King hunt!

In the olden days, everyone responded to the Queen's Gambit Accepted (1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4) with 3.Nf3, and the game usually continued 3...Nf6 4.e3. Reuben Fine explained in his classic Ideas Behind the Chess Openings that 3.Nf3 was necessary in order to avoid the freeing 3...e5. For example, if White played 3.e4 e5! 4.dxe5, Black could quickly get at least equality with 4...Qxd1+ 5.Kxd1 Be6. Larry Evans in MCO-10 accordingly pronounced 3.e4 "premature."

In more recent times, strong GMs including world champions Anand and Kasparov have shown that it's hard for White to get much against exact play by Black. Attention has accordingly shifted back to the sharper 3.e4. The Danish GM Lars Schandorff in his book Playing 1.d4 - The Queen's Gambit, in explaining the need for a sharper weapon against the QGA, quotes Chief Brody in the movie Jaws: "You're gonna need a bigger boat." Mega Database 2013 shows both 3.e3 (60.4%) and 3.e4 (59.9%) outscoring the staid 3.Nf3 (57.7%). Although all three moves are commonly seen, ChessBase says that 3.e4 is the "hottest" these days (i.e., most popular in recent grandmaster games).

The main line of the Central Variation (3.e4) runs 3...e5 4.Nf3 exd4 5.Bxc4!, gambitting the d-pawn. White usually, but not always, gets it back. The most important line is 5...Nc6 6.0-0 Be6!?, leading to sharp play where, as Schandorff says, the resultant positions "are very double-edged and all three results are possible."

My opponent in the following game tried the immediate 5...Be6? This works much less well: without Black's knight on c6, White wins back the pawn on d4 with 6.Bxe6 fxe6 7.Nxd4, with two immediate threats - 8.Nxe6 and 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qe5. There is no effective way to meet both. Two of Black's most plausible moves, 7...e5 and 7...Bc5, are both blunders that hang material to 8.Qh5+. Black in fact played the former move. After a further blunder, the game concluded with an entertaining king hunt. The moral(s) of the story: think carefully before weakening your kingside with an early move of your f-pawn, and watch out for queen checks (especially Qa4+ and Qh5+ by White, and Qa5+ and Qh4+ by Black).

This game raised my record on GameKnot to 55-0 and my rating to a walloping 1787. I'll be an A player before the week is up. Woo hoo!

A defensive brilliancy

If you're White in the position diagrammed below, it helps to have nerves (and a brain) of silicon. Although White's queen and rook are potentially a lethal combination, they have no checks available that don't hang. White's bishop also isn't helping the attack. Meanwhile, Black threatens Qd1#, and if White stops that with 46.Re1, Black grabs the bishop with 46...Qc2+ 47.Ka1 Qxc4 wins with 46...Nbc2 or 46...Ndc2. Alternatively, 46.Qg1 seems a clever way to get the queen into the attack, but Black takes the bishop, 46...Qc2+ 47.Ka1 Qxc4, then hides his king from the checks on b5: 48.Qh2+ Ka8! 49.Re8+ Kb7 50.Qb8+ Ka6 51.Qc8+ Kb5 52.Qd7+ Ndc6.

Nonetheless, White has an amazing drawing line! Can you see it?

Stalemate seems impossible: after 45...Kb8 White has six pieces, including two pawns and his king, and all of them have moves! Yet it all clicks in problem-like fashion: after 46.Bb3!! Nxb3, White's bishop is gone, his king is stalemated, and his b-pawn is blocked. Then 47.Qf4+! gxf4 hangs the queen and blocks the f-pawn, leaving only the "crazy" rook at large. "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?" Note that the knights stalemate White's king all by themselves, so White needn't worry about 50...Qxd7. Black has other moves available besides 46...Nxb3, but in all lines White has at least a forced draw. Glorious!

