Frisco Holds Blaze at Bay

Chicago bows to Mechanics 2.5-1.5



It was a seesaw match that seemed at first to be going our way, but the storybook ending was not to be, as the San Francisco Mechanics held on, as widely predicted, to beat Chicago Blaze last night 2.5-1.5.

The match, which went well past 11:00 PM Chicago time, ended when San Francisco’s GM Jesse Kraai succeeded in pushing an imminently promotable pawn down the g-file, against the valiant endgame efforts of Chicago’s FM Florin Felecan to prevent it, giving Kraai the game and San Francisco the edge in the match. The Blaze now fall to 1-3 after four weeks, with six matches left in the season.

As usual, there were bright spots for the Blaze. In a game that should be in the running for the league’s new Upset of the Week prize, IM Angelo Young defeated IM Sam Shankland and maintained his undefeated record in USCL play. On Board 1, where Blaze players have often struggled, IM Jan van De Mortel held the much higher rated GM Josh Friedel to a draw.

Here are the games, by board number:

1. IM Jan van de Mortel (CHC)vs GM Josh Friedel (SF) 1/2-1/2

2. GM Jesse Kraai (SF) vs FM Florin Felecan (CHC) 1-0

3. IM Angelo Young (CHC) vs IM Sam Shankland (SF) 1-0

4. NM Yian Liou (SF) vs IM Mehmed Pasalic (CHC) 1-0

Special thanks to NM Len Weber, who served as our Celebrity Tournament Director for the evening. Thanks also to GM Nikola Mitkov and Betsy Dynako, neither of whom had official duties with the team last night, for showing up and cheering the Blaze all the same. As always, we were honored to host Professor Gary Alan Fine of Northwestern University, who is following the Blaze and the USCL as part of a larger study on the sociology of chess. Finally, personal thanks to Chessdad64 (Brad Rosen), for a tough and interesting G/40 game.

Our next match is a week from Wednesday against the New Jersey Knockouts, who are jabbing their way through the league this year with a one-two combination of superb chess and bad puns. They’ll be tough, but we’ll be ready. Please join us next week and lend your voice to the cheering section. Go Blaze!

Chess on the Boulevard

For the second time this summer The Chicago Reader has published a substantial article on the local chess scene. First it was Ted Cox’s excellent piece on the North Avenue Chess Pavilion, and now, in this week’s issue, Gus Garcia-Roberts trains his spotlight on Cecil Locke, proprietor of the portable “Touch & Go” chess tables on Michigan Avenue.

You may have seen Mr. Locke and his rickety tables at the corner of Monroe and Michigan, though not lately because, as the article reports, the City Council “clamped down” on street performers in that area last winter. Mr. Locke and his chess tables have been exiled to the southeast corner of Michigan and Jackson, where they can be found today. Fortunately, he says, business is good in the new location.

As one who has played on Mr. Locke’s boards many times, I think what he has done is simply ingenious. It’s hard to get people to go out of their way for chess, but bring it to them—set it up anywhere there’s a crowd—and you’ll always find a few who will step up and play strangers. It never fails. Mr. Locke's enterprise trades brilliantly on that recently coined aphorism, “Chess is like ginger ale. No one thinks about bringing it, but people love it when someone remembers it.” (Hat tip: Boylston)

You’ll find players of all strengths at Touch and Go. Here’s an exciting game in which an unknown opponent played Life Master Len Weber to a draw with the Queen’s Gambit Accepted:



“Good old fashioned street chess,” Len called it. “The game is flawed, gritty, like Chicago itself.” The game was originally published in the Illinois Chess Bulletin. To get the newsletter, with many other annotated games by local masters as well as chess news from Chicago and around the state, join the Illinois Chess Association.

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