Hou Yifan regains Women's World Championship

Congratulations to Hou Yifan, who decisively regained the Women's World Championship, beating Anna Ushenina 5.5-1.5 in the match, scheduled for 10 games. In an unusual reversal of the classic "win as White, draw as Black" formula, Hou won all three of her games as Black, while drawing her first three games as White. As White in the seventh game, she routed Ushenina, giving her the 5 1/2 points necessary to secure the title. All of the games are available on the match website.

Hou Yifan's 78.6% score is the most decisive match result in Women's World Championship history since Gaprindashvili routed Bykova 9-2 (+7 =4, 81.8%) in 1961. Even Vera Menchik's two match wins, against Sonja Graf in 1934 (+3 -1, 75%) and 1937 (+9 =5 -2, 71.9%) were less lopsided. Here is the decisive game:

King's Gambit silliness

I recently got GM John Shaw's amazing new 680-page tome The King's Gambit. It may be the greatest book ever written on a single opening! Well worth getting if you play either side of 1.e4 e5, and maybe even if you don't.

You might even want to give the King's Gambit a try. No doubt you'll lose some games, but on the other hand you'll win others like this. I guarantee that you're not going to win many 13-movers with the Ruy Lopez! A lot of people, even strong players, don't take the King's Gambit seriously, and spend little if any time preparing against it. Just take a look at the games that GM Joe Gallagher (author of an earlier book on the King's Gambit) won in 20 or fewer moves.

'Computer Chess' Coming to Music Box Sept. 27

Computer Chess is coming to Chicago next week! An official selection of the 2013 South by Southwest and Sundance film festivals, Computer Chess is "an artificially intelligent comedy" (not, repeat not, a documentary) about computer chess programmers, set in an Austin, Texas, hotel over one weekend in the 1980s during a tournament for chess software programmers. It's been rated 86 percent fresh by Rotten Tomatoes and received an A− from AV Club (which is notoriously stingy with its grades).

The movie opens at the Music Box Theater, 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, next Friday, Sept. 27. And on Friday and Saturday of opening weekend, writer-director Andrew Bujalski, local stars Gordon Kindlmann and Anne Dodge, Chicago-born producer Alex Lipschultz and special guests will introduce and conduct post-show discussions. Ray Pride, film editor of Newcity, will facilitate the post-screening Q&As. Showtime is 7:15 PM.

Tickets are $9.25 . . . unless you visit the Chicago Chess Center Facebook page tomorrow and win a pair of free passes, good for any showing of Computer Chess, courtesy of the Music Box and the Chicago Chess Center. (The speedy Todd Freitag nabbed today's pair of passes before I even finished writing this post.)

The best chess deal in town....$5 at Evanston Chess this Saturday

OK, slightly outside of town...another email cut-and-paste.  I will only be there in spirit.

Levy Senior Center

300 Dodge Ave. 

Evanston, IL 60202 

Evanston Chess Presents: 

Saturday, Sept. 21, 2013, 9:00am-5:00pm 

 Three x Three

3SS G/65 delay 5 

 Three Sections, USCF Regular Rated
 Our guest master will be NM Mariano Acosta 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. We will schedule a lunch break if the center will be open late. 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, and save yourself a spot (we're limited to 52 players). 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. 

The rarely-sprung trap

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 e6?! 4.c4 Bb4+?? is an ingenious but bad way of playing Alekhine's Defense. It is seen 19 times in Mega Database 2013. Some good players had White, including the Filipino GM and former Candidate Eugenio Torre, and two other players rated over 2300. In 16 of those games, White played 5.Bd2; in the other three, he played 5.Nd2. In none of the games did White play 5.Ke2!, winning a piece, since after either 5...Nb6 6.c5 or 5...Ne7 6.a3, Black's bishop is trapped and will be lost. White, modestly rated 1197, did find the sockdolager (as the old-time writers liked to say) in the below correspondence game, presumably aided by the greater time available for reflection.

This game is from Karsten Müller and Rainer Knaak's book 222 Opening Traps After 1.e4, p. 18. I first learned of this trap in Tim Krabbé's wonderful Open Chess Diary (scroll down to No. 381). As I have previously noted, I have myself won with the mirror image of this trap, 1.d4 Nc6 2.d5 Ne5 3.e4 d6 4.f4 Bg4?? 5.Qd2! and Black loses a piece just as in the original version.

Like déjà vu all over again

Earlier this month, I showed you a trap in the Fort Knox Variation of the French Defense where White traps Black's queen on f6 with 8.Bg5! Bxf3 9.Qd2! and if 9...Qxd4, 10.Bb5+. Here's a variant of the same trap with the players' c-pawns exchanged. This requires a small refinement by White, but Black's queen stays trapped. Note that if only future GM Sherzer had read Chernev's The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess, he wouldn't have fallen into this trap!

