Basic Mates from _The Middle Game in Chess_ (2)

 White to play and win

I'm told that discovered checks are strong...which one is strongest?

Game 2 press conference

From ChessVibes: Here's the Game 2 link.

The embed below is to Game 1 (I couldn't get Game 2 to work).

Both Anand and Topalov spend much of the year in Spain: Anand's Spanish is excellent.

Game 3 at 7 a.m. Chicago time!

Rook endings on You Tube

Matt Pullin takes a look at Aaron-Robatsch, Varna 1962.  (After 1...Bd4, I think 2.Bf4 might be the most stubborn defense.)




And in the second video on this ending, where is Black's forced win after the bizarre-looking 4.Kh4!? (instead of 4.Rc2, which I think makes the win easy)? I'm pretty sure that Black should win, but the direct encircling maneuver fails to a White counterattack on d6.

Chess Club at Willye B. White Park Recreation Center (Rogers Park)

Via Rogers Park in 1,000 Words:

Chess Club at Willye B. White Park Recreation Center Fridays from April 2nd - June 4th, 2010 6:30pm - 8:30pm / Ages 21 and Over Willye B. White Park Recreation Center 1610 W. Howard Street Chicago, IL 60626

Basic Mates from _The Middle Game in Chess_

In the late 1930s, GM Reuben Fine was a top contender for the World Championship.  Here are a few problems from his 1952 book The Middle Game in Chess.  (The book was republished in 1993, but the Amazon reviews of that edition suggest that it's full of typographical errors.) 
I learned a lot from this book as a teenager, and picked up a copy of the 1952 edition on eBay.

White to play and win

As a rule of thumb, it's not good to be down by a queen, knight, and pawn....

South Suburban Chess Club of Greater Chicago

From their Facebook page:

The SSCC meets every Friday night from 7-10:30PM at the community center at 110th & Kilpatrick, Oak Lawn, IL. Open to all. Sponsored by the Oak Lawn Park District.

The SSCC has a Swiss event yesterday: my friend William Blackman won with a 3-0 score.

Fire / Firebird

Fire 1.2 (untested by me) is a very strong open-source chess engine.  I just learned of it a couple weeks ago, and had hesitated to post a link because the Rybka team has claimed that it's based on a reverse compile of Rybka.  Since then, however, I've seen no evidence supporting this claim, and know of no pending legal claims in any jurisdiction.  (If credible evidence is provided, I will promptly remove the following link.)  And I just heard GM Peter Svidler vouch for its strength on Chess FM.

It's free, and it's extremely strong.  You can download here. 

Anand wins Game 2

Topalov was in very good shape out of the opening (don't blame Yury Shulman!), but Anand simply outplayed him in a queenless middlegame.

Coverage at The Week in Chess, Chess Life Online, ChessBase (with extremely instructive notes by teenage GM Anish Giri), ChessPro (in Russian), Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, in Russian; I'm told his commentary is being translated here), Europe Echecs (in French), and ChessVibes (on site in Sofia). I've been following Peter Svidler's commentary on Chess FM, but an ICC membership is required for that.  And of course, you'll find high-quality gossip and occasionally NSFW trash-talking, as always, at The Daily Dirt.

Australian GM Ian Rogers, providing coverage for The Hindu in Anand's hometown of Chennai, has some post-mortem comments by the players.

You can see the game (accompanied by video and English-language commentary during play) at the official site.

Monday is a rest day.  Game 3 begins at 7 a.m. Chicago time Tuesday.

Anand vs. Shulman

Game 2 of the World Championship is underway right now: you can follow the action at The Week in Chess (delayed broadcast), ChessPro (live, but in Russian), or the official site.

Topalov is following a game of our own Yury Shulman from the 2008 U.S. Championship:

Topalov wins Game 1 of World Championship

A very weird first game. Many masters speculated that Anand had prepared the move 23...Bd7 (to be followed by ...Kf7 in a couple moves), but simply forgot the move order.

Nice win for Topalov, but he barely had to think. More coverage at Chess Life Online.

Rachel Ulrich at Hales Corners

 Rachel Ulrich

 Oh, and Stamnov, too.

Field finalized for 2010 U.S. Championship

At Chess Life Online.

Chicagoland is ably represented this year by GM Yury Shulman and GM Dmitry Gurevich.  And GM Jesse Kraai is an alumnus of Shimer College (not to mention Jena and Heidelberg).

High School Nationals (ouch)

When I'm blogging during an event, but go silent after the last round, that usually means I didn't like the results.  Congratulations to the ten co-champions, none of whom were from Illinois.  Coverage at Chess Life Online.

Both Michael Auger and Adarsh Jayakumar had a clear shot at a piece of the national title.   I haven't seen Adarsh's game yet, but Michael was clearly winning.....

Notes updated 4/22/10

Stockfish

Commercial chess engines (Rybka, Fritz, Chessmaster) are amazingly strong, but they cost serious money. But there are also very strong engines that are freeware. Mig Greengard discusses several in this blog post, including Stockfish, which you can download here.

Please note that if you don't have a commercial interface (Fritz, Shredder, Aquarium), you'll need to download a UCI interface.  I'm told that Arena (download here) is a good free interface for Windows users.  More information (but not much more!) is available on the Stockfish FAQ page.

So how strong is Stockfish? Engines are funny things: the ancient version of Fritz (6.0) on my office PC solves the following position  almost immediately, Rybka takes a second or two, but Stockfish takes a while to find the solution.  That doesn't necessarily mean that Stockfish is weaker, however.  When there's a forced variation with several "studylike" moves and a main line more than ten moves deep, the stronger engine will sometimes take more time to find the correct solution: aggressive alpha-beta pruning eliminates "silly" moves from the computer's search.  Sometimes silly moves are brilliant, but more often they're not. 

We humans are much better at making these judgment calls; our silicon friends are millions of times faster than us, however.

A test position (my favorite study!)

FEN: 2b4k/8/5Pr1/5N2/8/8/8/K1B5 w - - 0 1

Korol'kov 1951
White to play and win

This beautiful study is worth thirty minutes of your time.  Understanding why certain moves don't work is (as usual in a study) a big part of the fun.  You can then cut and paste the Forsythe notation into your chess engine to get its answer.  Please let me know your performance results!

There's a YouTube video explaining this study.

Road trip

On ChessBase.



View Larger Map

You can't have a world championship match without a soap opera subplot

Anand (currently in Germany) requests a force majeure postponement due to the Icelandic volcano: all flights in Northern Europe are grounded.

Given the extraordinary circumstances, a three-day delay seems reasonable, but what will Danailov and FIDE do?

UPDATE: in case you thought I was being cynical.

Evanston - Touch Move box score

Unofficial results of this friendly match

Evanston Chess Club          Touch Move Chess Club

Aleksandar Stamnov   0-1      Mariano Acosta
Rick Lang                   ½-½    Florentino Inumerable
Matt Pullin                   1-0     Arandel Markovic
Bill Brock                    1-0     Virgillio Forro
Dmitri Sergatskov        0-1     Rene Ancheta
Mark Jutovsky             0-1     Fred Cohen
Paul Gafni                   ½-½    George Stone
Mark Parnably             1-0     Noel Martin
Mateus Szulc                1-0     Rick Lutzke
Mark Spitzig                 0-1     Dan Leroy
Tim Grassel                   1-0    Jay Smalls
Bruce Pot ratz               0-1    Christian Kavouras

There was an "extra" game that would not have broken the tie:

Michael Wishner           ½-½      Rob Morrison

Evanston Chess Club vs. Touch Move Chess Center

International Master Angelo Young hosted a very nice event at the Touch Move Chess Center today: TMCC and the Evanston Chess Club played to a 6-6 tie.

