Just another silly Internet game

As usual, the hapless NN proves unable to cope with the Black Knights' Tango. A double rook sacrifice ends the game. In the final position, I was expecting White to try 18.Nf4 exf4 19.Rae1+, when 19...Be3! ends matters. Instead, he resigned.

Three Americans in the top 14!

OK, one of them is a dual citizen who plays for Italy: #10 Fabiano Caruana, who is also the strongest teenager in the world after Anish Giri's collapse.

Hikaru Nakamura and Gata Kamsky both recovered from slow starts at Wijk aan Zee to finish in the top half of the Tata Steel crosstable: Nakamura is now #6 in the world and Kamsky (who truly has solved his Topalov problem) is #14.

Silly Internet game du jour

The Black Knights' Tango (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6!?) allows Black to get a big attack effortlessly if White plays passively. A case in point:

Gata makes Magnus say a bad word

Kamsky plays brilliantly in the opening, and the frustrated Carlsen admits he [messed] up, using a Norwegian dialect phrase not suitable for work. Cover your ears, children.

But Magnus buckles down and holds the draw: check it out at The Week in Chess. (Postscript 1/30/2012: GM Ian Rogers hits the highlights of this game in his article for Chess Life Online.)


Nakamura beats Van Wely and moves to number six in the world. Aronian beats Gelfand with Black, and will win Wijk aan Zee tomorrow if he can draw Radjabov with the White pieces.

Game/60 at North Shore Chess Center tomorrow

Details here.  Round one at 10 a.m., or skip round one and begin play a bit before noon.

New CICL bulletin is out!

In the December issue of The Chicago Chess Player, Chuck Dobrovolny tells us how he won $200 pushing pawns, and Tom Friske shares tactics problems from his online play.

Game of the year?

Carlsen may be #1 on the ratings list, and Anand and Gelfand may be playing for the FIDE title, but Levon Aronian gets my vote for "People's Champion."  Yesterday's win against Anish Giri was extremely cool:

The adventures of Isaac Braswell

Christopher Girardo - Isaac Braswell

Swiped from the Evanston Chess homepage 

My friend and CICL teammate Isaac Braswell rarely backs down from a tactical exchange!  (Also, this game gives us an excuse to refresh our memory of the Tarrasch Trap.)

Names omitted to protect the guilty

Checkmate is a little death: "shah mat," the king is dead.  (Pedantic footnote: Wikipedia says I'm wrong.  But please don't let facts spoil the following shtick.)

And when we think our own king is about to die, we may experience a series of emotions analogous to Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief. I deny that I'm getting mated (skepticism is healthy!), I'm angry that I'm getting mated (this gets the adrenalin flowing!), I'm desperately trying to avoid getting mated (seeking any possible escape), I'm depressed about getting mated (but hey, it's only a game), and then I finally accept reality and congratulate my opponent for her good play.

And whenever we have to deal with a surprising move, we may go through a miniature version of this drama: "I'm not losing this pawn, I'm angry at myself for blundering this pawn, I'll find a way to avoid losing this pawn, I'm depressed that I have to lose this pawn, ...hmm, maybe I can lose the pawn and stll draw this position."

In any case, these are typical emotions I try to manage during play: perhaps your experience is different! ;-)

With this in mind, let's look at a game from last weekend's Evanston event:

Black to play

Black played the inventive 1...Rd3.  White ate the free rook with 2.Bxd3, which Black answered with 2...Ng4, reaching this position.

 White to play

White to play sees that there's no way to prevent both 3....Nxe3 and 3...Qxh2 mate, and therefore resigned.  Your thoughts?

In chess, unlike life, the bargaining stage may be more productive than the acceptance stage.

January chess roundup

Dan Leroy highlights the action on the ICA website.

Evanston Three X Three results

FM Albert Chow swept the Gold section of Saturday's three-round event with a 3-0 score.  Chow beat Isaac Braswell with seconds to spare in the final round.  Jack Xiao scored 2½-½ against higher-rated players and picked up over 100 ELO in the process.

There was a logjam for first in the Silver Section: Sritej Vontikummu, Tae Moon, Hanson Hao all posted an undefeated 2½-½.

Matthew Ward took the Bronze honors with 3-0.

Maret Thorpe directed the 39-player tournament for Evanston Chess.

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.

Take the darn pawn, Gauri!

Here's the game featured at the end of yesterday's YouTube coverage of the Whitney Young - Glenbrook South match.

