Blaze Season Kicks Off with Scholastic Fundraiser, Opening Match

The Chicago Blaze, Illinois’s very own chess team, is about to begin its second season in the U.S. Chess League. Our first game of 2009 takes place tonight, and I would like to invite all chess fans in Chicago and Illinois to follow the team, root for it, enjoy it, and support it.

Chess at the Ballpark
Also part of the season opening will be a scholastic tournament to raise funds for the team on Saturday, September 12, at U.S. Cellular Field. Here is a flyer with the details that you can tack up on the fridge. Please help spread the word about this tournament to kids and the parents of kids in grades K-12 who play chess. We need a good turnout, and it should be a lot of fun. Every kid who plays in the rated tournament will get a spiffy, new Chicago Blaze t-shirt.

Here’s how you can follow the Blaze.

• First, go to our main Web site to find out more about the team. In particular, take a look at the season schedule. The regular season runs through early November, and since we hope to make the playoffs this year, we expect to be playing beyond that. (Please bear with us if portions of the site aren’t entirely up to date; the Blaze is a volunteer effort, and we’re doing our best.)
• Come back regularly to this blog as we post news.
• Follow us on Twitter. We’ll be posting news about the team and the league, and if we can manage it we’ll be doing some live tweeting during the matches.
• Become a fan of the Blaze on Facebook.
• Attend the matches at the Holiday Inn Skokie, 5300 West Touhy. Fans are welcome to attend the games at no charge.
• If you can’t make it to the games, follow them live on the Internet Chess Club.
  

First Match Tonight Night
The first match is tonight, 8:00 Central time, against the Arizona Scorpions. The Blaze will gather at the Holiday Inn and play the Scorpions online, via the Internet Chess Club. I hope you can join us either in person or virtually. (If you don’t have an ICC subscription, tune in to Twitter.)

The Blaze has the blessing and support of the Illinois Chess Association, along with many individual people whom we hope to thank profusely in due course. (And one person I'd like to thank right now: Maret Thorpe, for creating the gorgeous flyer for the Celluar Field tournament)

Please let me know if you have any questions. The goal of the Blaze is to be a contributing part of the Chicago and Illinois chess communities and to help chess grow and prosper in the Windy City and the Prairie State. Please join the fun. Thanks.

Sevan at the Reti

I suppose I should issue a bad-pun alert before posting a headline like that, but be that as it may, here’s an interesting game from Sunday’s simul at the Illinois Chess Association banquet. IM Angelo Young played all diners, taking the Black pieces in every game, and in this one he and Sevan Muradian agreed to a draw after move 33. To the best of my knowledge it was the only draw of the afternoon; Angelo beat everyone else. Comments or annotations, anyone?

Sevan during Sunday’s game

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Elite Meet to Eat, Bleat, Compete

Young plays all comers in ICA banquet simul

Some of the most important people in Illinois chess, the movers and shakers who really make things go, got together Sunday afternoon for the annual Illinois Chess Association banquet.

I was there, too, since you didn’t have to be important to attend, just pay your twenty bucks and be a member of ICA. They didn’t even ask my rating, thank goodness.

ICA Treasurer Carl Dolson, President Chris Merli, famed chess blogger Brad Rosen, and ICA honcha Maret Thorpe

Over great Middle Eastern food we talked chess and played chess. After lunch and conversation Illinois state champion Angelo Young held a “simul”—a simultaneous exhibition, in which he played everyone at once. Despite the generally high caliber of the talent on hand—I counted no fewer than four expert-rated players in the group—Angelo, an International Master, beat almost everybody easily. Only Sevan Muradian got a draw.

State chess champ Angelo Young analyzes a position during the simul

It was my first ICA banquet, and I had a great time. The organization seems to be in the hands of smart and committed people. (Sane ones, too, which is no mean feat in the chess world.) Thanks to Angelo (and his mom) not only for his dazzling play but for hosting the event at his Touch Move Chess Center; to Sevan, ICA webmaster and owner of the North American Chess Association, who organized it; and to the guys from downstate who drove long distances to attend.

Sevan Muradian, Bill Brock, and Glenn Panner ponder their positions during the simul

New Moves at Touch Move

Lectures, Fischer Random at North Side Club

There are changes afoot at IM Angelo Young’s Touch Move Chess Center. For those of you looking to improve your game, the newly re-crowned state champion is now giving chess lectures on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

This week’s talks were on sacrifices, the middle game, and what Angelo terms the “5 elements of chess.” If you missed them, there’s another tactics lecture next Tuesday, and on Wednesday Angelo will expostulate on the end game, where you know you need work. (The last time you blew a king-and-pawn finale you swore you’d study endgames, right? Well, now’s your chance.)

Thursday nights the focus is on opening themes. It’s the Sicilian tomorrow night if you see this in time and the Queen’s Gambit next week.

Last but not least, Friday nights they play Fischer Random Chess, also known as Chess 960 for the number of possible starting positions. The game was invented by Bobby Fischer, and while the former world champ may be meshugenah, he’s still pretty smart, and some years ago he developed a chess variant in which the pieces in the back rank are scrambled, an innovation that forces players to be creative and renders memorization of opening sequences moot.

Go here for more information on Fischer Random Chess. For details about what’s going on at Touch Move go to the Web site or the ICA calendar.