Thanks for the pizza and bottled water, Angelo!

National High School, Round 6

Cool!  Both Michael Auger and Adarsh Jayakumar have a chance to tie for first in this event.  And so does a Missouri player well-known to Chicagoans, seventh-grader (!!) Kevin Cao.

Kristopher Meekins of Ohio leads the event with a perfect 6-0, one full point ahead of the field.  But he's playing #1 seed Shinsaku Usesugi of Maryland.  So good chances for the 5-1 players!

"Four GMs tie for first in St. Louis Open"

Great coverage at Chess Life Online.

Two of our local grandmasters were very much in the running for first (not easy when Nakamura is playing!), but Dmitry Gurevich lost to GM Robert Hess in round 4 and Mesgen Amanov lost to GM Josh Friedel in round 5.

Very impressive crosstable!

Illinois players at National Junior High School - final results

Several Illinois players tied for fifth place in the National Junior High School championships in Minneapolis last weekend.  Congratualtions to Maximillian Zinski (who's gained 199 rating points in the past ten days), Gavin McClanahan, and Jimi Daniel Akintonde (who knocked off a player rated more than four hundred points higher in the last round!).  All three players are seventh-graders with one more shot at the title....

St. Michael's School in Wheaton (Zinski, Nathaniel Kranjc, Grant Kozeny, and Joseph Ives) took 11th place 

Results are here: click on "K-8 Championship."

Illinois players at Nation High School (after five rounds)

Quick notes on the action in Columbus, Ohio.

Michael Auger (2145) was tied for the lead after four rounds, but lost in round five to top seed Shinsaku Uesugi (2370) of Maryland.  With 4 points, Michael still has a (remote) chance to tie for first; Whitney Young HS is currently in 15th place in the team standings.

Eric Rosen (2220) was upset by an A player in the first round, but he has 3.5 points with good pairing chances to finish at or above 5 points.  Niles North is three points off the team lead.  Senior Fedor Titov (1750) is having a monster event with 3.5 points.

Former and future North Shore resident Adarsh Jayakumar (2226, moving here shortly from Texas) is very much in the running for first with 4.5.

Perhaps the most notable Illinois high school result (so far!) is that of our fourth-graders (!!!). Alex Bian (1806) has 2.5 points, with only one loss, to an expert.  And James Wei (1804) has 3 points!  The scary thing (considering the extremely high level of competition at nationals) is that neither fourth-grader is having a particularly good tournament.

On the national front, Elizabeth Vicary's I.S. 318 team from Brooklyn is tied for the lead--these are junior high students competing against high school students!

I'm sure I missed stuff: please let me know....

One week till Anand-Topalov

Pre-match chatter:

Ronan Bennett and Daniel King in the Guardian.

The Sofia News Agency covers the Kramnik-Toiletgate angle.

Openings?  I'm expecting a lot of games in the Semi-Slav.

Good luck to Maximillian Zinski

Max (a 7th grader at St. Michael's in Wheaton) is tied for the lead in the K-8 section of the National Junior High School Championship, going on this weekend in Minneapolis.

Playing chess with Kubrick

From the New York Review of Books.

2001 is not the only Kubrick movie featuring chess: there's a great New York chess club scene in The Killing.

Jon Burgess's blog

Here it is, just in time to satisfy your needs while I'm on temporary hiatus (something about April 15).

Also, Jon wraps up his Chicago-centric take on the Philadelphia Open results here!

"In Chicago, a Tournament that Turns Out Grandmasters"

From today's New York Times chess column.  (The pedantic may substitute "Skokie" for "Chicago.")

top 200 players in Illinois

Follow this link to see the list of Illinois's top players, updated every time USCF updates the rating reports.  (If you're a master who hasn't played for awhile, you can change the parameters of the search to feed your ego.)