The caption for this blog post is of course tongue-in-cheek. 8...Qxb2 is the famous Najdorf Poisoned Pawn: objectively, it's the best move in the position, but players who haven't done their homework are asking for trouble.

For more coverage of the tournament from a frankly biased CPS perspective (I'm cool with that!) and for some quality trash-talking in the comments, see the Chicago Public League Sports Blog.

Whitney Young vs. Glenbrook South

Whitney Young wins a close one at last weekend's Glenbard South Chess Tournament, but any team that can beat Whitney Young on three of the top four boards is a force to be reckoned with....

Slow start for Americans in Wijk aan Zee

 Big shoes to fill?

After four rounds of Tata Steel Chess, last year's winner Hikaru Nakamura and reigning U.S. Champion Gata Kamsky are both 1½ points behind leaders Aronian and Carlsen.  Macauley Peterson reports at Chess Life Online.  (Teenager Fabiano Caruana, who learned to play chess in Brooklyn but now represents Italy, is only half a point behind the leaders.)

Check out the action Thursday morning: play begins at 7:30 a.m. Chicago time.

ballot-box stuffing

US Chess Federation members, do you want a chance to win a free copy of Frank Brady's Endgame?


Enter this contest by sending an email to Jennifer Shahade with your USCF ID, mailing address, and the magic words, "Fischer-Unzicker, Siegen 1970."  (You're allowed to choose a different Fischer game, but why bother?)

Illinois Tour Standings

After one event!

http://www.il-chess.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=167

The formula looks rather darn simple: you get one point for playing in each event, then one point for every point scored.  But in order for you to claim your rightful place in the Tour standings, you'll need to renew your ICA membership.

Play in Evanston this Saturday ($5, such a deal)

FM Albert Chow will be there!  Another email cut-and-paste....

Levy Senior Center, 300 Dodge Ave., Evanston, IL 60202

Evanston Chess Presents:

Jan 21, 2012

9:00am-5:00pm

Three x Three, 3SS G/65 delay 5

Three Sections, USCF Regular Rated

Our guest master will be FM Albert Chow

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 determins 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. No Lunch Break: We need to be finished by 5:00 PM, so there will be no extra time between rounds for lunch.

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.

Send name, USCF number, and telephone number to enter@evanstonchess.org

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.

Wijk aan Zee round 1

Follow the live action at Tata Steel Chess.  Kamsky and Nakamura both drew with White: several games are still in progress.

"Library is heart of a neighborhood"

And the Rudy Lozano Public Library is the heart of the Pilsen chess community.  The city's budget cuts now mean that Rudy Lozano and the city's other neighborhood libraries are only open five days a week.

Story in today's Sun-Times.

2012 Illinois Tour Standings

Here they are!

You'll find an explanation of the prizes here (kids, please choose a chocolate milkshake or a root beer float instead of the complimentary glass of wine), and the Tour rules and leaderboard here.

Please note the membership requirement:

To qualify for either performance or participation awards, individuals must become ICA members by the end of the fifth Tour event, and maintain membership throughout the balance of the Tour. Membership will also be required to be listed in the Tour standings, and in any other articles or promotional materials associated with the Tour.

What, you're not showing up on the ICA Tour Standings? Renew your ICA membership today!

The next Tour event is the Greater Peoria Open on March 17-18.

Sam Schmakel featured on Chess Cafe

Here's a link to Steve Goldberg's "Scholastic Chess" column. Chicago's own Sam Schmakel of Whitney Young High School, who won the national tenth grade title this past November at the K-12 Nationals in Dallas, is one of two players featured in this month's column.

Sam Schmakel (second from left) with teammates Cristian Pena, C.J. Swan, and Mark Waechter

 Permalink (pdf) here.

The kids are alright!

I managed to keep my "undefeated against players under nine years old" streak alive, but eight-year-old David Peng gave me a serious scare.

We don't have the luxury of consulting the computer during play: as it turns out, David was closer to the brink of defeat than I was.  Lesson to be learned: if we adults believe in ourselves, we can win against any elementary-school-age player!

More seriously, the Warren Junior Scholars Program is working! 

Winter Scholastic 2012

Joseph Fennessey won the Under 1200 Section of the Winter Scholastic 2012 in Oak Brook, scoring a perfect 5-0.  Andrew Bean, Elliot Krueger, and Patrick Yasutake tied for second with 4-1.

Ross Fox Schneider won the Under 700 Section, also with a clean 5-0.  Yury Tytla, Mara Flaherty, and Adam Rubinberg tied for second with 4-1.

Crosstable here!

