Games from IHSA State Tournament

In the first round, Prospect's Robert Moskwa had the Black pieces against Benet Academy's 1968 rated Max Zinski.  By a somewhat circuitous route, the players wound up in a Sicilian Dragon with White playing the system with Bc4, h3 and 0-0.  Max played the opening well and put Robert in a very cramped position by landing a White pawn on f6.  However, Robert defended well and as often happens in the Sicilian, if White cannot find a way to convert his space advantage into an attack on Black's king, he often finds himself over extended and vulnerable.

This win turned out to make the difference in the competition for the the top medal on first board as Max didn't lose another game and finished 5.5-1.5.  As none of Eric Rosen or Matt Wilber's opponents finished with scores that good, Robert ended up getting the edge on tie break points.

In the last round, Robert played White against Stevenson's 2043 rated senior Kent Cen.  Again Robert found himself in a tough position out of the opening, and again he defended well.  The game wound up in a king and pawn ending where Kent played an instinctive move with less than ten seconds on his clock that turned out to be the losing move.

Black to play and draw.  Kent instinctively played to get his king in front of the White pawns with the natural looking 56...Ke4?? which lost to 57.Kc4 Ke5 58.Kb5 Kd6 59. Kxb6.  He could have drawn with 56...Ke2! 57.Kc4 Kd2, when White has nothing better than 58.Kb5 Kc3 59.Kxb6 Kb4=.

"Stevenson High School finishes fifth in state"

Check out yesterday's Daily Herald article: there's a nice photo of Kent Cen.

While Stevenson is a big school (I think the enrollment is about the same as Chicago's Lane Tech HS), you wouldn't expect it to be able to compete successfully with schools like Whitney Young, which draws the best public school students from the entire city.  But it does, year after year....

From the article:

In fact, this year’s tournament was the biggest in its 37-year history, drawing teams from 132 high schools across the state. With eight players on each team, it meant 1,400 chess players and 200 coaches converged on Peoria’s civic center over the weekend.

Hmm, what does 132 x 8 equal?  And if each team brought two alternates, 132 x 10 = how many players?  (The Daily Herald may well be right, but I believe the nose count is closer to a still-phenomenal 1,100.  It may well be that 300 players were "DNP - coach's decision.")

Kids Making Trouble

Kent Cen and Maximillian Zinski, both of whom are somewhat younger than I am, won the Gold Section of yesterday's Evanston Chess Club's 3x3.  The presence of NM Jon Burgess added a touch of class.  Evan Spiegel and Matthew Stevens won the Silver section, and Keith Amman and Dennis Doyle won the Bronze Section. 

Ryan Chiu and Maret Thorpe directed for the Evanston Chess Club.  You can find crosstables here!