This is probably the greatest stalemating combination of all time, surpassing the likes of Boyd-Glimbrant, Alicante 1992, where Black had a mobile queen, rook, knight, and pawn before embarking on the stalemating combination. See my game collection for more fine stalemates. But this one is hard to beat.

Evanston Chess $5 tournament on Saturday, May 4

As always, it's the best deal in metro Chicago. FM Albert Chow will be the guest master.

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

Evanston Chess Presents:

May 4, 2013, 9:00am-5:00pm

Three x Three, 3SS G/65 delay 5

Three Sections, USCF Regular Rated

Our guest master will be 

FM Albert Chow

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. Lunch Break: We may need to be finished by 5:00 PM, so we cannot count on 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

Food! As always, we will order in pizza from Sarpinos for those who would rather not go out for lunch. $5 gets you a minimum of two slices (specify pepperoni or cheese) and one can of pop (Coke, Diet Coke, Orange, Rootbeer, Sprite, Iced Tea).

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.

USCF-rated scholastic events at Whitney Young on April 28th

From the email inbox (looks like there will be another such event on May 19th):

Date:  April 28th, 2013

Place:  Whitney Young High School (2nd Floor Library)  211 S Laflin, Chicago

Schedule:  4 rounds, Game 30, Check in 9:00-9:45am, 1st round begins at 10am, last round should end around 2pm 

Sections: USCF Rated: K-2, K-8 Open, and K-8 U800; USCF membership is required and can be purchased at the event.

Entry Fee:  $20 online registration by 04/27, $25 on site.
Awards are given to the top 5 individuals and top team (3 players) in each section.
U21 Rated Section: Entry fee $20, 75% payout to 1st(40%), 2nd(20%), 1stU1600(15%) 

Register at www.chesskash.com

National Master William Aramil will be giving game analysis and lessons throughout the day.

Death on the light squares

In the following game, White puts all his pawns on dark squares, trades his light-squared bishop for a knight, and lets Black plant a bishop on d3. This is a recipe for disaster, which is realized. Compare the dark-square debacle in NN-Rhine, 2012. This game gives me a 50-0 record on GameKnot.

Robert Byrne, 1928-2013

Obituary in the New York Times.

Byrne, for many years the Times's chess columnist was a former U.S. Champion; in the 1970s, he was one of the top players in the world (his third place in the 1973 Leningrad Interzonal was probably the best American performance of the seventies outside of Fischer).

To do this after age forty was quite an accomplishment.  Dmitry Gurevich once told me that Byrne took his academic training and applied it to chess.  He was versatile: not many players were equally at home in the Najdorf Sicilian (6.Be3!) and the Winawer French.

Many Chicago players met Byrne at the 1994 U.S. Open: he was modest and personable.

Chicago Chess Center: A taste of what's to come

The Chicago Chess Center is proud to announce its first preview event! Thanks to our friends at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México's Chicago campus, we're able to offer our Founders' Court members a sample of the kind of events we plan to hold.

On Saturday and Sunday, May 11 and 12, we're holding the Chicago Chess Center UNAM Invitational, an exclusive event open to masters, junior experts and Founders' Court members. This USCF-rated, two-day, four-round Swiss will have a time control of G/75 plus 30-second increment, with rounds beginning at 10 AM and 2:30 PM each day. Entry is $25, $15 for CCC members, and we're giving out a guaranteed $600 in prizes (five place prizes of $250, $150, $100, $60 and $40). Sets and duplicate scoresheets will be provided; someday we'll be able to provide clocks as well, but for now we ask you to bring your own.

UNAM Chicago is at 350 W. Erie St. in River North (map). Off-street parking will be available for $5 per day in the lot on the northeast corner of Erie and Orleans streets. UNAM Chicago is also an easy five-minute walk from the CTA's Chicago/Franklin Brown Line 'L' station.

If you're not a master or junior expert and would like to participate, it's not too late to join our Founders' Court! Any interested player may donate at the Founders' Court level ($250 or more) right up to the day of the event. Remember, we still need your help to open our doors and begin offering events to the Chicagoland chess-playing public in our own space. Please give generously and become a founding member of this new civic, educational and recreational institution.