Daniel Parmet directed for Chess for Life LLC.

Shaw, Hrach, Ford win Tim Just's Winter Open XVIII

NM Tenzing Shaw won clear first in the Open Section of the 2012 Tim Just's Winter Open, scoring 4½-½.

Jonathan Hrach and Adam Ford tied for first in the Reserve Section, also with 4½-½.

Crosstable here!

More coverage to follow.  Look for extensive games coverage by FM Albert Chow on the ICA website.

"Giri wins Reggio Emilia as Nakamura falters"

Bummer.

Story at Chess Life Online.

Touch and Go Chess Party

On this unseasonably warm January afternoon, we really should be playing chess in front of the Art Institute.  I've spent several pleasurable afternoons at the "Touch and Go Chess Party."

The songbirds promised me this morning that springtime woud be here soon: in the meantime, enjoy!

Five studies by Richard Réti

The following study by the great Richard Réti shares a key theme with Wednesday's study by Frederick Rhine. Give it a whirl!

Réti

Teplitz Schönauer Anzeiger, 1922

White to play and win

Here's one of Réti's greatest hits:

Réti

Hastings and St. Leonards Post, 1922

White to play and win

In the rook versus pawn(s) battle, the defender can use a similar theme:

Réti

Shakhmatny Listok, 1929

White to play and draw

Réti's most famous study often appears in beginner's books (but it's far from simple!):

Réti

Deutsch Österreichische Tageszeitung, 1921

White to play and draw

Réti composed a variation on this theme that deserves to be better known:

Réti

Deutsch Österreichische Tageszeitung, 1921

White to play and draw

You'll find more Réti studies at this cool website and on the highly recommended HHdbIV.

Preregister today for Tim Just's Winter Open tomorrow!

You have until 6 p.m. today (Friday, January 6th) to preregister for this weekend's Tim Just Winter Open XXVIII!   The TJWO is the first event of the Illinois Chess Association's reboot of the Illinois Tour.  (Please thank Mike Cardinale for his work in resurrecting the Tour!)

Play begins at 9 a.m. tomorrow Saturday, January 7th, for the two-day Open and Reserve. Preregistrants in the Open Section include FM Chow and NMs Bungo, Schmakel, Macenis, and Shaw.

Play begins at noon tomorrow for the one-day Scholastic event (in two sections).

Enter here!

You can enter the Scholastic Section here!

The most famous study with a Chicago connection?

Emanuel Lasker & Gustavus Reichhelm

Chicago Tribune, 1901

White to play and win

This is probably the second-most famous study with a World Champion as (co-)composer (Lasker's famous 1890 rook ending gets top honors).  Solution here: block an hour out of your schedule and allow yourself to be mystified.  (But try it yourself first: if the White king makes it to b5, Black has no defense.  And if the White king makes it to g5, Black has no defense.)

HHdvIV gives the source as "Literary Digest 1901," but according to one Wikipedia editor, this version (with kings on a1 and a7) was first published in the Trib.  

Does this study have something to say about the postmodern condition?  (Two fools wandering aimlessly in a barren landscape?)  Marcel Duchamp co-authored a book with the endgame composer Halberstadt that was inspired by this study, L'Opposition et les cases conjugées sont réconciliées (not to be confused with the 1980s electronic music album of the same name by the French band Etant Donnés!).  Andrew Hugill has persuasively suggested that the theory of coordinate squares influenced Samuel Beckett's Endgame.  (Beckett, a chess player, knew Duchamp.)

And please: Vladimir Nabokov composed problems, not studies.

And have I indulged in enough pointless blather for one morning?

GM lecture series at North Shore Chess Center!

Another email cut and paste.  If you'd like me to plug your event, please drop me a copy with minimal formatting (blogger.com is picky).

March of the Grandmasters! Come learn from the best and then take them on!

I'm pleased to announce that the final Grandmaster has been secured for our first 4 months of the year. In March, Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan will be out guest GM joining others before and after him such as GM Akobian, GM Finegold, GM Shankland, GM Kaidanov, and GM Charbonneau!

Don't hesitate for minute about signing up for these great events. The lecture and simul together is $100 for non-members and $75 for members for a 6 hour lecture followed by a simul! Where else can you get that kind of instructional quality for an affordable price!

In the last 2 months of 2011 we brought you GM's Varuzhan Akobian and Ben Finegold. Thanks to the great demand it generated we have a great lineup of Grandmasters heading our way for 2012!