Here are the top dozen: I'm told that a couple of the listed players (GM Georgiev, IM Morales Garcia) no longer live in Illinois:

Rank			Name	Current/Upcoming Published Rating
1			GM YURY SHULMAN	2668
2			GM VLADIMIR GEORGIEV	2581
3			GM NIKOLA MITKOV	2561
4			GM DMITRY GUREVICH	2514
5			GM MESGEN AMANOV	2469
6			IM FLORIN FELECAN	2411
7			FM AUNG THANT ZIN	2405
8			IM ANGELO YOUNG	2383
9			IM MEHMED PASALIC	2342
10			FM SERGIO MORALES GARCIA	2326
11			MICHAL SPIRIDONSKI	2317
12			IM VISHNUVARDHAN ARJUN	2291

Chicagoans in the City of Brotherly Love

Here's the Philadelphia Open crosstable.

More round 3 results: William Aramil drew GM Mark Paragua; Adarsh Jayakumar drew veteran IM Jay Bonin.

FM Andrew Karklins (how many Illinois state championships has he won?) has 1.5 points.

FM Alex Betaneli (3x Wisconsin state champion) and honorary Chicagoan Emory Tate have 2 points.

A tough pairing

Chicagoans at the Philadelphia Open

Jon Burgess notes that IM Angelo Young is playing Kamsky on Board 1 right now!

Fifteen-year-old NM Adarsh Jayakumar (soon to be moving back to Chicagoland from Texas) beat GM Eugene Perelshteyn in Round 2 earlier today.

In the same round, NM William Aramil nicked GM Alexander Ivanov for half a point earlier today (hardly an upset, however):

Check out the live action at Monroi.

wow

Via Jon Burgess & Maret Thorpe: Gata Kamsky just played this amazing game in the ongoing Philadelphia Open.

 After 13...Qc7: White to move

After 22...Be7: 

how does White to play justify the piece sacrifice?

After 48...Nb6:

White to play and win

Anand-Topalov countdown

The Champion: Viswanathan Anand

 The Challenger: Veselin Topalov

The World Championship match begins in 22 days at the Central Military Club (charming, I'm sure!) in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Not as impressive as the 107th floor of the World Trade Center, but nice enough....

Here's the schedule.

Here's the official website.

First US Championship Wildcard Determined

Story at Chess Life Online.

OK, enough of that.

Magnus Carlsen's American cousin

Story at ChessBase.

April Fool's game

A funny blitz game

I just played a funny 5-minute game, perfect for April Fool's Day: N.N.-Rhine, playchess.com, 4/1/10 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Bd3?? Nxd4 (I was reminded of the immortal game Klein-Myagmarsuren, Leipzig (ol) 1960, which concluded 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bd3?? Nxd4 0-1) 6.e5? Qa5+ 7.c3 Qxe5+ 8.Kd2 Nc6 9.Re1 Qxh2 10.Kc2 Qxg2 11.Nd2 Qxf2 12.Re2 Qb6 13.Nc4 Qc7 (Only move! Not 13...Qd8?? 14.Nd6# or 13...Qc5? 14.b4!) 14.Qf1 d5?! (Black has been very greedy, but 14...d6 still wins easily) 15.Bf4! (Uh oh! Suddenly White's massive lead in development is very threatening! Now what? 15...Qd8? 16.Nd6+ Kd7 17.Nxf7 Qe8 18.Bf5+ is ghastly and 15...e5 16.Nxe5 looks terrifying. Should I sac my queen with 15...dxc4 or 15...Qxf4?) e5! [After a minute and 15 seconds, I decided that I could probably survive 16.Nxe5 Nd4+! 17.Kd2 Nxe2 (attacking the bishop on f4) 18.Bb5+ Nd7!] 16.Qe1? dxc4 17.Rxe5+ Nxe5 18.Bxe5 exd3+ 19.Kxd3 Qd8+ (19...Bf5+!) 20.Kc2 Bf5+ 21.Kc1 Be6 22.Kc2 Be7 23.Rd1 Qa5 24.a3 0-0 25.Qh4? Rfd8? 26.Rh1? Qxe5 27.Re1 Bf5+ Now I end the game with a pretty mating pattern known as "Boden's Mate." 28.Kc1 Qxc3+! 29.bxc3 Bxa3#

Chess and autism

"Chess is a suitable sport for many children and adults with an Autism Spectrum Disorder," the author argues, and he has success stories to support his thesis.