P.S. As a bonus, we plan to hold a thank-you reception for our Founders' Court members around the time of the tournament; details coming soon. And for everyone else, be on the lookout for another Chicago Chess Center preview tournament -- open to all -- this June!

Kasparov to appear at All-Girls Nationals

Story at Chess Life Online.  Kasparov's last Chicago appearance was at the same event in 2006.

Supernationals 2013

Once every four years, all of USCF's scholastic national individual & team championships (high school, junior high, elementary) are held simultaneously in Nashville: this was the weekend for "Supernationals."

Results are in, says Chess Life Online.  And Illinois students did more than OK.

Congratulations to two National Champions from Illinois!!

Aydin Turgut of Decatur took the K-3 Championship with a perfect 7-0.

David Peng won the K-6 Championship with an undefeated 6½-½ score.

I was renewing library books at Harold Washington yesterday when I ran into Phillip Turner, father of Whitney Young's Philip Parker-Turner, who was kind enough to send the below picture of the Whitney Young team (here collecting hardware at the MVP tournament).  Whitney Young did more than OK, finishing in a tie for 5th-7th with 18 points, only 2½ points behind the winners.  Sam Schmakel tied for 2nd in the individual championship (7th on tiebreaks) with a 6-1 score, losing only to tournament winner Atulya Shetti of Michigan.

NM Brian Schuman

I just saw Brian's name in a current USCF mailing list, which surprised me because I knew he'd passed away some years ago.  (My brother-in-law David, who himself died in 2009, was Brian's auto mechanic, so I'm guessing that Brian passed away at least five years ago.)  I believe Brian lived in or near Rogers Park, but I'm not sure.

Games, remembrances, etc. would be appreciated.

Queen sac-a-palooza

This is a fun game, concluding with two pseudo-queen sacrifices, but Houdini as usual points out improvements for me. Obvious ones. D'oh! This game upped my record on GameKnot.com to 29-0.

Really silly Internet game

I just started playing on GameKnot.com, which has correspondence games with a minimum length of 2 days per move. That was the time control for the following game, believe it or not. GameKnot assigns one an initial rating of 1200 and initially only lets one play against very low-rated players. That probably explains why I'm 27-0 thus far. This game raised my rating to a walloping 1612, exactly 800 points below my USCF correspondence rating. This game is even sillier than most, but the final mate is kind of picturesque, albeit no Dodge-Houghteling :

Congratulations to Illinois' newest Senior Master...

Adarsh Jayakumar.

Anand on Carlsen

Interview in The Indian Express.

More Final Four hype

...thanks to Whitney Young grad?  DNAinfo.com adds its own spin.

Carlsen and Kramnik lose, tie for first, Carlsen advances

This Candidates tourney has been a real doozy. If you haven't been following it, here's a little recap. After seven rounds, the halfway point in the double round robin tournament, Carlsen and Aronian were dominating the field, each with three wins and four draws. Former World Champion Kramnik had drawn all seven games and trailed both leaders by 1.5 points. Then Kramnik went on an incredible tear, scoring 4.5 points in the next five games, to vault into the lead! He beat Aronian in the last of those games after Aronian blundered away an easy draw. That was Aronian's second consecutive loss, leaving him 1.5 points behind Kramnik. Meanwhile, Carlsen was unrecognizable as White against Ivanchuk, who had an incredibly erratic tournament. Carlsen played badly throughout the game and lost after missing a possible draw in the rook ending. So after 12 rounds, the standings were Kramnik 8/12, Carlsen 7.5/12, Aronian 6.5/12, with just two rounds to go. Then in round 13 Carlsen eked out an endgame win as Black against Radjabov, while Kramnik was unable to convert his advantage against Gelfand. Aronian drew against Grischuk, falling out of contention.

