Saturday, January 26, 2013

Top 500 players in Illinois

Not on the list?  Play in a tournament and show us you belong!


Rank Name Rating



1  GM YURY SHULMAN 2632
2  GM NIKOLA MITKOV 2577
3  GM DMITRY GUREVICH 2576
4  GM VLADIMIR GEORGIEV 2568
5  GM MESGEN AMANOV 2556
6  ANGEL YOSIFOV ANGELOV 2491
7  IM FLORIN FELECAN 2421
8  IM ANGELO YOUNG 2396
9  BOYAN ANGELOV ANGELOV 2387
10  FM CARL BRANDON BOOR 2382
11  FM ERIC S ROSEN 2381
12  TANSEL TURGUT 2366
13  FM NIKHILESH KUMAR KUNCHE 2355
14  WIM VIKTORIJA NI 2353
15  TIMUR ALIYEV 2350
16  FM ADARSH JAYAKUMAR 2349
17  WILLIAM J ARAMIL 2332
18  IM VISHNUVARDHAN ARJUN 2309
19  FM IGOR TSYGANOV 2294
20  FM GAURI SHANKAR 2293
21  FM AUNG THANT ZIN 2291
22  SAM A SCHMAKEL 2283
23  TENZING W SHAW 2277
24  FM ALEKSANDA STAMNOV 2256
25  STEVEN TENNANT 2254
26  GOPAL S MENON 2248
27  FM ANDREW KARKLINS 2241
28  KONSTANTINOS STOUMBOS 2236
29  FM DAVID E FINOL 2234
30  JONATHAN S KOGEN 2226
31  PETROS DEMETRIOS KARAGIANIS 2223
32  FM DAN WOLF 2219
33  STEVEN J SZPISJAK 2214
34  ZACH KASIURAK 2210
35  FM KEVIN BACHLER 2206
36  TREVOR S MAGNESS 2202
37  MARIANO A ACOSTA 2200
38  FM ALBERT C CHOW 2200
39  TAM NGUYEN 2200
40  KENNETH T WALLACH 2200
41  LEN J WEBER 2200
42  FM CAMILO C PANGAN 2200
43  XIN LUO 2190
44  DJEKSHENBEK ALYBAEV 2187
45  AUDRIUS MACENIS 2186
46  MATTHEW K WILBER 2183
47  MICHAEL W AUGER 2183
48  GORDON J RUAN 2163
49  DAVID PLOTKIN 2160
50  DANYUL LAWRENCE 2158
51  ALEX ZIQI DING 2158
52  ILAN MEEROVICH 2157
53  STEVE ARLINSKY 2145
54  JOHN M KROM 2141
55  MICHAEL E ELLIS 2135
56  ZHAOZHI LI 2131
57  STEFFEN HELMUT KLUG 2118
58  ARMANDO GARCIA 2114
59  KENT CEN 2110
60  DAVID TIANJIAN PENG 2106
61  MARK ROBLEDO JR 2104
62  KURT W STEIN 2100
63  GLEN E GRATZ 2098
64  DAVID FRANKLIN 2096
65  AAKAASH MEDURI 2096
66  SHAIKH MOHAMMAD 2087
67  KRZYSZTOF FLAGA 2083
68  RENE ANCHETA 2079
69  FRED SCOTT ALLSBROOK 2079
70  JAMES MICHAEL PAVESE 2072
71  WILLIAM H BROCK 2069
72  JOSEPH ST PIERRE 2065
73  WFM ANU BAYAR 2064
74  JAMES A MARSHALL 2063
75  KARTHIKEYAN POUNRAJ 2063
76  ROBBIE S KLEINMUNTZ 2060
77  FLORENTINO V INUMERABLE JR 2059
78  GAVIN JACOB MC CLANAHAN 2056
79  SERGE MININ 2055
80  BRENDAN FAN 2051
81  SEDRICK PRUDE 2049
82  ROBERT JAMES RASMUSSEN 2049
83  ROBERT MOSKWA 2048
84  HONORIUS CONSTANTIN 2045
85  GENE G SCOTT 2042
86  NATHAN WONG 2039
87  ALEX BIAN 2038
88  JORDAN S COHEN 2033
89  KEVIN JOSEPH VELAZQUEZ 2032
90  STANIMIR M ILIC 2029
91  MAXIMILIAN JOSEPH ZINSKI 2027
92  DAVID LONG 2026
93  VINCENT J HART 2025
94  BEN ROTHSCHILD 2019
95  LEONID BONDAR 2018
96  THOMAS D MURPHY 2017
97  ERIK KARKLINS 2016
98  D GREGORY BUNGO 2014
99  DMITRI A SERGATSKOV 2014
100  SPENCER BLEDSOE 2013

Friday, January 25, 2013

"Henry Hosmer: A forgotten western player"

Commodities traders were strong chess players in the nineteenth century, too!  Check out A Chess Reader for a generous sample of Henry Hosmer's games.

GreenCastleBlock on the Two Knights

Like much of Chicago, I've been home sick with the latest bug. This gave me a good excuse to catch up on Matt Pullin's videos.




The position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.e5 d5 6.Bb5 Ne4 7.Nxd4 Bc5!? is trappy and critical:

White to play: is it OK to take on c6?
Andrew Karklins demonstrated Black's fantastic attacking potential in this 1988 game:



And the following trap shows that White's back-rank weakness exists even in lines when White castles:


And White can resign: 13.Qxc4 Qd1+ 14.Qf1 Bxf2 mates, and 13.Qxd8 Rxd8 threatens mate and attacks the Ba8.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Illinois Chess Database update coming soon

I received my update of ChessBase's Mega Database 2013 a couple weeks ago.  This gives me a good reason to stop procrastinating and update the Illinois Chess Association's Illinois Games Database in the next month or so.  I expect to have the update completed before March 1st: might take a bit longer for the goodies to appear on the site.

Folks who make substantial contributions to the database (please send me your games in PGN or CBV format) and/or who are current members of the Illinois Chess Association as of February 28, 2012 (time to renew!), can, upon request, receive the PGN file of the completed 2013 database.

Submitted games should have been played under tournament conditions by an Illinois resident or in an Illinois event.

We're particularly interested in adding missing games of the friends we've lost in the past year: Morris Giles, Jon Burgess, Tom Fineberg, Isaac Braswell, Ron Washington, and Fidel Serrano, among others.


Sunday, January 20, 2013

Wijk aan Zee update

Anand & Carlsen lead; Nakamura and Karjakin tied for third.

Follow the live action every morning beginning at 6:30 a.m. Central at this link!  The players have Monday the 21st and Thursday the 24th off.  (Play concludes next Sunday, January 27; on that day only, play begins at 5 a.m. Chicago time: exciting as it may be, I'll skip the beginning of that round.)

2700chess.com for more details and full list