Preregister for the 2011 Midwest Class!

The event returns to the Westin Chicago North Shore in Wheeling next weekend, October 14-16! Play on Friday night, or begin play Saturday morning: your choice! Details here!

While I don't like to play for money, I do tend to cash my prize checks. So I should note that there are $16,000 in guaranteed prizes next weekend, and that the projected prize fund is $20,000....

Save money and preregister by Tuesday, October 11th!

Round 8, Bilbao Masters: Nakamura 1 - Aronian 0

A really impressive squeeze by Nakamura! The minority attack is thematic in the Queen's Gambit Declined, but White usually pushes b2-b4 in the opening. But Hikaru defers the undermining operation until the endgame.

Round 6, Bilbao Masters: Ivanchuk 1 - Nakamura 0

Ivanchuk's opening lends credence to the credible rumors that he has been working with David Franklin.

Board 1: Amanov ½ - Margvelashvili ½

GM Giorgi Margvelashvili deserves half a point for courage: he played the Modern Benoni against GM Mesgen Amanov and lived to tell the tale! Black even had a pull in the ending, but Mesgen defended easily enough to clinch the match.

Young 1 - Defibaugh 0

Just as in last week's game, Angelo Young plays rope-a-dope and exploits a weakness on the light squares. Black hung a pawn on move 11, so the execution is a bit more routine.

Schoch 0 - Menon 1

NM Gopal Menon plays this game in the style of Bent Larsen circa 1967: bait the opponent into committing to a kingside attack, extract positional concessions, and counterattack on the opposite wing.

Blaze 2½ - Baltimore Kingfishers 1½

Speaking very very selfishly, I'm glad that if Dmitry Gurevich had to lose, he lost in a variation that has been giving me trouble with the White pieces. IM Tegshsuren Enkhbat is not tempted by the long diagonal, but simply plays to recover the gambit pawn.

Industrial League: AMA Rogue Squadron 4 - Northwestern University 2

CICL veteran David Franklin made his debut for the Rogue Squadron last night. Northwestern's new Board 1, Karsten McVay, studied with FM Aviv Friedman for many years and has represented the U.S. in international play. Dave was kind enough to share his annotations:

September CICL bulletin is out!

Enjoy this month's Chicago Chess Player! (pdf link)

Avert your eyes as Steve Tennnant crushes me mercilessly.

Bilbao Masters - Nakamura clear 2nd at halfway point

Coverage at ChessBase, ChessVibes., and The Week in Chess.

The venue now shifts from Brazil to Spain.  When play resumes Thursday, Nakamura plays tournament leader Vassily Ivanchuk: a win would bring Nakamura into joint first place!

Mesgen Amanov's win in today's New York Times

Article here.

Well, the game is good enough to be mentioned in three blog posts.  See previous posts here and here.

A Correct Draw

To me, this game lends credence to the fairly credible rumors that Kasparov is coaching Nakamura.  The 3...Be7 and 5...h6 move order has been used by big boys in World Championship matches. Not very exciting for fans, but Nakamura with Black managed to completely shut down Carlsen.

Good coverage at Thw Week in Chess. Ivanchuk has won three games in a row; Nakamura is in 4th with an even score; he has a good chance to move up tomorrow with White against the off-form Vallejo.

Carlsen-Nakamura live

WhyChess has nice coverage: the game started at 1 p.m. Chicago time.

Hedgehog or hedge fund?

Dylan Loeb McClain explains. Hat tip to Maret Thorpe.

How many trading firms are in the Chicago Industrial Chess League?

Board 4: Karlow - Schmakel 0-1

How can a rook pawn help you undermine your opponent's control of the center? Whitney Young sophomore Sam Schmakel shows us how. 20...a4! trades the a-pawn for White's b3 pawn. b3 controls c4. And once Black controls c4....

Young 1 - Eckert 0

I've known Doug Eckert since he was in high school, and I owe my only win against Morris Giles to a book Doug wrote on the Keres Attack.

Angelo trots out one of his patented knuckleball openings. 5...Nh5!? (instead of Doug's 5...O-O, also the choice of most top players) has scored extremely well for Black, but obviously Angelo had something prepared against that. After 13.Qb4!, it becomes clear that Black responded a mite too actively to White's seemingly passive opening. The rest of the game, we see Angelo Young switch from Petrosian mode to Capablanca mode. It's hard to point to Black's decisive mistake (maybe 24...Rd8). Very nice game!

Friedel ½ - Finegold ½

Hmm. Ben Finegold guaranteed victory, then played the passive 4...Bd7 variation of the Rubinstein French. It's not necessarily bad match strategy, but one would think that it's not fair to one's teammates to say the Blaze "are going down next week" without trying to win one's own game as Black.

Friedel got an edge, Finegold defended correctly: the draw was logical.

Chicago beats St. Louis 3½-½

Catching up on Wednesday night's action, finally! Dmitry Gurevich was absolutely brutal on Board 2. White gets zilch against the Queen's Gambit Tartakower (12...Rd8 is Spassky's patent), declines a slightly inferior ending, makes an incorrect break on e4, and is totally busted. Dmitry showed no mercy.

FM Albert Chow analyzes Abrahamyan-Dean

Enjoy Albert's wonderful analysis of this wonderful game between WGM Tatev Abrahamyan and FM Jim Dean.

Chicago Industrial Chess League season underway

As always, check out the latest results at the fabulous CICL site.  I play for the AMA Rogue Squadron in the East Division: we won a tough match on Monday against Blue Cross / Blue Shield 4-2.  Our teammate Jim Duffy lost a very interesting game to Sonny Mata, and it took me a long time to figure out the computer evaluations in this very interesting ending.  Please take the following notes with a large grain of salt: I'm still not sure I understand what was going on, and computers are not to be trusted in rook endings!

 After 40.Kc2

Black to play: how to stop the e-pawn?

Analysis diagram

White to play and win: harder than it looks!