This set the stage for an incredibly dramatic last round. Carlsen and Kramnik led with 8.5 points. Carlsen had White against Svidler, while Kramnik was Black against Ivanchuk. Ivanchuk, as mentioned, had been extremely erratic, losing five games on time before move 40. (By comparison, Fischer lost twice on time in his entire career.) Carlsen was leading on tiebreaks, since the first tiebreak was number of wins and he had won five games to Kramnik's four. So Kramnik had to hope Carlsen did not win in the final round, and if so had to outscore him: if Carlsen drew, Kramnik had to win, while if Carlsen lost, Kramnik would have to win or draw. Kramnik must have figured that Carlsen would at least draw as White, so he (Kramnik) would have to win. Carlsen, on his part, must have feared that Ivanchuk would get in his usual time pressure and flag, in which case he (Carlsen) would have to win.

The upshot was that both of the leaders played badly. Carlsen got nothing out of the opening, got extremely low on time (he had something like two minutes for his last 12 moves in a complicated position), and barely made the time control, only to find himself in a hopeless ending. Kramnik, meanwhile, played the opening dubiously, trying to keep the game complicated and hope that Chukky would flag as usual. Chukky was having none of it. He handled the complications deftly and made time control with a minute to spare, with a completely winning position. Both Carlsen and Kramnik lost, leaving them tied for first with 8.5 points. So Carlsen, despite losing as White for the second time in three games, backed into a tie for first and a win on tiebreak. He will face Anand for the World Championship in November. An unbelievable finish.

Aronian meanwhile won nicely against Radjabov. He and Svidler tied for third with 8 points. Gelfand (Anand's challenger last time) and Grischuk tied for fifth with 6.5, Ivanchuk was seventh with 6 points, and Radjabov was last with 4.

Third IM norm for Adarsh Jayakumar

Adarsh (pictured below with Grandmaster Friðrik Olafsson) recovered from his Icelandic adventure to score a very impressive third IM norm at the Philadelphia Open (performance rating FIDE 2470!). Adarsh now needs to make FIDE 2400 to earn the title.

   

 We also hear there was a little chess played in London the past few days....

"University of Illinois is a bracket-buster — in chess"

Story in the Chicago Tribune. It's amusing that Illini freshman Eric Rosen, the 2011 National High School Champion, is given credit for "having captured the third-grade Illinois state championship."

Go Illini!

Great way to start the summer: chess camp in Lisle June 10-4

Grandmasters Dmitry Gurevich, Nikola Mitkov, and Atanas Kolev will be conducting the Benet Academy Summer Chess Camp in Lisle on June 10-14. For more info, see the announcement on the ICA Calendar.

Amazing day at Candidates Tournament

Kramnik leads!

CICL East Division action

DRW Trading drew Rogue Squadron 3-3 thanks to this win by Lyle Hayhurst:

"Awonder Liang Youngest Ever Master"

Story at Chess Life Online.  Awonder and Adream live in Wisconsin, and play frequently in Chicago events. They are really nice kids, incredibly talented, and very interesting players.

I wouldn't be surprised if Awonder's amazing record is beaten by another player in the next year or so.  And I wouldn't be surprised if that player is from Illinois.

Congratulations to Awonder and his family!

Beauty and the (Silicon) Beast

I was very pleased with the following blitz game, which ends with a queen sac and a beautiful mate administered by Harrwitz bishops. But Black could have avoided mate with 8...Kd8!, though he's still quite lost. When I analyzed the game later with Houdini 3, it pointed out an even clearer win for me on move 8! Do you see it?

Colley Kitson, rest in peace

The Illinois chess community lost Colley Kitson on Tuesday: his obituary is in today's Decatur Herald & Review.  Colley was only 45.

The pedantic might note that the obit overstates his playing strength: Colley was barely a Class B player in blitz play, and high Class C over the board.  But a passion for the game matters far more than results: Colley opened Colley's Chess Cafe in downtown Bloomington, where he coached many young players, including his five USCF-rated children.  He went to Germany to kibitz the Anand-Kramnik world championship match.  He had an amazing collection of chess sets.  He was an amateur in the highest sense of the word: a lover of the game.