January 14 - Grandmaster Sam Shankland

February 11 - Grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov

 March 17 - Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan 

April 21 - Grandmaster Pascal Charbonneau

The Grandmasters will provide a 6 hour lecture from 11:30am - 5:30pm followed by a simultaneous exhibition.

For details and online registration visit - http://www.nachess.org/events

Inspired by the Saavedra position

Alexander Fishbein & Dmitry Gurevich 

Illinois Chess Bulletin, 1991 

White to play and win

Matt Pullin tried to solve yesterday's Karstedt study by sacrificing the horsie to transpose to the Saavedra position.  That made me think of this study, co-authored by our own GM Dmitry Gurevich and first published in the Illinois Chess Bulletin.

Solution to yesterday's study (Karstedt, 1911)

You're going to need a couple hints for this one....

This blog's very own Frederick Rhine is the author of today's study (cribbed once again from the terrific HHdbIV).

Frederick Rhine

Chess Life, 2002

White to play and draw 

There was a Karpov-Kasparov game in 1991 that reached the pawnless ending KBNN vs. KR.  The game was drawn, and subsequent research confirmed that this ending is theoretically drawn in the general case.  (The rook can sacrifice itself for the bishop, after which KNN vs. K is drawn.)

Black is threatening checkmate in the above position: do whatever it takes to stop Black!  But kindly do it in the right order.

New Lev Alburt website

Grandmaster Lev Alburt knows a little about chess: he's a three-time U.S. Champion, three-time Ukrainian Champion, and lead author of one of the most successful instructional series ever!

Former USCF Executive Director Al Lawrence, one of Lev's frequent co-authors, just rolled out the beta of Alburt's official website.  Check it out!  Doubtless more effective than those ads in the New York Review of Books...and you can order autographed copies for no additional charge!

First event of 2012 Illinois Tour this weekend!

Don't miss the inaugural event of the Illinois Chess Association's 2012 Illinois Tour.  It's the 28th edition of Tim Just's Winter Open!

Once again, the site is the DoubleTree in Oak Brook.  Play begins at 9 a.m. Saturday, January 7th, for the two-day Open and Reserve; play begins at noon Saturday for the one-day Scholastic event (in two sections).  No Bears in the playoffs, no snow in this weekend's forecast: why not play chess?

Enter here!  (Online preregistration closes Friday afternoon.)

You can enter the Scholastic Section here!

Parents will go to great lengths for their children

That study made me think of this one.  I had to dig out my copy of Sutherland & Lommer to find the position.

Max Karstedt

Deutsches Wochenschach, 1911

White to play and win

Solution to Kleiman study

Become the alpha nerd in your club with Dr. Harold van der Heijden's endgame study database HHdbIV!

M. Kleiman 

Chess Life and Review, 1968

White to play and win

Tim Just's Winter Open this coming weekend!

Don't miss the inaugural event of the Illinois Chess Association's 2012 Illinois Tour, the humpty-humpf annual Tim Just's Winter Open. (It's being called the 28th annual TJWO, but that appears to be a conservative estimate: last year, Wayne Clark said that Tim simply lost count!)

The site is the DoubleTree in Oak Brook.  Play begins at 9 a.m. Saturday, January 7th, for the two-day Open and Reserve; play begins at noon Saturday for the one-day Scholastic event (in two sections).

Enter here!  Even with the mildly annoying $3 "convenience" fee, you'd be wise to save time and money by preregistering.  The total cost of $67 (Open and Reserve) is very reasonable.  If you enter on site, it'll cost you $80, plus you'll have to arrive at the site before 8:30 a.m. in order to register.  (There's an additional $10 fee for players rated below 1800 to play in the Open Section.  Any ambitious player rated above 1600 should give this option serious consideration.)

You can enter the Scholastic Section on the same page: $26 for five good games is very reasonable.  (But consider playing in the Reserve section: this is an excellent event for scholastic players to test themselves against adult opponents!)

Check out pre-entries here!

Tournament wrapup on Chess Life Online

Story by Sevan Muradian.  Nice event, interesting format!

The most exciting opening?

One can make a strong argument for the Botvinnik Variation of the Semi-Slav.  The position after Black's 10th move was first reached by Grünfeld (!) in 1936,  Botvinnik came up with the amazing idea of castling queenside in 1941, and in 2012, I have yet to meet a person who claims to understand what's going on in this crazy opening.

Thanks for visiting!

Happy 2012 to you and yours!  In the past week, we've had visitors (more than 5 pageviews) from the US, Russia, German, Japan, France, Poland, the UK, Canada, China, and the Czech Republic.  Even allowing for bots and Chicagoans on the road, that's gratifying and most appreciated!

