American Chess Association) is also there, schmoozing away. Armenians are reminded to keep a low profile at the Bermuda Party, especially when rowdy Brits are around.

GM Mesgen Amanov of Glenview is once again playing first board for his native land, Turkmenistan.  As I write, Mesgen is playing Black against GM Bator Sambuev of Canada.  (Update 11:45 a.m.: the website reports that Mesgen lost. , but it looks to me like Black-Mesgen-won a pretty game with multiple queen promotions: confusing!  The broadcast gamescore was completely wrong.)

How old is this photo from the Olympiad website?

If you have more luck than I did, you may be able to follow live games here.  

Fidel Serrano, Jr.

I'm sorry to report that we've lost another member of our community. Fidel Serrano was a paramedic for the Chicago Fire Department, one of the people who risk their own safety to protect us.

Details are sketchy, but I believe that Fidel passed away (reportedly from a heart attack) on Sunday, his 41st birthday, and possibly (this too is unconfirmed) in the line of duty. Our condolences to Fidel's family and many friends.

UPDATE:  Visitation will be at 8300 W. Lawrence in Norridge, 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. both Thursday and Friday.   Funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m Saturday, St. Eugene's, 7958 W. Foster, Chicago.  More info here.  Our deepest condolences to Fidel's parents and his brother.

Fidel G. Serrano Jr. Air Force Veteran, Died Suddenly August 26, 2012. Fidel was a Firefighter with the City of Chicago. He is survived by his parents, Venecia Nee GAL-LANG Serrano and Fidel H. Serrano Sr. and His Brother Alen Serrano. Visitation for Fidel will be Thursday and Friday from 3:00 - 9:00 p.m. and funeral prayers will be said Saturday at 9:00 a.m. at the funeral home, Preceeding to St. Eugene Catholic Church for mass at 10:00 a.m. Committal service and military Honors will follow at Acacia Park Cemetery Interment Chapel. 

Road trip to Indy

Chicago and Illinois players had outstanding results in last weekend's Indianapolis Open. GM Dmitry Gurevich won his second consecutive event with a 4½-½ score.  Gurevich's victims included GM Nikola Mitkov and NM Gopal Menon, both of whom tied for third with 3½ points.  FM Andrew Karklins and NM Jonathan Kogen, both undefeated, also tied for third.

Rene Anchata split first place in the Under 2100 section, while David Gilchrist and Matthew Holloway were part of a massive tie for the Under 1900 prize.

Andrew Fei, Ian Gilchrist, and Ube Leopoldo tied for third in the Under 1800 section, and Blair Hu won some Under 1600 money.  Shashank Bala and Yiliang Li tied for second in the Under 1500 section, and Aditya Sharma tied for fourth.

Matthew Demaro took top U800 and Brendan Brown was top U600.  Not bad, Illinois!

Prizewinners listed here; and post-tournament MSA rankings are here.

Bobby Fischer vs. Albert Sandrin, Milwaukee 1957

The fourteen-year-old Bobby had already won the Game of the Century, but he had not yet won his first U.S. Championship: that would come shortly after this game, in his miracle year 1958. Bobby didn't win the 1957 North Central Open, the traditional Turkey weekend event in Milwaukee, but he won this game against former U.S. Open champion Albert Sandrin of Chicago. Fischer was a virtuoso of the King's Indian Attack: this is a great early game that I'd never paid attention to before. Hat tip to Marty Wilber for calling it to our attention.

Fellow blogster NM Frederick Rhine has noted that the game shows Albert in a good light too, as Black had very real drawing chances in the opposite-color bishop ending. See the comments at chessgames.com.

Brooklyn Castle screening tomorrow

Brooklyn Castle is an award-winning documentary about the national champions at I.S. 318.  It's at the Siskel Film Center (164 N. State Street) as part of the Black Harvest Film Festival.  Only one show tomorrow, Sunday at 3:15.

Brooklyn Castle is also the final screening of the festival: this coming Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

White to play and win

(image stolen from the Brooklyn Castle homepage)

Seirawan to St. Louis!

Cut and pasted from an email:

Seirawan to Saint Louis as Acting Resident GM

SAINT LOUIS (August 24, 2012) -- Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan will arrive in Saint Louis on September 3 to serve as the acting Resident Grandmaster of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.

Seirawan, a four-time U.S. Champion and former World Championship contender, came out of retirement in 2011 to play in the U.S. Championship, which was held in Saint Louis. He cited the exciting developments of the Saint Louis chess scene as a contributing factor for his renewed interest in competitive chess and the U.S. Championship.