Here's a permanent link (pdf file).

Notes from Downstate: Uni High at the IHSA state championships

Daniel Cheng gives a nice first-person report on Chris Merli's crew at Uni High.

"Darien chess champ eyes Chicago Open in May"

My competition keeps getting younger....  Nice writeup of one team's results in the FIDE World School/Chess Club Team Championships, held last Saturday and Sunday in Skokie.

From Sun-Times Media: "The Chess Octopus Team took the bronze medal in the under-12 age group at the FIDE World School/Chess Club Team Championships last weekend. The team includes Akash Mattu, Matthew Stevens, Sritej Vontikommu and Lorenzo Barbin. (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Stevens)"

Jon Burgess wins Greater Peoria Open

The winner reports on the ICA website.

Louis Uedemann

This Wikipedia article might be a good one to expand.  The Google search "uedemann chess chicago" gets 97 hits, so there might be a fair amount available online.

Smyslov on the meaning of life

2003 interview with Vladimir Anzikeev.

2005 interview with Radio Liberty (Google Translate).

Hat tip to mishanp at The Daily Dirt.

Vasily Smyslov, 1921-2010

Vasily Smyslov, World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958, died in Moscow today.  Smyslov was a genius, arguably the greatest player of the 1950s, and a decent human being.

Wikipedia.

ChessBase

Mig.

Smyslov was also a great composer of endgame studies: here's a page devoted to some of his most beautiful compositions.

Sergey Shipov interviewed Smyslov in 2006: here's the Google translation and the original Russian.

Vasily Smyslov: Endgame Virtuoso  is reasonably priced and still in print.  For a more complete look at Smyslov's career, see the autobiographical Smyslov's 125 Selected Games (unfortunately out of print).  If you don't mind descriptive notation, a used copy of this Dover edition of Smyslov's best games through 1957 is reasonably priced.

And Smyslov was much more than a quiet endgame grinder:

Andrew Hubbard wins World Amateur - continued

Coverage in Chess Life Online.

Masters of the Chicago Chess and Checker Club, 1899

Check out Olimpiu Urcan's article at Chess Cafe.

 

Chicago Tribune, December 10, 1899

Sidney P. Johnston vs. Frank J. Marshall 
at Chicago Chess and Checker Club 
Chicago Tribune, December 31, 1899

If you're interested in Chicago chess history, but too lazy to go to a proper research library, you can find a lot via Google.

"Chess for Educators" seminar tomorrow

On the odd chance that someone might want to attend at the last minute (I'm always happy to link to folks' stuff in timely fashion, but please ask!)

P.S.  "Where" is one of the 5 W's: I think this event is also at the Holiday Inn, 5300 W. Touhy in Skokie, but please confirm with Dr. Korenman.

Chess in Education Seminar

March 9th, 2010

March 27, 2010

10:00 am – 3:00 pm

CHESS  FOR  EDUCATORS

Professional Seminar

Designed for elementary and secondary school chess coaches, parents, and volunteers

5 CPDUs available for educators!  

Presented by

Dr. Alexander Kostyev, Moscow, Russia

Co-Chair, FIDE Chess Education Committee

Chair, Chess Department, Moscow University

GM Wang Rui, Beijing, China

The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China

  IM Vyacheslav Styazhkin, St. Petersburg, Russia

         School-Gymnazia #2, St. Petersburg

Dr. Mikhail Korenman

Seminar Facilitator

The seminar includes the following topics:

• How to design curriculum for elementary and secondary school chess clubs?
• How to motivate students to study chess themselves?
• How to improve chess tactics and strategies?
• How to plan chess activities for the academic year?

