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.