And Colley shared his love with others: before he opened Colley's Chess Cafe, he edited the Illinois Chess Bulletin for several years, he was secretary of the ICA and a tireless ICA volunteer, and a tournament director at national scholastic events. Colley gave far more to the game than most masters do.

Of course, chess is not life: Colley was a kind and honest person, generous with his time, and always fun to talk to. When I found myself in an ethical quandary in 2006, Colley sent me an email which read in part:

How about we just play some fun chess—no bickering, just hang out with people who want to have fun and a couple laughs.

Your entry fee is on me—at any of the events below—no stress allowed.  You may owe me a hearty handshake.

Though Colley lived in the Twin Cities and, in the last years of his life, Decatur, he had many friends in Chicago.  Glenn Panner started this Facebook thread for his Chicago friends to leave remembrances.

Nothing we can say could ever repair the loss felt by Colley's children, Hannah, Michaela, Jason, Sarah, and Levi, by his mother Jerriann, and by his family and closest friends.  But it is better to lose a good person too soon than never to have known that person.

NN triumphs!

Contrary to the impression you may have gotten from my prior posts, I also fall into opening traps and lose games, occasionally spectacularly. And sometimes NN is the router, not the routee. In the game below, he selects the tricky Budapest Gambit. It gives White a small advantage in the main line, but he must also reckon with trappy lines like the Fajarowicz Variation, 3...Ne4!?, beloved by Dean Arond, and gambit lines with ...d6 and ...f6. The last of these proves my undoing here.

"Deerfield High chess champ shares skills with youngsters"

Jonathan Kogen is profiled in the Highland Park / Deerfield edition of the Chicago Tribune.

Sam Schmakel simul

Thanks to Mike Cardinale for organizing  NM Sam Schmakel's simul at the Lincoln Square Marbles to publicize the 2013 Illinois Tour, and of course thanks to Sam for generously donating his time.

I pointed out to the participants that I am still undefeated against Sam in tournament play (for an example of Sam's play at age nine(!), see page 6 of this PDF).  Sam quietly replied, "There's a board available"; wisely, I chickened out.

Sam scored a perfect 12-0 in the simul (several experienced tournament players, including Paul Kash and Keith Ammann, were among his victims), and played one of the boards blindfold.  After the event, I bought a tchotke for the office and a game for a relative: Marbles is a fun place to shop!

Last Sunday at the Lincoln Square Marbles
Foreground: Bill Brock, NM Sam Schmakel, ICA Metro VP Mike Cardinale
Photo: Eileen Schmakel

595 at 2013 Illinois K-8 Championships

Bloomington-Normal Area Scholastic did their typically wonderful job hosting the 2013 K-8 Championships, held March 9-10 at the Bone Student Center on the Illinois State University campus.

It's tax season, so the congratulations are much briefer than they should be.

Individual results:

• Vincent Do of Thurgood Marshall in Rockford took the Junior High section with a 7-0 score.
• Edward Zhang of Hoffman Estates took the Elementary (grades 4-5) section with 6½-½.
• Aydin Turgut (1852!) of Decatur took the Upper Primary section with 6½-½.
• Aaron Gan of Sprague Half Day in Lincolnshire and David Zimmerman of Monroe Elementary in Hinsdale tied for first in the Lower Primary 6½-½.

Team results:

• Elementary: Grove Elementary, Normal
• Upper Primary, Avery Coonley School, Downers Grove (on tiebreaks over Benjamin Elementary of Bloomington)
• Lower Primary: Monroe Elementary, Hindsale
• Junior High: Thurgood Marshall, Rockford

Hmm, Chicagolanders, the Downstate kids more than held their own...

Brr

Viktorija Ni
(photo Chess Life Online)

One gets the impression that Astana, Kazakhstan, is colder than Chicago.