Seminar requirements: Participants should be involved in teaching chess at local level.
Tuition: $50; $75 with 5 CPDU’s. One FREE entrée for anyone represents teams participated at the Intercontinental Chess Team Championship!
For more information please contact Dr. Mikhail Korenman, at 785-906-0402 or via e-mail: intecsus@yahoo.com 

Andrew Hubbard of Illinois wins World Amateur Championship!

Congratulations to Andrew Hubbard!  The world champ gets $3,000 and the FM title, and a scholarship to Texas Tech University!  (Hmm, didn't Andrew graduate from high school five years ago?)

Alybaev Djekshenbek of Kyrgyzstan, Mohammad Shaikh of India, Richard Huang of Canada, and Jeff Dixon (another Illinoisan) tied for second.

You'll find more info in the other winners here: details TK!

Final standings, 25th North American Masters

GM Ben Finegold of St. Louis and Mackenzie Molner of New Jersey tied for first with 6.5 points in 9 games (+4).  Molner simulatneously earned his final IM norm and his first GM norm.  Siddarth Ravichandran of India also earned his final IM norm with a score of 5.5 (+2).

Jon Burgess has a preliminary report on the ICA forum.  (Apologies for falling behind with so many great events going on--it's my busy season!)

Fair and balanced tournament report at ICA website

 Penny Xu

 Eric Rosen

(Photos: Betsy Dynako)

Here's a link to the long-promised writeup.  Reports that the ICA correspondent is related to one of the players remain unconfirmed.

Eric Rosen wins 2009 Denker Qualfier

Oops! Eric actually won the 2010 title.  As I've left links in a couple places, I'll let the misinformation stand uncorrected in the title to avoid broken links.

 Full report  tomorrow later today: in the meantime, here's a great game played by the tournament winner and Josh Dubin.

tactics quiz

Hartmut Riedel offers yet another tactics quiz based on the 2010 Corus tournament.  You.ve seen some of these before, perhaps?  But repetition is good....

Congratulations to Penny Xu and Adele Padgett

Penny (who was only 12 years old as of February 2010) and Adele (15 years old as of 2/2010) tied for first in the Illinois Chess Association's Girls Invitational Championship this weekend. Each scored 3 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw. Penny takes the title on tiebreaks.

In the following game, Penny and and her opponent Shayna Provine both display a very mature handling of the Sicilian.  (Chicagoans of a certain age know all about the dangers of the anti-Najdorf system 6.g3, as we all suffered at the hands of Leo Kaushansky.)  As I played through the game score on my iPhone, I found myself wondering who Penny's coach could be.

Then I saw Penny give Tamara Golovey a hug in the hotel lobby.  Aha!

P.S.  What cool shot did Penny miss on White's 24th move?  (I didn't notice it at first: she had to show it to me.)

Denker Qualifier update

Andi Rosen is posting updated results here.

I'm sorry to hear that Zack Kasiurak had to withdraw from the event due to illness (hard to play chess with a 102-degree fever!)

He's a very talented and complete player, as I learned last year:

Kramnik beats Carlsen in their blindfold game

Carlsen's idea is interesting: I have no idea why the promising attack fizzled so quickly.

Carlsen-Kramnik

After 9...O-O: White to move

Is the attack worth a pawn?

 

"Budget Cuts Could Check-Mate School Chess Programs"

CBS 2 Chicago visits the recent Renaissance Knights Chess Foundation / CPS event and reports on the threat to future years' funding.

Story here.

Video here.

from the Volokh Conspiracy, via Andrew Sullivan

Too smart to become the chess world champion?

Magnus Carlsen says he's not quite as bright as John Nunn. It's interesting that this Carlsen interview got mentioned in two influential political blogs....