“First, it is a great event, and I wanted to thank the good folks at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis for all their wonderful work,” he said. “Secondly, I got bored watching the young lions at play and felt the urge to join them.”

Seirawan followed the 2011 U.S. Championship with a stunning performance at the 2011 World Team Championship, where he finished with a 2773 performance rating, which was almost 140 points higher than his rating at the time.

This move will allow him to have a direct impact on the rapidly growing chess movement in Saint Louis.

For more information on the CCSCSL, visit www.saintlouischessclub.org.

New CICL Bulletin online

Check it out! (pdf file)

The new Industrial League season will be beginning soon.  If you're interested in forming a team, drop the league a line!  (I'm wondering why we don't have a Google team in the league yet....with Google's Motorola Mobilty division coming to the Mart in the summer of 2013, I hope that changes soon.)

Coffeehouse portraits

Enjoy!

Albert and Angelo Sandrin remembered

Angelina, Albert, and Angelo Sandrin, 1968

For those of you who didn't know Albert, here's a nice introduction.

The 1949 U.S. Open was won by the legally blind Albert Sandrin.  His brother Angelo (a longtime expert who finally made it to 2300 after his retirement) also played in that event. On the rare occasions that Albert played (the 1989 U.S. Open in Rosemont comes to mind), Angelo would attentively monitor Albert's game and keep score for him.

Most Chicago players over age 45 or so will remember Angelo from many events at Jules Stein's Chicago Chess Center. Sometime in the mid-1980s, I was rummaging through a used bookstore in Rogers Park and came across the tournament book of the 1949 U.S. Open.  I bought it and gave it to Angelo.  The next time I saw him at Jules's, he surprised me with a bottle of Courvoisier. (Which my then brother-in-law drank in one sitting, but that's another story.)

I really didn't know Albert as well as Angelo. A couple years earlier (circa 1980-81?), I had played Albert once or twice at the ten-minute Tuesday night tournaments organized by Richard Verber at the old No Exit on Lunt. He was completely blind by this time, but could play blitz "by touch" on a standard set and clock, and beat me handily.  And in the aforementioned 1989 U.S. Open, I played on a board adjacent to Albert in an early round.  My opponent (a strong master) and I didn't pay much attention to our middlegame: we sat slack-jawed for half an hour or so as Albert dismantled his opponent's defenses in the style of Alekhine, and even exchanged a "Don't you wish you could play like this?" glance.

NM Frederick Rhine presented games of both Angelo and Albert in this 2011 post.  And Tartajubow (from whom I cribbed a good deal of this post) points us to this nice collection of Albert's games.

Tactics happen

Burgess-Stamnov, Oak Brook 2004

White to play and win quickly

Truth to tell, the game's already resignable (is 1...Rxf3 really a threat? and if not, why not?)

But the finishing blow should be delivered swiftly.  Jeepers, I'm beginning to sound like Irving Chernev.

Three days of grandmaster lessons for only $150!

Such a deal at the North Shore Chess Center: each of the three training sessions is six hours long!

• Saturday September 22, 2012 - Grandmaster Yury Shulman 
• Saturday  October 20, 2012 - Grandmaster John Fedorowicz 
• Saturday November 17, 2012 - Grandmaster Larry Christiansen

I've had the pleasure of listening to all three analyze (Christiansen post-mortemed one of my games in a Montréal dormitory back in 1974: makes me feel old).  Yury, Fed, and Larry are all excellent communicators and nice people.  This is a really great deal, so register now!

Like a bad soap opera?

Spassky's sister speaks.

Beat a world champion at the Illinois Open

OK, so the world champion is nine-year-old Awonder Liang, the reigning FIDE 8-and-under world champion: this year may be your last best hope to take Awonder down!  Hey, GM Larry Kaufman probably had Awonder busted before Awonder managed to win somehow, and Awonder didn't even come close to beating GM Joel Benjamin, who held Awonder to a comfortable draw.  A player who shall remain nameless (rhymes with "Nad Nosen")  already thinks it's too late for me... (blogger arches eyebrows).

Grandmasters Gurevich and Mitkov are among the preregistrants: action begins Saturday, September 1st!


Sept 1-3. 2012 Illinois Open State Championship. 6R-SS. Open Section (40/90 SD/30 + 30/sec incr). Reserve and Booster Sections (G/90 + 30/sec incr). Doubletree Hotel 1909 Spring Road Oak Brook, IL 60523 - Phone 630-472-6000. $8500 Guaranteed + $250 Isaac Braswell Fighting Chess Award in Open Section. 


