Tournament at Quad Club Saturday

I just noticed that Renaissance Knights is holding a chess tournament this Saturday at the University of Chicago’s Quadrangle Club, at 57th Street & University Ave. Alas, the early-bird registration deadline has passed, but you can still sign up for $30 if you’re interested. It’s an “open” tournament, which means there are no special sections for kids or lower-rated players, so I’d recommend this tournament mainly for the stronger Ray players. You can’t beat the location, though.

If you’re looking for a scholastic tournament this weekend, you can go out to Oakton Community College in Des Plaines for a Saturday match by North Shore Scholastic Chess.

The next tournament in Hyde Park will be on Sunday, November 4, at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, sponsored by Chess Education Partners. Our friends at the Youth Chess Foundation of Chicago, which sponsors free tournaments, should also have an announcement soon about a November tournament, and I’ll let you know about that as soon as I do.

Warming Up

The Ray School Chess Club will hold its first official meeting of the year on Monday, October 15, but a few members of the club—four, to be exact—held an informal practice session at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club today. A tournament scheduled for this morning had been cancelled, but HPNC executive director Peter Cassel let the chess-hungry Ray kids have some skittles time nonetheless. (Thanks, Peter.) The foursome played a spirited round of Bughouse and some blitz. (Click on the arrow button to watch the video.)

Ray fourth-grader (please see comments) Phillip Parker-Turner won another tournament this weekend: Glenn Panner's Orland Park Scholastic. . . . Who is Mark Jutovsky, you ask? A guy who hasn't played a rated tournament in ten years, that's who. Mark's decade of inactivity, however, didn't stop him from winning Saturday's Evanston Chess Economy Open with a perfect 4.0/4 against a tough field. . . . In other news, the chess world has a new champion today. He’s Vishy Anand of India, and he’s been one of the top players in the world for many years. Now he’s the best. Vishy won a tough tournament in Mexico City against six other players, including the previous champ, Vladimir Kramnik.

Chess Straight Up & the Longest Game

So sue me: I'm a sucker for street chess. This video from the Washington Post featuring chess expert Tom Murphy takes place at Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle, but it could have been Hyde Park, the North Avenue Chess Pavilion, Washington Square Park in New York, or any one of hundreds of places around the country where blitz is played fast and sharp and loud. . . . Question of the week: Where have all the chess clubs gone? Glenn Panner wants to know. . . . Did you know that there's a league of professional chess teams in the United States and Chicago is not a part of it? No, I'm not happy about it, either, but I mention it because this week Robert Hess of the New York Knights and Mikhail Zlotnikov of the New Jersey Knockouts played one of the longest chess games you'll ever see, a 114-move draw. If you've got some time to kill, get a cool drink, pull up a chair, and watch:

Whew!

Chess viewer by ChessVideos.tv

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

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.

Look Who's Cheating

This video is pretty funny in light of what goes on today in chess. Hat tip: Streatham and Brixton.

Neighborhood Club to Host Chess Tournaments

CEP will hold meets in Hyde Park

Great news. Zack Fishman's Chess Education Partners (CEP), one of the leading organizers of scholastic chess events Chicago, plans to hold several tournaments right here in our neighborhood, at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club.

HPNC executive director Peter Cassel confirmed the schedule.
The first tournament will be on Sunday, September 30.

The new series is a natural outgrowth of a rapidly developing relationship between CEP and the Neighborhood Club. International Master Jan van de Mortel of CEP offered a chess class at the club last winter and spring, and the organization staged a tournament there last June in which Ray kids won big.

The new tournaments, which will be widely publicized and will draw players from all over the city, will be harder for one school to dominate, which means they'll be more fun. They will probably be rated tournaments for which U.S. Chess Federation membership will be required, and there will be an entry fee of $20.

More information as it becomes available. For now, please mark you calendar for September 30. Other tournaments are tentatively scheduled for November 4, December 2, January 6, February3, March 2, April 6, and May 4. Good turnout in the early tournaments will insure that the later ones take place, so please plan to attend some of these events. This is a great opportunity for all junior chess players in Hyde Park.