K-8 coverage at ICA

Penny Xu vs. Sam Schmakel

Andi Rosen has the story, accompanied by some nice photos taken by Eric Rosen.

I want my PGN

Just sayin' 

Denker and Girls' Invitational players (and their TDs) are invited to send me raw / annotated game scores.  That goes for last weekend's winners as well.  Or if you're a geezer like me who's played an interesting game lately, just send it in!  If you're from Chicagoland, that helps.

And just what is Portable Game Notation (PGN)?  It's a broadly-accepted format for sharing chess games between computer programs.  You can enter your games in PGN and share them with the rest of the world.

2010 World Amateur Championships in Skokie!

The action starts tonight!

You'll find more info at USCF, on the ICA Calendar and at the official website.

Illinois State Scholastic Championships

The 2010 Illinois State Scholastic Championships drew 594 players from kindergarten to 8th grade to the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles last weekend, March 13-14.

Jason Daniels (1286) took the K-1 section with a perfect 7-0; David Wallach and Sean Yu Li tied for second with 6-1.

Matthew Stevens (1587) won the Grades 2-3 section with a perfect 7-0 score.  Chetan Reddy, Nathaniel Sobery, Akhil Kalghatgi, Randaheer Tripuraneni, and Rishav Sinha all tied for second with 6-1.

Bryce McClanahan (1791) grabbed the Grades 4-5 section with 7-0; Zhaozhi Li (1808), Conrad Oberhaus (1692), Ian Gilchrist (1567), Lorenzo Barbin (1543), and Abe Sun (1506) tied for second with 6-1.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Yue Xu (1812) won the Grades 6-8 section, downing second place finisher Sam Schmakel (1960); Alex Bian (1796) and Samuel Heil (1528) also tied for second.

Jeff Wiewel and Gary Jannsen directed, assisted by Betsy Dynako, Erv Sedlock, Colley Kitson, Jeremy Von Hatten, Elizabeth Villaflor, Wayne Clark, James Greer, and Blair Machaj.  The event was organized by Machaj and Paul Raso of Illinois Chess Teachers.  Bill Barton served as bid liaison on behalf of the Illinois Chess Association.

ICA Denker Qualifier and Girls' Invitational this weekend!

Andi Rosen provides the details at the ICA website.

The "Denker Qualifier" is the Illinois Chess Association High School Invitational Championship.  Seven players face each other in a six-round round robin. As there's a odd player sitting out each round, the event actually takes seven rounds to complete.  Action begins tonight and continues through Monday.

The invitees this year are Michael Auger, Josh Dubin, Zach Kasiurak, defending champion Trevor Magness, Ashok Raife, Eric Rosen and Matt Wilber.

In this year's Girls Invitational Championship, the players are Victoria Bian, Adele Padgett, Shayna Provine, Rachel Ulrich, Sonya Vohra and Yue Xu (congratuations on making Class A in style, Penny!) . 

I've had the pleasure of playing against, analyzing with, or studying the games of virtually all this weekend's contestants.  Whoever wins, Illinois can be very proud of its representatives!

The People's Champion

Vasily Ivanchuk (happy 41st birthday!) retakes sole first place at the Amber Tournament.  See the official website for today's report.

CPS Elementary Schools Sports Program - Regional Playoffs

David Heiser reports on the March 6 playoffs.  CPS finals will be at King High School on March 20th.  Read all about it at Chess Life Online!

Only a few hours left...

For preregistration at this year's Chicago Open.  Last chance to save a buck!

Note the big change in this year's format:

Open Section: 9 rounds, May 27-31. 5-day schedule only, 40/2, SD/1.

In all other sections, one is free to choose between the 4-day, 3-day, and 2-day formats, just as in prior years.

Chess without Borders at Navy Pier

Go read Kiran Frey's story on Chess Life Online!  Helping another human being is grabbing a pawn: it's worth a little trouble.

More at this blog.