 Weather notwithstanding, Viktorija Ni had a very solid performance as the alternate for the U.S. in the Women's World Team Championship. Her win against Olga Giyra of Russia was decisive in the U.S.'s 2½-1½ win; it's featured on Chess Life Online. That match, and Irina Krush's performance on board 2, were the highlights for the U.S. team. Ukraine won the event, and the U.S. took sixth place.

Yet another

I may not know much about real chess, but I can still mate off random fish on the Internet.

See you at Marbles in Lincoln Square Sunday at 3 p.m. for Sam Schmakel simul!

That's 3 p.m. this Sunday, March 10th, at Marbles: the Brain Store, 4745 N. Lincoln, Chicago. Kibitzers welcome!

Sorry, but I am sending this notice a second time because we had problems with our incoming email at ICA.  If any of you signed up for this event, we did not receive your registration.  If you wish to sign up, please write a second time to Mike Cardinale ataccounting@apartmentpeople.com. Jerry Neugarten ---------------- Come support the Illinois Chess Tour by joining us for a simul and fundraiser with 2012 Tour Champion Sam Schmakel.  Here are the details: http://bit.ly/Wx2HoG Mike Cardinale, Tour Commissioner, is actively looking for players of all levels, both adult and scholastic, to challenge Sam in the simul.  Challengers are limited to 16, but you can reserve your spot with a simple email to Mike at metrovp@il-chess.org.  Come out to play, watch, or shop on the 10th, and you will be doing your part to support the Tour! Subject:  Sam Schmakel Simul March 10th! Come support the Illinois Chess Tour by joining us for a simul and fundraiser with 2012 Tour Champion Sam Schmakel.  Here are the details: http://bit.ly/Wx2HoG Mike Cardinale, Tour Commissioner, is actively looking for players of all levels, both adult and scholastic, to challenge Sam in the simul.  Challengers are limited to 16, but you can reserve your spot with a simple email to Mike at metrovp@il-chess.org.  Come out to play, watch, or shop on the 10th, and you will be doing your part to support the Tour! Some of you may have students or know of others who might want to participate. Feel free to forward this email to them. Jerry Neugarten Chair, Youth Committee

Viktorija Ni at the World Team Championships

The U.S. Women's team isn't doing very well this week at the World Team Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, but Viktorija led the U.S. to a 2½-1½ victory over Turkey on Monday.

Do you see why White resigned?

Candidates pairings are up!

The eight-player, fourteen round Candidates tournament in London will determine the player to challenge Vishy Anand for the World Championship later this year.  Play begins March 15th: Magnus Carlsen vs. seven Russian-speakers. I don't have fears of a repeat of Curaçao 1962—the players are honorable sportsmen—but I like the chances of the former Soviet field.  Magnus is a marked man, and everyone will have a little something special for him.

+4 would be a very good score; +3 might be sufficient.

Here's my back-of-the-envelope handicapping (based on age and recent form).

Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Svidler: (each) 4% chance of winning
Radjabov & Grischuk: (each) 10% chance of winning
Aronian: 12% chance of winning
Kramnik: 20% chance of winning
Carlsen: 36% chance of winning

Spanked by Uncle Marv

Here's another Morris Giles vs. Marvin Dandridge encounter. The North Central Open was one of the Midwest's strongest tournaments in the early 1980s.

White asks more of his position than is there: not good policy against Dandridge.

Louisville vs. Chicago, 1877

John Dunlap Adair
The Hand-Book of Chicago Biography,
ed. John J. Flinn (Chicago: 1893), p.20

Thanks to our fellow blogger at A Chess Reader for pointing us to John S. Hilbert's great article on Chess Cafe.

I really don't link to Chess Cafe enough, as Chicago-themed items are relatively infrequent. But it's one of the best chess sites on the web.

60 players at Saturday's Evanston Tri-Level

Well, it is the best chess deal in the country.