3 sections: Open, Reserve (U1800), Booster (U1400). Prizes (non-IL players eligible for max 3rd place in Overall Prizes and 2nd place prize for rating bracket prizes: Open - Overall: $1600-1000-300, (2399-2200): $350-275-200; (2199-2100): $250-200; (2099-2000): $200-100; (1999-1900): $200-100; (1899-1800): $200-100; Reserve (U1800) - Overall: $750-450-225; (1699-1600): $250-200-150; (1599-150): $150-100; (1499-1400): $150-100; Booster (U1400) - Overall: $250-125-75; (1299-1200) - $100-50; (1199-1100): $100-50. Open & Reserve FIDE Rated. Free Entry for IL FIDE titled players (WFM & above). 


EF: $64 by 08/04/2012, $96 by 08/18/2012, $128 thereafter and on-site. No checks at site, credit cards ok. Online registration preferred. No phone entries. Re-entry: $60 with 1/2 pt in first two rds only. Rd 6 bye must committ by end of Rd 2 otherwise zero pt. Players in contention for prizes must play final rd or have 1/2 pt bye committed to by the end of Rd 2 otherwise ineligible for prizes. Special Rules for Playing Up: $10 more if 150 pts or less from cut off of section, $25 more if 151-300 pts from cut-off, $50 more if 301+ pts from cut-off (Example: 1620 wants to play in open, 180 pts from cut-off, pay $25 more to play up).NOTE: Playing up fee paid in cash at the door - players will be registered in their normal rating section unless you come to the TD room to request playing up. 


Schedule: 10am and 4pm each day. Mailed entries: North American Chess Association 4957 Oakton Street Suite 113 Skokie IL 60077. All mailed entries must be received by 8/24/2012. Questions: sevan@nachess.org. No Phone Calls. Advance entries and online registration at: http://www.nachess.org/ilopen2012. 


Hotel: $91/night + tax. Ask for Chess Rate. 


Boards, Sets, Clocks Provided. Must use organizer provided equipment. Chess vendor onsite. August Rating Supplement. Special Workshops: Chess in Education plus TD/Rules Workshop. 1-day Scholastic Event. For registration on the 1-day scholastic event please visit http://chessforlife.com/chess/wint11/scholastic.html. 


USCF and ICA mbrshp required for main event.

Homo Ludens

The first chess book I read was a wonderful and typically eccentric (it's not oxymoronic to say "typically eccentric" when the authors are English!) beginners' manual, The Chess Apprentice. I still remember the epigraph:

The little angels of Heaven

Each wear a long white dress,

And in the tall arcadings

Play ball and play at chess;

To be human is to be creative, and we're at our most creative when we're playing games. Here's a mental health break that you might find timely in more than one sense:



I hope to see many of you at the memorial service for Jon Burgess tomorrow!

Spassky in Moscow

Not sure whether to take this story at face value. No matter: be well, Boris.

Kasparov arrested, beaten in Moscow

Story in the New York Times (it was part of the lead story on the website this a.m.)  Context in ChessBase.

Rumor has it that Kasparov may soon be visiting Chicago. Best wishes to the former world champion for good health and a speedy release.  (P.S.: he's been released.)

Andrey Smirnov, AFP / Getty Images

Another update: Kasparov speaks to Eli Lake in The Daily Beast.

Lemonade from life's lemons

Recent events remind me to remind you to check out the Facebook group Chicago Area Chess.

Burgess-Shulman

Here is Jon Burgess' crushing win over GM Yury Shulman from the 2004 Chicago Open. Jon looks like the GM here, dominating the game from move 17 until the end. His notes, and advice to competitors, are here.

The biggest problem with the 2012 U.S. Open

...from my perspective, was that it was a nine-round event, not a five-round event. I began 4½-½ and made it to Board 3 (temporarily nestled between GMs Seirawan and Gurevich) until the young Oregon state champion Steven Breckenridge punctured my bubble. (And while I'm usually happy to publish my losses, no, I'm not sharing that embarrassment: it's on Monroi.).

Photo: Eileen Schmakel

I told Seirawan that the last time I played in a tournament with him, I had hair and he had an Afro. (There's a Lionel Ritchie-esque version of the Yasser-do in Al Lawrence's Chess Life Online article).

