Chicago Latino Chess Championship XIX

The youngest entrant in this year's Chicago Latino Chess Championship, Elizabeth Rivera, was born in 2005. The oldest, Elisa Blancas, was born in 1920.

Having been assigned to two different sections, they didn't face each other across the board, except in a friendly game after the fifth and final round of the tournament. But if you're looking for an illustration of chess's enduring appeal, could you ask for a better one?

 

Forty-nine players turned out for the tournament on Saturday, Nov. 26, the 19th such event to be held at the Rudy Lozano Branch Library in Pilsen. In addition to las dos Elisas, the participants included players from 12 elementary schools, eight high schools and two chess-playing families. Two players in Section I, Cristián Peña and Valentín Urbina, were former city scholastic champions.

Kymantas Alborovas of Chicago Ridge swept Section I (age 15 and above) with a score of 5.0/5. Behind him were the top-finishing high school player, Lauro Nava of Kelly High School; Carlos Zorea of Streeterville, a recent arrival from Michigan, originally from La Plata, Argentina; and Urbina, tied at 4.0/5. Ricardo Román of Gage Park finished fifth in the section with 3.5/5. Alborovas and Nava faced off in the fourth round over a high-level Ruy Lopez Exchange that remained even right up to the end, when Nava played two consecutive inaccuracies in a pawn endgame.

Father Luis Peña and sons Cristián and Andy Peña made a respectable showing in the section with scores of 3.0, 2.5 and 2.0. Cristián Peña, a Whitney Young High School 12th-grader who won a $12,000 scholarship in the Chicago Public Schools MVP tournament this past April and went 4.5/6 at the U.S. Chess Federation K–12 Championship the weekend before Thanksgiving, hit an unexpected wall at the Chicago Latino, losing to Alborovas in the second round and then being upset by Joe Fennessey, 15, of Marist High School in the third (perhaps Fennessey was looking for revenge after being defeated by Luis Peña in the first round). In the fifth round, he drew with Orlando Estrada, 17, of Kelly.

Ricky Román, 10, of Nightingale School—and son of Ricardo Román—went 5.0/5 for a clear win in Section II (age 14 and under). He was followed by Jonathan García, 12, of Hernandez Middle School; Benito Arciga, 11, of Hurley School; and Christopher Gora, 8, of La Salle II Magnet School, each with 4.0/5. Michael Macon, 12; Laron McGregory, 11; Ural Williams, 10; and Tyler Brown, 10, of the large contingent from Beasley Magnet Academic Center all finished with 3.0/5, as did Izellah Ortiz, 8, of Kinzie School, and Carlos Villalón, 10, of Pershing Elementary School in Berwyn. Román and Gora each went into the fifth round with perfect scores; Gora played a Caro-Kann Defense, which Román was unfamiliar with, but lost a piece to a deflection tactic and later had to surrender his trapped queen for a rook.

Ricky Román’s brother Danny, 6, also of Nightingale, played in Section II as well; a beginner defeated by older players, he earned 1 game point from a bye. Following the wisdom of the legendary Cuban player José Raúl Capablanca, "Se puede sacar mas provecho de una partida perdida que de cien ganadas" ("One can take away more profit from one lost game than from a hundred wins"), Danny Román can take heart that he has gained the experience of a player who has won over 400 games!

The Chicago Latino Chess Championship, organized by the Knight Moves Chess Club, has been held at the Lozano Branch Library continuously since 1993. Past participants have included José Antonio Rodríguez Jr., a four-time champion at the U.S. Junior Open; and visiting IM Roberto Martín del Campo and WFM (now WIM) Yadira Hernández Guerrero, both of Mexico, who finished in first and third place in 1995. (Second place went to the then–freshman champion of Illinois, Fernando Montoya, who defeated Hernández in a 5-minute blitz tiebreaker; it was Montoya’s older brother, José Montoya, who gave the Knight Moves Chess Club its name.)

Cristián Peña played his first Chicago Latino Chess Championship tournament in 1998, when he was 4 years old. Here’s hoping we see Elizabeth Rivera, Danny Román and—who knows?—maybe even Elisa Blancas still playing in 2024.