On Saturday, NM Ken Wallach won the Gold section of the March 2013 Tri-Level 3½-½, ahead of NM Greg Bungo, Vytas Vitkauskas, and Eric Paniagua, all on 3-1.  Guest master NM Frederick Rhine (don't believe the rating: that's a USCF error) had a winning position against Jiri Kabelac in Round 2, but blundered in time pressure and lost. Rhine was lucky to salvage a draw in the last round against Paniagua, who had an impressive tournament, drawing both masters and beating his other two opponents.

Rahul Dhiman won the Silver section 4-0, ahead of Seth Kushinsky, Xander Nicolson, and Edward Zhang with 3 points.

Conrad Zborowski won the Bronze section 4-0; Clifford Adams, Mariel Rancel, Nicholas Johnson, and Matthew De Mario all tied for second with 3-1.

Crosstable here.

Maret Thorpe organized and directed for Evanston Chess.

The difficult opponent

Tal had a massive negative score against Korchnoi, Fischer lost several famous games to Geller, and the late Morris Giles had a miserable score against Marvin Dandridge. Marvin found three of the four games that he remembers having played against Morris, all wins; the fourth was an uneventful draw.

This game in from the final round of the 1984 edition Fred Gruenberg's Put the Fun Back into Chess, which Dandridge won ahead of GMs Bisguier and Gurevich, as well as Colias, Martinovsky, DeFotis, and several other strong masters.  You'll find the crosstable in the February 1985 Illinois Chess Bulletin. 

Although Morris lost this game, it's a nice example of his attacking style. Marvin rarely went looking for tactics, but had (and has!) an excellent sense of danger and (like Korchnoi) is a strong counterpuncher. Both players were several years away from their peak strength.

Schmakel simul at Lincoln Square Marbles on March 10th

The 2012 Illinois Chess Tour champion, NM Sam Schmakel, will play 16 players simultaneously on March 10th at Marbles: the Brain Store.  You can play for free if you pre-register!

Mike Cardinale asked me whether I was sponsoring the event. Uh, no: the simul fee is very reasonable, but it ain't free.  Here's the correct info.

Players of all ages and abilities are welcome, with slots available for a nominal fee of $10.00 for adult players, or $5.00 for scholastic players. 100% of entry fees collected will be contributed to the Tour fund.

Details here!

Don't forget: $5 Evanston tourney tomorrow!

Details here. 

Co-blogger NM Frederick Rhine puts his non-floored 2201 rating on the line.  He may be rusty, but I wouldn't bet against him.

Chicago vs. Beijing on Livestream tonight

Link here: http://new.livestream.com/accounts/530274/events/1920800?origin=New%20Event%20Published&mixpanel_id=f1e5f834e480-0e1ddcb6c-43681f0a-2ee000-f1e5f834e5c19&acc_id=2990000&medium=email

Bummer

It looks like like Adarsh Jayakumar lost his 8th-round game yesterday as White against IM Martin Zumsande (2419). The game score does not appear to be available on the tournament's website. Maybe he still has a chance for his final IM norm if he wins his last two games. Go Adarsh!

Illinois Denker, Girls, Barber results

NM Jonathan Kogen wins the Denker Qualifier (the Illinois Chess Association High School Invitational Championship) with a perfect 5-0; NM Sam Schmakel takes second with 4-1, and Nathaniel Kranjc takes third with 2½-2½.

Madeline Reiches wins the Girls' Invitational with 4½-½. Miranda Liu takes second with 4-1, and Cassie Parent is clear third with 2½-2½.

David Peng wins the Barber Qualifier (K-8 Invitational Championship) with 4½-½, Alex Bian is clear second with 4-1, and George Li and Zachary Holocek tie for third with 3-2.

Thanks to Warren Junior Program chair Pattie Zinski for organizing on behalf of the Illinois Chess Association, and to Sevan Muradian and the North Shore Chess Center for donating space and directing services.

Crosstables are here: much more later.