In lieu of a tip jar, I hope you'll consider donating to the Illinois Chess Association's Warren Junior Scholar Program.  If you choose to follow this blog or share a blogpost, I'd be grateful.

If you'd like to contribute to the blog, please drop me a line!  Always happy to plug upcoming Chicagoland events: lightly formatted HTML suitable for cutting and pasting is always appreciated.

The Nakamura Express pulls away at Reggio Emilia

GMHikaru tweets "The freight train appears to be back on track!"  Hopefully the train will have enough fuel to make it through Wijk aan Zee.  Nakamura's defense of his Tata Steel title begins on January 13th.

 Photo © |http://www.ippogrifoscacchi.it

In today's game, look at all the compensation Nakamura gets for the investment of a mere wing pawn.

One has to feel for Nikita Vitiugov, who's only 24 years old.  It's hard for a Russian grandmaster to get foreign invitations when the GM is not one of the elite dozen players in the world.  It's doubly hard to play in one's inaugural "2700+ only" event.  Even the teenagers Giri and Caruana are grizzled veterans,  relatively speaking.

For more coverage of today's action, check out The Week in Chess.

A nice New Year's present

If you're rated over 1700 (or want to be!), or if you enjoy endgame studies, or simply enjoy beautiful chess positions, here's the PGN file for you!

Dr. Harold van der Heijden, the editor of EG magazine, sells his collection of over 76,000 endgame studies for 50 EUR. I've had HHdbIV, the fourth edition, for a couple of days, and am really enjoying it!

M. Kleiman  

Chess Life and Review, 1968 

White to play and win 

This one is very amusing!

Final standings, 27th North American Masters

Unofficial, with FIDE ratings (hat tip to Keith Ammann).  GM Mesgen Amanov wins the Schiller System event comfortably, while FM Gauri Shankar and NM Adarsh Jayakumar score IM norms.  I believe that one doesn't get the IM title until one gets one's FIDE rating over 2400, so both Gauri and Adarsh have their work cut out for them.

Official results (with USCF ratings) are now up on MSA!

 #    Name            Rtng Rd1  2   3   4   5    6  7   8   9   Tot
 1 Mesgen Amanov      2524 W3  D2  D4  W12 D10 W11 W6  W8  W9  7.5
 2 Adarsh Jayakumar   2197 W5  D1  W7  L6  D8  D9  W12 W10 W11 6.5
 3 Gauri Shankar      2274 L1  D7  W5  W9  W6  D8  W10 D11 W12 6.5
 4 Eric S Rosen       2305 L7  D5  D1  W8  W9  W6  D11 D12 W10 6.0
 5 Angelo Young       2350 L2  D4  L3  W11 W12 D10 W8  D9  D6  5.0
 6 Aung Thant Zin     2300 D10 W11 D12 W2  L3  L4  L1  W7  D5  4.5
 7 Arjun Vishnuvardan 2308 W4  D3  L2  D10 D11 W12 D9  L6  D8  4.5
 8 Nikhilesh Kumar    2249 W12 D10 W11 L4  D2  D3  L5  L1  D7  4.0
 9 Trevor S Magness   2154 D11 W12 D10 L3  L4  D2  D7  D5  L1  3.5 
10 Albert C Chow      2205 D6  D8  D9  D7  D1  D5  L3  L2  L4  3.0 
11 Dan Wolf           2259 D9  L6  L8  L5  D7  L1  D4  D3  L2  2.0 
12 Matthew Waller     2257 L8  L9  D6  L1  L5  L7  L2  D4  L3  1.0

No cigar

FM Albert Chow has beaten his share of grandmasters over the years.  He can't quite reel in GM Mesgen Amanov in this game:

Nakamura leads Reggio Emilia

...and is currently #5 in the world on the "live" list!

The gap between the top four and the closely bunched pack at 5 through 10 is substantial, but Hikaru is making progress.



 Mark Crowther reports on today's wild Nakamura-Ivanchuk game.

Congratulations to NM Adarsh Jayakumar!

Adarsh also made it to the magical 6½-2½ necessary to earn an IM norm, his first!

Here's the crucial Round 9 game.White wins material out of the opening, but has to deal with the "meh" bishop vs. good knight conversion issue.  Adarsh finds an energetic solution to the problem.

Congratulations to FM Gauri Shankar!

It's not yet official, but Gauri appears to have earned his second IM norm at the 27th North American Masters!