Craigslist cut-and-paste

Again, I haven't bothered to check out the ad: job seekers, do your own due diligence!  (Looks similar to the one I linked to earlier.)

Fun, Enthusiastic Chess Teachers Needed! (Chicago and Suburbs)

---

Date: 2010-03-14, 2:46PM CDT
Reply to: job-uztwe-1643894702@craigslist.org

---

The largest chess academy in Illinois is looking for people to fill teaching positions immediately. We are looking for energetic, enthusiastic instructors to fill part-time teaching positions in a classroom setting. If you love chess, have teaching experience, and are free in the afternoon, this is the job for you. Strong chess ability, reliable transportation and a positive attitude required. If you feel that you could make chess fun for kids of all ages, please reply with:

1) Resume and contact information
2) Availability
3) A brief paragraph describing why you would be a great chess teacher

This job is an excellent source of supplemental income for students, actors, teachers, and people who love chess!

• Location: Chicago and Suburbs
• Compensation: $36-60 per hour
• This is a part-time job.
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 1643894702

are you playing the Mid-America Open?

It's next weekend in St. Louis.... 

Chess Life Online needs a reporter!  Drop me a line if interested.

Knight Moves Chess Club Spring Open

At the Chicago Public Library, Lozano Branch, on Saturday, March 27:

Info is here:

Knight Moves Chess Club Spring Open

Date: Sat. March 27, 2010
Time: 9:00 am
Location:
Lozano
1805 S. Loomis Street
60608
About this event:
Section I is open to Players 15 years of age and older.
Section II is open to Players 14 years of age and younger.
The first of 5 rounds begins at 10:00 a.m., with a 30 min. per player per game time control. 

An award ceremony will begin at 4:30 p.m.
Registration:
Registration will take place from 9:00 am to 9:30 am the day of the event.

 And I bet you could find out details by calling our friend Hector Hernandez.

of interest to Chicago & chess bibliophiles

The Library of Congress offers online access to the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection.  (His father Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears Roebuck & the founder of the Museum of Science & Industry, was Reshevsky's patron.)

Amber round 1 is finishing right now

Ivanchuk-Carlsen will be one of the three games.  (Ivanchuk won the blindfold game earlier today.)

You can follow the action here.

Sicilian Grand Prix with 5.a3!?

The former Sicilian player in me says "thanks for the tempo!"  But our own Matt Pullin and Michael Goeller of the Kenilworth (NJ) Chess Club are both pretty smart, so I'll suspend judgment.


 
Matt mentions that the late Billy Colias had played this line: does anyone have these games?

Rook Dreams

Somehow I missed this December 2008 Atlantic article.

I normally don't get excited about opening books....

a tabiya in the English Hedgehog

Black to play

Suba's out-of-print book on The Hedgehog is brilliant, and I've won at least one tournament game thanks to it.  But it's also one of the most disorganized and confusing books I've ever read.

But now there's a much better alternative.  I just got my copy of Sergey Shipov's The Complete Hedgehog, Volume 1.  So far, I've only thumbed through the 527 (!!) pages and read the introduction to various sections, I can tell you that it looks like an absolute masterpiece of clarity (considering how confusing this opening can be!).  Furthermore, it looks to me like that rare opening book suitable for both 1600 and 2400 players.

First ten thousand views

(How many views were mine when I wasn't signed in?  I don't want to think about that....)

Thanks to the many good people who have sent material to the blog: from grandmasters to my fellow patzers.  Please keep it coming!

And special thanks to the other editors on this blog....the less we hear of me, the better.

If you could take the time to follow this blog or link to this blog or send me something cool related to Chicago chess, it'd be appreciated!  I'm always happy to plug folks' events in Chicagoland (or even events of interest to Chicagoans): stuff already in html format is most appreciated.

Over 150 at Greater Chicago Scholastic Chess Championships

Jeff Caveney reports at Chess Life Online!