"Deerfield High chess champ shares skills with youngsters"

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

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.

Belated congratulations....

...to the newest National Master in Illinois, Jonathan Kogen!

Shaw, Froehlich, Fei lead Illinois Tour

NM Tenzing Shaw leads the Open Section of the 2012 Illinois Tour with 12 points, closely followed by Jonathan Kogen with 10 points.  NM Sam Schmakel and FM Albert Chow are tied for third with 8.5.

Jim Froehlich leads the Reserve Section with 12 points; Joe Delay and Michael Penway are tied for second with 11.5 points.

Andrew Fei leads the Reserve Scholastic section with 14.5 points.  Akshay Indusekhar is close behind with 13 points, and Jonathan Hrach is in third with 12 points.

Details at the Illinois Tour homepage: please remember that you must be a ICA member to appear in the standings!


Open

Shaw, Tenzing 12.0
Kogen, Jonathan 10.0
Schmakel, Sam 8.5
Chow, Albert 8.5
Amanov, Mesgen 7.5
Mitkov, Nikola 7.5
Brock, Bill 7.5
Shulman, Yury 7.0
Gurevich, Dmitry 6.5
Kasiurak, Zack 6.0
Wilber, Matthew 5.5
Aliyev, Timur 5.0
Karklins, Andrew 5.0
Tsyganov, Igor 5.0
Vishnuvardhan, Arjun 5.0
Ni, Viktorija 5.0
Moskva, Robert 4.5
Young, Angelo 4.5
Shankar, Gauri 4.5
Naff, William A 4.5
Magness, Trevor 4.0
Felecan, Florin 4.0
Rosen, Eric 4.0
Zin, Aung Thant 3.5
Cohen, Lawrence 3.5
Kunche, Nikhilesh Kumar 3.5
Gupta, Saagar 3.0
Luo, Chengliang 3.0
Nibbelin, Mark 2.5
Bourgerie, Dennis 2.0
Flaga, Krzysztof 1.5


Reserve Adult 

Froehlich, Jim A 16.0
Delay, Joe 11.5
Penway, Michael 11.5
Dolson, Carl 11.0
Nach, Jordan 10.0
Hart, Vincent 8.0
Plaines, Theron 7.5
Bungo, Gregory 6.5
Zafar, Mohammed H. 6.5
Leong, Gee 6.5
Villareal, Max 6.0
Lewis, Richard 6.0
Inumerable, Florentino 6.0
Gilvary, Brian 6.0
Cox, William 5.5
Cronin, Mike 5.5
White, David 5.5
Bustamante, Edward 5.5
Karklins, Erik 5.5
Hawn, Stephen 5.5
Craigmile, Charles 5.5
Knox, Terrance 5.0
Berman, Jeremy 5.0
Henderson Jr., S.E. 5.0
Dixon, Jeff 5.0
Gasiecki, Alan 4.5
Freeman, John 4.5
Callahan, Tom III 4.5
Lewis, Otis 4.5
Gamino, Everado 4.5
Barbian, Matthew Richard 4.5
Peterson, Gregory 4.5
Harvey, Frank 4.5
Mei, Mike 4.5
Titov, Fedor 4.5
Kreisman, Philip 4.0
Doyle, Dennis R 4.0
Griesmeyer, Walter J 4.0
Tums, Valdis 4.0
Duffy, James 4.0
Ammann, Keith 4.0
Feldman, William 4.0
Kosteris, Dimitri 4.0
Djordjevic, Vladimir 3.5
Damocles, Joe 3.5
Canavan, Dylan 3.5
Ancheta, Rene 3.5
Willmore, Floyd E. 3.5
Jackson, William 3.5
Doyle, Dennis C. 3.0
Vigants, Alberts 3.0
Cohen, Frederic 3.0
Gasunas, Anthony C 3.0
Richmond, Dr. M. Barrie 3.0
Levine-Weinberg, Adam 3.0
Coleman, Mark S 2.5
Marchert, James Sr. 2.0
Dupee, Arthur B 2.0