Later today, NM Adarsh Jayakumar will play his postponed Round 5 game. A draw in that game will give him his first IM norm!

From Facebook: "I won and I played one of the best chess games I've ever played today!"

Liz Garbus's Fischer documentary on YouTube

Here's an embedded link to the BBC 4 documentary Genius and Madman (released in the USA by HBO as Bobby Fischer Against the World).

Essential viewing!

Another good fight

FM Nikhilesh Kumar neutralized Eric Rosen's anti-Grünfeld system and had a pleasant middlegame advantage. But if you have to trade punches with Eric Rosen, try to stay out of the endgame. Very impressive play by Eric!

Another Bogo-Indian

Illinois Co-Champion FM Aung Thant Zin knows how to make his opponent suffer!

Stop by the North Shore Chess Center to catch the action! Rounds are at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Fighting chess

Congratulations to NM Adarsh Jayakumar, who became a United States citizen yesterday! 

Adarsh and IM Arjun Vishnuvardhan had a fun brawl on Tuesday.  Arjun makes me want to start playing the Bogo-Indian: he was very close to putting the game away.  But Adarsh slipped away to a tenable ending, Arjun pushed too hard, and....

(Updated to correct scoresheet transcription error.)

Mitkov leads North American Open

Local Grandmaster Nikola Mitkov is tied for first with four other GMs (including Spanish super-GM Vallejo) at the North American Open at Bally's Casino Resort in Las Vegas. 

Standings are here.  FM Aleksandar Stamnov is tied for first in the Under 2300 section, and Jim Egerton has a perfect 4-0 in the Under 1900 section.

More from Monday: Young 0 - Jayakumar 1

NM Adarsh Jayakumar won two games and drew GM Mesgen Amanov.  A round four loss doesn't help his hunt for an International Master norm: he needs to score 4-1 in the final five games.


Here's how he beat IM Angelo Young in the first round:

Updated to correct scoresheet transcription error: Adarsh writes, "I played 7...Qc7 against Angelo. Qe7??? haha."

Play continues Wednesday at the North Shore Chess Center, with rounds at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.

More of Monday's action

NM Matthew Waller plays a critical modern continuation, then improvises.  Only a couple moves out of theory, NM Trevor Magness gets a winning position with the Black pieces.  Fear the Marshall Gambit!

Play at the 27th North American Masters resumes tomorrow at 1 p.m.

Still more games from the Illinois Class

On the ICA website!

Today's Round 1 action: 27th North American Masters

Black against Grandmaster Mesgen Amanov is the second-toughest pairing possible in Illinois!  FIDE Master Gauri Shankar almost made it to a tenable endgame.  But not quite....

Round 2 is wrapping up right now; Round 3 begins at 1 p.m. tomorrow.

More holiday puzzles

Ottó Bláthy, The Chess Amateur, 1922

White to play and win

NM Adarsh Jayakumar showed me this problem when he was ten years old.  (His teacher, IM Stan Smetankin, had given it to him for homework.)

If you enjoy this problem, Steven Dowd's latest column in Chess Life Online has similar fun stuff!  As you've doubtless already learned from your PlayStation or Xbox, sometimes a king and one other piece can take out an entire army.

Yule enjoy these puzzles

It's time for the ChessBase Christmas Puzzles 2011!

I found the "obvious" (and cute) solution to today's puzzle, but I admit to being stumped by the "Black's best defence" hint.  There is no way for Black to lose a tempo, is there?

Aha: NM Pete Karagianis posted a link to the answer on his Facebook page.  I didn't take the variation deep enough.

Tkachiev interviews Anand

World Champion Viswanathan Anand

Photo: Irina Stepaniuk for WhyChess

Another great WhyChess interview!  (Hat tip to Chicago's strongest vegan, NM Gopal Menon, who was disappointed that Vishy isn't a true vegetarian.)

Still another silly Internet game

Black in this blitz game played the dubious Symmetrical or Austrian Variation against the Queen's Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5?!). My 5.Nc3! is a well-known trick leading to a White advantage after either 5...Qa5 6.Nxd4 or, as played, 5...Qd8 6.Qxd4, heading for a favorable ending. Black's 7...a6? is a known blunder, allowing the very strong 8.Nd5! At move 10, possibly even stronger was 10.Be3, when Hook-Marumo, Novi Sad ol 1990 continued 10...e5 11.Nc2 Bf5 12.O-O-O+ Ke8 13.Nd5 b6 14.Bxb6, winning a pawn for starters. In my game, Black's 11...Nxb6?? gave me a choice of amusing mates.