Sinquefield Cup at the halfway mark

I envy those of you able to sneak down to St. Louis this weekend! Nakamura had Carlsen rattled yesterday: he leads the event with 2½, and Carlsen is second with 2 points.

Nakamura is currently #4 on the live rating list. In the next three rounds, he has two Blacks and one White against Carlsen: let's see how he finishes.

Top 100 Women in Illinois

I confess that I haven't met Ramya Krishna Inapuri.  Note that some of the strong players at local universities aren't reflected on this list.

1 WIM VIKTORIJA NI 2290
2 WFM RAMYA KRISHNA INAPURI 2243
3 YUE PENNY XU 1966
4 TIAN LU PENG 1952
5 MADELEINE REICHES 1732
6 SHAYNA PROVINE 1717
7 MIRANDA LIU 1710
8 SHREYA B MANGALAM 1693
9 CAELEY HARIHARA 1669
10 PATRICE B CONNELLY 1617
11 SURYA RAGHU 1602
12 ADELE PADGETT 1551
13 AMINAH AZIZA GARCIA 1547
14 MARISSA LI 1531
15 CASSIE PARENT 1494
16 ELIZABETH VILLAFLOR 1441
17 MARIEL RENEE RANCEL 1366
18 ELLIANA FALETSKY 1363
19 DANNY EMGE 1360
20 ANJALI TOLY 1353
21 SHVETALI V THATTE 1314
22 MARTA T BOROWSKA 1269
23 BETHANY MICHELLE SIMOS 1260
24 MADELINE SERRANO DOON 1220
25 EVA C HARRISON 1217
26 SAMANTHA TOBIAS 1211
27 SAMANTHA K CARLSON 1170
28 BOLORTUYA TUMURBAATAR 1122
29 DIANA L SHKLOVER 1110
30 ANNIE J XU 1035
31 KAREN M WILBER 1022
32 ARIA HOESLEY 973
33 DEVANSHI KOTHARI 969
34 MINH-AN NGUYEN THOMAS 969
35 TASHA M SCHUCKMAN 968
36 DELANO HORN 968
37 GRACE CLOPTON 943
38 KIANA HOBBS 923
39 REBEKAH NIELSEN 903
40 HEATHER RENEE RILEY 896
41 NADIA FRIEDEN 894
42 JESSICA MARIE CRAMER 890
43 NAINA GUPTA 862
44 JENNIFER PATTERSON 862
45 CHRISTINE ZHANG 847
46 CHRISTINA NORDICK 847
47 WANDA LIA LENOX 843
48 MARIIA PEROVA 841
49 RITHIKA P KYAW 838
50 GEORGIA REECE WOLF 828
51 ANDREA M BERLAND 808
52 AMANDA ANN HICKMAN 805
53 ANITA KOTHARI 800
54 LIANNA KOWALKE REINWALD 799
55 MARA ISABEL FLAHERTY 797
56 MARET THORPE 792
57 ANNIKA GEIERSBACH 789
58 AMANDA R CARLSON 781
59 ALEXANDRIA BURR 780
60 LAVINA PRAVEEN THADANI 777
61 BAILEY TURNER 768
62 ELIZABETH PETERSON 749
63 ALICE LI 748
64 RIYA CHADHA 742
65 CAITLIN MARY O'SULLIVAN 738
66 AARUSHI BAFNA 734
67 JAZEL CARR 733
68 SHREYA KEERTANA BHAGI 727
69 KYRA ELIANA RIVERA 722
70 KATHERINE ZACK 709
71 ALLISON PEARSON 709
72 SOUJANYA BHAGI 702
73 AMANDA LYNN TEGART 698
74 BAILEY MALIS 696
75 CAITLIN HONG 669
76 JOY CHARLOTTE QU 669
77 TIA RENEE WHEELER 663
78 AUDREY PROVINE 662
79 AMRUTHA VENKAT 658
80 MICHELLE MCELROY 656
81 ANUSHA NADKARNI 642
82 JOLIE PRESSBURGER 625
83 TAKIA KELLY-GORDON 608
84 ALEKSANDRA MUSIKIC 602
85 NISHA JANAMANCHI 595
86 TORI ELIZABETH KAFER 593
87 SARAH RUTH GRANDY 583
88 ASHLEY GEOHAS 581
89 JOYCE LI 580
90 MEGAN E WONG 577
91 JASMINE NERI 571
92 MERRICK OHATA 568
93 ANNIE GEISTER 568
94 ARIEL KITE 562
95 JORDYN MALIS 560
96 JAMARI MCELROY 557
97 SALLY R KELLER 555
98 LILY JOSEPHINE HART 554
99 AUTUMN HENDERSON 545
100 RUJUTA S DURWAS 541

More Internet silliness

As usual, passive play in the Queen's Gambit Accepted is brutally punished.

"Rahm checkmates school chess teams" - Ben Joravsky in the Chicago Reader

Link here.  I suppose it was inevitable that Ben Joravsky and Jerry Neugarten found each other....

WBEZ interview with Jerry Neugarten

Click to listen.

What's in a name?

We get emails.... Not sure I like "ChessIQ" from a marketing perspective, but I'm often wrong about such things.

The new ChessIQ!   Hello everyone! Welcome to the new ChessIQ!  Many of you have followed the work that I've done in the past many years under the name of the North American Chess Association (NACA) and the North ShoreChess Center. As positions on a board evolve and change, so does the strategy of my approach. Does this mean the NACA is gone? No, but it's going into hibernation in terms of event organization, etc (some functions of the NACA will remain) and all of the work that my team and I do will be done under the ChessIQname. So why ChessIQ? We can look at it from two perspectives - first the name and then the idea behind the name. The name is very easy to remember and say -ChessIQ. Simple to brand, simple to get out, easy for anyone to understand. The idea behind the name - everyone associated playing chess with high or improved intelligence, so it's a natural combination. One of the aspects of the new website will be daily contributions from multiple sources, from amateurs to Grandmasters. We will slowly be added additional contributors and by the end of this year we should have 5-7 of them! The name ChessIQ will also extend to our chess center (formerly called the North Shore Chess Center). The new name is the ChessIQ Academy & Chess Center, as there will be a great deal more training going on - for players, for arbiters/tournament directors, for organizers, and for trainers! The Chess Center was brought to life back on Sept 1, 2010 - a few days over 3 years - and we've hosted numerous tournaments, Grandmaster lectures and simuls, and other activities. There will be much more to come! To get in contact with me please use my new email address which issevan@chessiq.com. Our Facebook page has had the address changes already to www.facebook.com/chessiq  we've collapsed our other Facebook pages so it will be a single social media source. Our LinkedIn page has had the name changed already, YouTube is in progress, and Twitter we haven't decided what we're going to do with. We are aiming for the end of September to have the entire migration complete if not sooner. Be on the lookout also for other special offerings we will be bringing out including training / chess books, tournament booklets with analyzed games, and videos. As these get released we will make announcements on them. Thank you to everyone in the past for your support and we look forward to your support in the future! Best regards, Sevan A .Muradian   Group Lessons - something for everyone! For the past 2 years we have been hosting Grandmaster lectures. We recognize that this isn't everyone's cup of tea because it's a long time commitment and can be draining, but for many it has been a great experience. So we're taking a modified approach as part of our constant improvement of services by having 3 different types of group lessons: U1000 and 1000-1400 training sessions on Sundays (60 minute lectures) Monday Night Master Lectures (90 minute lectures) Saturday Grandmaster Lectures & Simuls (4 hour lectures) We did change even the Grandmaster lectures to make them a bit shorter (4 hours instead of 6) and starting the simul at4:30 as many were running quite late! We have Grandmasters lined up for November and December! Check out our website to find out who! Our Monday Night Master Lectures will be headed up by our very own International Master Florin Felecan. When theChess Center first opened up in 2010 Florin was always there to help out and we're happy that he's accepted our invitation to be our Monday Night Lecturer! For more information on these on these events and much more visit out website: http://www.chessiq.com Check out both the Academy & Chess Center page and the Events page! Tournaments! We've added some new tournament types so check it out! We even have a Game-45 this Saturday! Game-15 + 5 sec/ increment Wednesday nights - 7:00pm start time - 5 rounds Game-90 + 30/sec increment Friday nights - 7:00pm start time - 1 round Game-45 + 5/sec increment Saturday Sept 7 & Oct 5 4 rounds - 10:00am start time! Game-60 + 5/sec increment Saturday Sept 14, Oct 12, Nov 16, Dec 7 4 rounds - 10:00am start time! Game-60 + 30/sec increment 4 board team tournaments - 12:00pm start time Sat / Sun - Sept 28/29, Oct 26/27, Nov 23/24, Dec 21/22 Chess Center Championships 5R - Game-90 + 30/sec increments Friday / Saturday / Sunday - Dec 27/28/29 For more information on these on these events and much more visit out website:   http://www.chessiq.com   Check out both the Academy & Chess Center page and the Events page!

Midwest Class: date change

In case you didn't get the email...

Dates changed for Midwest Class!

22nd annual

MIDWEST CLASS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Oct 11-13 or 12-13, 2013 (new dates)

WESTIN CHICAGO NORTH SHORE HOTEL, WHEELING, IL 
Luxurious hotel, free parking, $105 special room rates
$20,000 projected prizes, $16,000 minimumINCLUDING NEW MIXED DOUBLES PRIZES: $600-300.
In 7 sections: Master, Expert, Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D, Class E

SCHEDULE & TIME CONTROL: 
       3-day schedule: Oct 18-20, 40/110, SD/30, d10.
       2-day schedule: Oct 19-20, rounds 1-2 G/90, d5, then merges with 3-day.
       