Memorial service for Jon Burgess on Monday, August 20th

Colleen Plummer Burgess writes: 

As many of you know my husband passed away on Sunday. The services will be held on Monday from 3-8pm at Matz Funeral Home 410 East Rand Road in Mount Prospect. I want to thank everyone for their continued support during this difficult time. Jon was a wonderful husband and father and will be missed.

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...."

Svetozar Gligorić 1923-2012

Gligorić-Fischer, Portoroz 1958
www.echecs-photos.be

Svetozar Gligorić, the greatest chess player in Serbian and Yugoslav history, died today at the age of 89, having lived an amazing life: resistance fighter, journalist, author, polyglot, amateur musician and songwriter, opening theorist, World Championship Candidate, and one of Bobby Fischer's lifelong friends.  Story at The Week in Chess: check out Wikipedia and ChessVibes for more.

Of the participants in the great Zurich 1953.Candidates tournament, we still have Averbakh and Taimanov.

Enrico Sevillano gets final GM norm

Credit:  Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis 

Cool! 

GM-elect Sevillano is based in California now, but lived in Chicago for many years. (In fact, he used to live less than one block away from my old home: circa 1997, he and I found ourselves in the same laundromat one Sunday morning.)

"A Note from Your Captain"

It's 3:30 a.m. I can't sleep and I'm heartbroken.

This would be a good post for young readers to skip.  (Text after the jump.)

Congratulations to Dmitry Gurevich!

With a last-round win, Dmitry grabbed a share of his fourth U.S. Open title. (No trophy for first on tiebreaks this year, but that's OK: Dmitry already has two of those.) Much more later: I'm sitting next to Harold Winston at a PDX gate. Good news and bad news to process.

Jon Burgess, rest in peace

We are shocked to learn of the death of National Master Jon Burgess. Our deepest condolences to Colleen and the entire Burgess family. Jon was a kind soul and a very dear friend. Much more later.

A must-win game

In round 8 (just finishing now), Dmitry Gurevich won with the Classical Sicilian. You can find this and many other games from the U.S. Open on the Monroi website. Tomorrow's final round begins at 3 p.m.: once again, the top boards (and the games of a few fish) will be broadcast live on Monroi.

Equalizing is only the beginnning

NM Sam Schmakel of Whitney Young High School reaches a completely equal middlegame against former US Champion Alexander Shabalov. Sam tries for a little bit more than equality, and gets punished...this time.

U.S. Open, round 7 update

It's been a great weekend for Mexico in the Olympics, so perhaps it's appropriate that GM Manuel Leon Hoyos is leading the U.S. Open with two rounds to go. Nice coverage by Al Lawrence at Chess Life Online.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: you really don't want to defend a drawish endgame against Dmitry Gurevich.

At 6-1, Dmitry needs to pick up half a point in the last two rounds to contend for the qualifying spot in the U.S. Championship.

Mesgen introduces Vishy

Cool!

Travel photos and woodpushing

FM Michael Langer of Austin, Texas (the grandson of Lev Abramov, who captained the Soviet team in the famous USSR vs. World match in Belgrade) drove me to Mount St. Helen's on Tuesday. I was amazed that the devastation wrought by the 1980 eruption is still so evident: a dozen miles away, the remains of entire forests effaced by the eruption indicate the direction of the lateral blast. Closer to the volcano, stumps remain where the rest of the tree was vaporized.

The blast zone, many miles away:
everything in the valley was devastated on May 18, 1980

As bad as 1980 was, the Mount St. Helen's eruption was small potatoes compared to prehistoric volcanic eruptions in the Cascades.  One doesn't want to be around when Crater Lake blows again. (I've always wondered what Strangelovian continuity-of-government plans are in place for the Yellowstone Caldera "event": but we chess players do tend to be paranoid.)

Oh yes, chess.

Sam Schmakel equal third at Denker

Our high school representative, Sam Schmakel of Whitney Young, also did Illinois proud.  The final crosstable is here, and Chess Life Online has a nice feature on the winners of the Denker and the Barber.

Sam has a perfect score in the early rounds of the U.S. Open (six-day schedule), and will be playing "behind the ropes" against GM Alexander Shabalov.  You should be able to follow the action at monroi.com: action begins at noon Pacific, 2 p.m. Chicago time.

Both Sam and Sean Vibbert of Indiana (who also had a great event) came out swinging in the following game from Round 5. As often happens in Golden Gloves, they neutralized each other without doing damage.

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!

Checkmating the queen

On Tuesday night at the U.S. Open, Dmitry Gurevich made it look easy.