Chicago Latino Championship XXI

Mark Coleman edged out Julio Alejandro Lara on a tiebreak to take first place in the 15-and-up section of the 21st annual Chicago Latino Chess Championship, held Nov. 30 at Rudy Lozano Branch Library in Pilsen.

Coleman and Lara both went into the fifth round of the event with scores of 3.5/4 and won their last-round games, but it was Coleman’s victory over top-rated Expert Joe Fennessey of Marist High School, who’d entered the round with a perfect score, that clinched his tournament win.

Fennessey took third place in the section ahead of Eric Paniagua, Cuitla Alaniz of Fenwick High School, and José Antonio Rodríguez Jr., who all finished with 4.0/5.

In the 14-and-under section, Ricky Román of Nightingale School tore through the opposition with five straight wins, adding to a winning streak that now totals 14 games after similar performances in the Chicago Prep Bowl Open on Nov. 16 and a scholastic tournament at St. John’s Lutheran School in Lombard on Nov. 23.

Ricky’s wins included a fourth-round victory over second-place finisher Abdel Raoul of Lindblom Math and Science Academy, a French Advance that came down to a tense rook-and-pawn endgame in the final minutes. With two extra pawns, Ricky overwhelmed Abdel, forcing his king into a state of paralysis on the back rank.

Abdel finished second on a tiebreak ahead of Daniel Zhang of South Loop School. Both earned scores of 4.0/5.

Coleman prevailed over Fennessey in a Closed Sicilian that also boiled down to a rook-and-pawn endgame, in which Fennessey held a slight advantage with five minutes left on the clock. But in the final minutes, according to Fennessey, Coleman ran his king to the queenside, forced a rook trade, then managed to promote a queenside pawn for the win. (Regrettably, both players had already stopped recording moves by the time the decisive trade occurred.)

Coleman’s triumph in the Chicago Latino Championship follows an upset win over Expert Bill Brock in a Chicago Industrial Chess League match between the Rogue Squadron and the American Medical Association Tornado Snakes.

Players in this year’s Chicago Latino Championship ranged in age from 5-year-old Ricardo Flores Jr. to 93-year-old Elisa Blancas, who collected two scalps in this year’s event. In addition to Rodríguez, winner of two Illinois middle-grade championships in 2001 and 2002, the field included two former Chicago Public Schools MVP scholarship winners (second-place Lara and Cristián Peña, 2.5/5) and four high school–level coaches (Coleman, Leo; Neal Suwe, Kelly; Pablo Alvarez, Highland Park; and Raúl García, formerly of Bowen).

The tournament was organized by Lozano Library manager and former Illinois Chess Association president Héctor Hernández, who has been holding the annual event at the library since 1993. Past participants have included 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.