The Billy Colias Memorial TournamentBilly Colias was a brilliant, young chess master from Munster, Indiana, who was stricken with cancer and died tragically in his twenties. That was 1993, but the passage of time hasn’t dimmed his memory here in the Midwest, where he’s honored each year with The Billy Colias Memorial Master Invitational Tournament. It’s become quite a tradition: “the best event” on the Illinois chess calendar, according to NM
Jon Burgess.
This year’s tournament took place last weekend at IM
Angelo Young’s
Touch Move Chess Center. The mostly-masters event brought together a dozen of the region’s top chess players: FM (FIDE Master)
Pete Bereolos, NM (National Master)
Jon Burgess, Expert
Geoffrey Caveney, FM
Albert Chow, FM
James Dean, NM
Pete Karagianis, NM
Tim McEntee, Expert
Gopal Menon, Expert
Adam Strunk, NM
Steve Tennant, NM
Ken Wallach, and NM
Len Weber.
Ken Wallach and Steve Tennant review a game
A number of these guys knew Billy, some of them well. I understand, for example, that Pete Bereolos was a Munster schoolmate of Billy’s and came up with him in the ranks of chess. That could help explain why Pete played so well, posting four victories in the five-game round-robin meet (a record matched by Jim Dean).
The big news of the weekend, though, was Adam Strunk, a junior player from the South Suburbs, the third player to post the tournament’s top score of 4.0/5.0. He beat NMs Burgess and Tennant and drew against FM Bereolos and NM Karagianis. I don’t know much about Adam, except that he is a Warren Chess Scholar, which means he was in high school this past school year. Andi Rosen, who directs the Warren program, says Adam only started playing serious chess a few years ago.
He’s certainly making up for lost time. Adam started the tournament with a rating of 2078, but that will certainly go up. “His performance rating from this event was 2456,” said Tournament Director Glenn Panner.
The crosstable’s here, thanks to Glenn’s prompt reporting.
For helping to make the weekend a success, Glenn made a point of thanking IM Angelo Young for hosting the tournament and Robert Loncarevic and Tim McEntee, who along with Glenn himself sponsored the meet. Sevan Muradian of the North American Chess Association provided some gorgeous chess sets.
Though he moved to New York and climbed onto the national stage in his last years—managing the famous Manhattan Chess Club, collaborating on chess books with prolific chess author FM Eric Schiller—Colias appears never to have forgotten his Midwestern roots. One of the last rated tournaments in which he played, in fact, was right here on the South Side, at Tom Fineberg’s Tuley Park Chess Club. He came in first.
Here’s a game in which Colias beat the famous Grand Master Roman Dzindzichashvili. If you want more, pick up the tribute book Billy Colias: Midwest Master. It’s got about a hundred of his best games.
Miscellanea: Congratulations to Lamarr Wilson for lasting eleven days in his juice fast. Here’s his wrap-up on the ordeal. . . . Vince Hart not only got a victory in a recent simul against a Russian Candidate Master; he also got some valuable publicity for chess in the Mt. Prospect Times. . . . Does chess teach kids lessons of value beyond the game itself? According to Dr. Alexey Root, former U.S. Women’s Champion, it does (hat tip: Brad). . . . Sad news from Westchester County, N.Y., where a local paper reports that veteran chess player Jerome Kurtzberg was killed in a car accident last Friday. The Journal News said that Mr. Kurtzberg became a chess master in 1981. Even at 76 he was an active tournament player and maintained an expert rating. Our condolences to his friends and family.
IM Angelo Young sends along this information about this week's blitz tournament at Touch Move Chess Center:
