Santa Visits Coach Wilson

Ray School chess coach Lamarr Wilson exercises his mind with chess, but he gives his body a good workout as well with this contraption. I don't know who Tony Little is, but he must be very rich.

Lamarr Wilson's Geeky World

Here's what the Ray School chess coach does when he's not teaching the Royal Game to your kids.

Your Kids Playing Chess

Coach Lamarr Wilson and chess dad Phillip Turner have captured the action at the Ray School Chess Club beautifully. Want to see more? Go to Lamarr's flickr photostream. And see the "Wilson Warriors" at Lamarr's blog.

Wilson to Teach Chess at Ray

I’m delighted to announce that veteran Chicago scholastic chess coach Lamarr Wilson has joined the Ray School Chess Club and will be the club’s main chess teacher for the 2008-09 school year.

Lamarr is no stranger to Ray, having been a friend of the club for years. He used to be the coach at Joplin Elementary School and has been active in Chicago chess circles for a long time as a teacher and webmaster. Today he is the president of SchoolTech Consulting, Inc., where he advises and assists Chicago public schools on their technology needs. We’re thrilled that Lamarr has agreed to take over the teaching duties at Ray, following the departure of founding coach Emil Sidky.

Also, veteran Ray School chess mom Julie Vassilatos will manage the chess club meetings this year. Julie has been active in the club for the past three years and was one of the people most responsible for the success of the citywide chess tournament held at Ray in 2007. One of the things she plans is to have a special girls section of the chess club as part of an effort to attract more female players. Stay tuned for details.

Julie and Lamarr will, I trust, be ably assisted by other chess parents.

Great Chess Pix on Flickr

Lamarr Wilson, a longtime fixture on the scholastic chess scene in Chicago as a coach, blogger, webmaster, and, just as important, photographer, has posted hundreds of his pictures from years past on flickr. Lamarr's collection includes shots of Chicagoland's top young chess players; a few grownups, such as GM Dmitry Gurevich and IM Angelo Young; and, I'm delighted to see, the tournament we held at Ray School in cooperation with the Youth Chess Foundation of Chicago in March 2007.

If you're a chess blogger, coach, player, or parent, you'll want to check it out. Thanks for sharing these, Lamarr.

Playing Dumb

Chess News of the Weird from the Centennial State

If you ever intend to claim to be of below-average intelligence, a word to the wise: stop playing chess. Now.

Getting caught pushing the pieces is one of the quickest ways to give away your superior smarts. That’s the lesson learned by an accused murderer in Colorado who hopes to escape the death penalty by showing that his IQ is below the legal minimum for execution.

His problem: prosecutors have a videotape of the man playing chess in jail, and they have submitted it into evidence to show that the alleged perp is not retarded, as he claims. More here.

In other news, Chessdad64, now also known as the Chess Czar of Skokie, has the goods on some early victories by the Chicago area's McClanahan Brothers at the National Elementary School Championships now under way in Pittsburgh. Ray School's Sonam Ford is there. . . . And longtime local chess personage Lamarr Wilson has returned to the blogosphere, and has a feature on our own Phillip Parker-Turner.

Chicago and the Siege of Miami

Road trip for two top local players

Next week’s Miami Open promises to be one of the biggest national chess tournaments of the year, and besides Shabalov, Nakamura, and the other usual suspects, Chicago’s very own FM Aleksandar Stamnov and Expert Ron Washington will be there as well. They’re our guys, so let’s all root for them. Internet access permitting, we may even get some reports from them at the scene.

Are any other Illinois players going to the tournament?

Aleksandar Stamnov

Ron Washington

Notes from Blogistan
Glenn Panner has a blog. This is good news for chess in the Chicago area, so now that he’s online, everybody please go there, leave comments, and give Glenn encouragement to blog often.

Glenn has a great deal to offer the chess conversation in this area. He’s an Expert (rating > 2000), a National Tournament Director, and he’s been active in chess in the South Suburbs and all across the state for decades. He also sponsors many chess events and organizations.

I met Glenn for the first time only recently, during last month’s Billy Colias memorial tournament, of which he was the director, but his reputation had preceded him. The respect he enjoys in the local chess community is considerable. The Illinois Chess Bulletin, the excellent house organ of the Illinois Chess Association, calls Glenn ”Solomonic.”

Glenn is not the only local chess blogger, thank goodness. If you want a global perspective on chess, Sevan Muradian provides one at the North American Chess Association, reporting on news from all over the world. . . . Vince Hart continues to blog about his chess adventures, though to his credit he is not seized with the need to feed the bloggish maw incessantly or even every month, for that matter. He just posts when he has something to say. What a concept! . . . Chess mom Cheryl doesn’t write only about chess, but since her son Trevor Magness is a strong player (he recently reached Expert status at the Illinois Open), chess is a frequent theme at her blog A Round Unvarnish’d Tale.

For all of this information I owe a big tip of my hat to Chessdad64, from whom I know about Glenn, Vince, Cheryl and so many other people on the chess scene. For years he has published the Midwest’s leading chess blog, the 64 Square Jungle, though it’s been quiet of late while he explores other channels of expression, even as he remains active in local chess. Likewise, Lamarr Wilson’s excellent but short-lived Chess4Chicago.com is alas no more.

Stamnov photo: johhnyscars via flickr

Eschew your food

The expression “liquid diet” is generally a euphemism for hitting the sauce. One reason people recognize it as a term of art for excessive alcohol consumption is that few people ever go on a real liquid diet. But Lamarr Wilson is doing it. The educational technologist, former chess coach, webmaster emeritus, and friend of Ray School says he won't take solid food for the next 30 days. Only juices.

“I am embarking on an amazing 30-day juice fast,” he announced in a blog post today. “Why am I doing this?”

Losing weight is one reason, he says, but it goes well beyond that.

“I don't have a lot of energy/stamina, and my system is sluggish. I'm doing this fast to detox my system. One of the benefits is that I will lose weight, but the main reason is to get the toxins and other garbage out of my body. If I focus on that, the weight loss will come.”

Inveterate blogger that he is, Lamarr will chronicle the whole thing on his weblog. Look for his reports at http://www.lamarrwilson.com/blog/.

Good luck, Lamarr. I hope you’re successful and that the fast makes you feel better. I’m interested to hear how it affects your chess game.

Weekend Roundup

Girls State Championship Next Weekend

Lots of chess news this week, so let’s dispense with the superfluous salutations, shall we, and get right to the nitty-gritty. Though I’d hoped to get out the word about this sooner, it’s not too late to play in next Saturday’s K-8 Illinois State Girls Chess Championship in Joliet. If you’re a girl, that is. Details here, here (scroll down to “State Events”), and here. . . . Phillip Parker-Turner ran the table at the Hyde Park Borders last night, and Lamarr Wilson was there not only to witness the carnage, but to be part of it. Ouch! . . . Ray first grader Allen Dai was one of the big winners at the recent MVP tournament. His Quick Rating is now over 900, his Regular Rating not far behind, and he’s one game away from having an “established” as opposed to a “provisional” rating. Crosstables from the tournament are now up, and they reveal ratings increases for some other Ray kids as well. . . . Congratulations to Eric Rosen, son of Chessdad64, who beat National Master Eric Rodriguez at last weekend’s national scholastic chess championship tournament in Kansas City. It was, I believe, Eric’s first victory over a Master, though, since he’s only 13, you can imagine how many more notches he will chisel into his belt before earning the Master’s title himself. . . . Whitney Young High School chess star Kayin Barclay, a chess Expert and himself a future Master, has expressed an interest in offering a chess clinic for Ray kids sometime this summer, probably in late June or August. I’ll send out an e-mail about this to parents, but please let me know if you’re interested. I think it would be cool for our kids to learn from the state’s top high school chess player. . . . We have finally brought the schedule of upcoming events on our home page up to date, so please have a look. . . . Like playing chess in the middle of the night? You'll have your chance at Looptopia.