EARLY FINISH TIMES: Compared to past years, play will end each day about two hours earlier Sunday, one hour earlier Friday and Saturday.

What, no captures?

Human chess at Lincoln Elementary in Oak Park, video and all, via the Chicago Tribune.

Breaking into Fort Knox

This is a pretty common trap in the French Defense, Fort Knox Variation (10 times in Mega Database 2013). I've played it several times myself. Amazingly enough, the following game was played in the semifinals of the USSR Championship! White traps Black's queen with 8.Bg5!, a common motif in the French. Black wriggles with 8...Bxf3, seemingly escaping (9.Qxf3? Qxf3; 9.Bxf6?? Bxd1; 9.gxf3?? Qxg5), but White keeps the queen trapped with 9.Qd2!, when 9...Qxd4 would be met by 10.Bb5+ followed by Qxd4.

ADDENDUM: I see that ChessNetwork did a YouTube video on this trap.

FURTHER ADDENDUM: A slightly different version of this trap occurred in Roitburd-Alvarez Vila, Wch U18 Girls Oropesa del Mar 2000 after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bd3 dxe4 5.Nxe4 b6 6.Nf3 Bb7 7.Nxf6+ Qxf6?? 8.Bg5! (1-0, 25).

2013 Illinois Open

Crosstables here.  I had a lot of fun this weekend!  We were worried about tournament fatigue just a few weeks after the US Open in Madison, but I believe we had 138 noses, all with players attached. The group was very strong and very congenial.  On behalf of the Illinois Chess Association, thank you for playing! (And if you didn't play this year, why not put it on your calendar for next Labor Day weekend?)

Congratulations to the 2013 Co-Champions, Grandmaster Mesgen Amanov and Grandmaster Nikola Mitkov.  (Mesgen was first on tiebreaks.)

And thanks to ICA President Carl Dolson, who organized on behalf of ICA, directors Tim Just, Wayne Clark, and Chris Baumgartner, Illinois Chess Tour impresario Mike Cardinale, postcard mailer Adrian Brock, and everyone else who made this event possible.

"Chess at CPS Could Get Boost With New Program, but City Isn't on Board"

As they say on Twitter, retweets are not endorsements.  But definitely worth a read.

See twelve moves ahead at a glance

Kreitchik-Laitgeb, Vienna 1951
White to play and win

One move wins, everything else loses.

 I cannot give enough praise to the book I found this example from, Artur Yusupov's Boost Your Chess 1: The Fundamentals.  It's the second book in a nine-book (!) series of training manuals.  If you read them in order, the first volume is Build Up Your Chess 1: The Fundamentals, and the third volume is Chess Evolution 1: The Fundamentals.  Forget the confusing names, and run out and buy these three orange books.  Each book consists of twenty-four tightly focused lessons with a related test.

Roughly, Yusupov's goal is in these first three books is to give the under-1500 ELO player the knowledge needed to make it to 1800.

The three-book "Beyond the Basics" series (all with blue cover) is intended to bring our knowledge up to 2100...

Build Up Your Chess 2: Beyond the Basics
Boost Your Chess 2: Beyond the Basics
Chess Evolution 2: Beyond the Basics

...and the three-book "Mastery" series (green covers) gets even harder.

Build Up Your Chess with Artur Yusupov: Mastery
Boost Your Chess 3: Mastery
Chess Evolution 3: Mastery

My peak USCF rating (so far!) is 2172, and I'm still slowly working my way through the orange books!  As Yusupov argues in the introduction, "The reader will benefit from the methodical build-up in this book, even if some of the material is familiar, as it will close any possible gaps in his chess knowledge and thus construct solid foundations for future success."  So in a given chapter, I might be able to solve 80% to 90% of the problems easily, but I'm finding some chapters surprisingly difficult.  (We chess autodidacts can fill gaps in our education, and these books are an amazing teaching resource.)

Yusupov studied with Dvoretsky, but these books are far more accessible than any Dvoretsky book I've ever picked up.

Just buy the darn things!

Angelo Young in Iowa City

Story here.

Department of hmm

As of this afternoon, we've got a whopping total of seventeen preregistrants for the 2013 Illinois Open.  With three grandmasters entered, it's true that your odds of winning the state title are low.  But with generous cash prizes and an incredibly strong field, your chances of having fun and bringing a little money home are high!

Or maybe you're a procrastinator like me?  (I was waiting till payday to enter....)

If you want to save the $3 convenience fee, Tim Just needs to RECEIVE your entry by August 26th.  Enter by mail here (this link is for non-ICA members).

ICA members, enter online here and save $5!  Or get your darn entry in the mail today and save another $3 (less postage): enter here (members only).