Reserve Scholastic

Fei, Andrew Yueyang 14.5
Indusekar, Akshay 13.0
Hrach, Jonathan 12.0
Pena, Christian 10.0
Peng, David Tianjian 9.5
Meduri, Aakash 9.0
Brown, Ethan 8.5
Daniels, Jason 8.5
Zinski, Maximilian 8.5
Qazi, Rafeh 8.0
Lehmann, Spencer 8.0
Harihara, Caeley 8.0
Sun, Abe 7.5
Liu, Miranda 7.0
Bian, Alex 6.5
Swan, Jr, Charles 6.5
Jungo, Mark 6.0
Adve, Anshul 5.5
Curcio, Jack 5.5
Stevens, Matthew 5.0
Spiegel, Evan 5.0
Hu, Alex 5.0
Chinitz, Michael 5.0
Dzelilovic, Adil 5.0
Margolin, Jeremy 5.0
Kavouras, Christian D 4.5
Yang, Matthew 4.5
Shepherd, Duncan 4.0
Paykin, David 4.0
Conjeevaram, Sahil 4.0
Biondo, James 4.0
Provine, Shayne 3.5
Watford, Everett A 3.0
Gant, Jourdain 2.5

A Rook Ending from the Denker

Here's a position from Moskwa v. Kogen that illustrates the differences between rook endings and queen endings discussed in the last post.

Robert's pawn is nearer to queening but that's not nearly as big an advantage in a rook ending because the Black rook will sacrifice itself for the new queen after which the White rook won't be able to handle the Black king and connected pawns alone and may be forced to sacrifice itself in return.  A queen could handle the Black king and pawns with ease.

The game went 39.Rc8 Rd3 40.Ke6 b3 41.d7 a4 42.d8=Q+ Rxd8 43.Rxd8 Kc5 and in order to draw White will have to hustle his king over to help with the defense and sacrifice his rook at the right moment.  On the other hand, 39.e5! would have won after 39....Rd3 40.e6 Rd5+ 41.Ke4 Rxd6 42.e7 42.Rxe7 42.Rxe7  because the White king is close enough to assist the rook before the Black pawns advance too far.

Cross posted at Prospect Chess

Round 1: Kogen-Qazi

Thanks to Vince Hart for his wonderful work in yesterday's posts!  Please scroll below to read Vince's coverage.

The Jonathan Kogen—Rafeh Qazi game from the ICA Denker Qualifier (state invitational high school championship) was extremely well played by both sides, and a draw seems logical. Here are some nice moments:

Kogen-Qazi

White to play

With 25.Re3, White envisions an attack on h7.  There's no mate (White would have to bring the bishop on c1 to the a3-f8 diagonal), but it's not necessarily fun for Black, either.   

Qazi avoids this with the cool defensive move 25...Qe7! 26.Rh3 h5!  If White doesn't take en passant, the h-file buildup was pointless, but in that case, Black can exchange queens.  So 27.gxh6 (the g5 pawn takes the h5 pawn as if it had only moved one square to h6: our silly en passant rule is only an option immediately after the opponent's pawn has moved two squares) 27...Qxh4 28.Rxh4 Bf6

 Kogen-Qazi

White to play

So White has to move the attacked Rh4, no?  No! Kogen plays a cool move of his own: 29.Be4!?, with the point that 29...Bxh4 is answered by 30.Bxc6, forking a8 and e8, and recovering the Exchange.   

Black decided to work on the backward c-pawn instead: 29...Bxe4 30.Rxe4 Rac8 31.Bd2 (finally completing development!) 31...Red8 32.Re2 e4

Kogen-Qazi

White to play

White is temporarily a pawn up, but Black has the initiative.  White played 33.Be1, which wasn't really necessary.  White was probably concerned about the fork trick 33.a4 Rxd2? 34.Rxd2 Bxc3 (echoing the tactical theme of the previous diagram), but the pin 35.Rc1 wins.  It doesn't really matter, however, as Black has plenty of activity after 33.a4 Bxc3 34.Bxc3 Rxc3 35.axb5 axb5 36.Rxe4 Rd2: in rook endings, rooks on the seventh rank often offer full compensation for a pawn.

Very well played!

More games from Tim Just Winter Open

FM Albert Chow annotates more games from the Illinois Tour for ICA's Chess Blog. Featured players include NM Gopal Menon, Robert Moskwa, NM Alexander Velikanov, Patrice Connelly, NM Mark Marovitch, Jonathan Kogen, and Chow himself.

FM Albert Chow annotates games from Tim Just's Winter Open

Enjoy!  This is the first of several installments.  Players featured in this installment include Vince Hart, NM Sam Schmakel, Andy Applebaum, Jiahua Zhang, Jonathan Kogen, and David Peng.

Albert will be annotating games from all events of the 2012 Illinois Tour.