Club News
October Chess Roundup
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- Written by Daniel Leroy Daniel Leroy
Orange you glad it's October? For those not a fan of the color, you may want to avoid the vegatable aisle and looking at trees for the next month and focus on chess. Speaking of which, here's a roundup of what's been going on in Illinois.
September 3-5: Illinois Open Tournament in Oakbrook, IL has 144 players and three sections. The Open Section has a tie with Mesgen Amanov, Angelo Young, and Aung Thant Zin all finishing with 5 points out of six rounds. In Section 2, Akshay Indusekar manages just one draw and finishes at the top of the section with 5.5 points. In the G/25 section, Santiago Mata finishes with 4 points in the five round tournament. Crosstables.
September 3: Labor Day Scholastic Tournament in Oakbrook, IL draws 53 players to this two section event. Crosstables.
The 48th Bradley Summer Open
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- Written by Wayne Zimmerle Wayne Zimmerle
This year's BSO had 30 players counting the two housemen. It was won by Nikhilesh Kunche with a clear 4 points. Nikhilesh also won last years BSO. He outrated most of the field with his 2378 rating. He is also a Bradley Grad Student. Three other Bradley students also played this year, which is nice because it is the Bradley Summer Open. Bill Naff took clear second place.
The A/B prize was a 4 way tie between Jonathan Bonwell, Martin Franek, Nir Panneerselvam and Michael Leali. C/D was won by Samuel Heil. E and under was a tie between Kabra Vikas and Mike Kittleson (Both Bradley Students) The upset prize was won by Randy Crum with his first round win over Peter Mc Conaghie (difference of 359 points). The second upset (no prize but I mention because it was so close) was by Aaron Walbert over Stewart Wilkinson (difference of 358 points).
September Chess Roundup
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- Written by Dan Leroy Dan Leroy
As the leaves start to change and the thoughts of vacations and summer fun slowly fade from memory, one thing we can still celebrate is all the labor going into tournaments. 354 people played in 12 rated tournaments across Illinois played during the month of August. Below are all the highlights.
August 7: Lincoln Penny Challenge in Sycamore, IL brought out 36 players in this 4 section event. Crosstables.
August 11: Park Forest Chess Club sponsored this G/15 Quad tournament which had 4 people and Douglas Middleton going 5-1 in 6 rounds. Crosstable.
August 13: Midwest Camp Tournament had 23 players show up for this 2 section event in Peoria, IL. Crosstables.
From Cicadas to Storms
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- Written by Sevan Muradian Sevan Muradian
The 6th North American Amateur Open came and passed this weekend. With a field of 18 players (4 above 1550 and 14 above 1700) we enjoyed an 'eventful weekend'. At the end of the day the winners of the prizes were: 1st place - Steven Szpisjak, 2nd place - Thomas Kaczynski, 3rd place - Joseph Zemgulys.
During round 1 of the event (which ended around 11pm) we had to deal with cicada's flying into the chess center when people would step outside for some fresh air. These loud and fast bugs proved as entertaining as the games did. However the entertainment factor quickly faded and I had to chase down the flying distractions. As much as I tried to get them to peacefully leave the way they came in, they refuse to cooperate so I had to do some chessboard baseball. I rolled up a chessboard and batted the cicada across the room (sorry to the portraits of Bobby Fischer that was on the receiving end of bug guts). Soon after that incident the round game to an end.
DeKalb Chess Club Celebrates the 102nd Anniversary of the Lincoln Penny in Its Own Way
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- Written by Bill Feldman Bill Feldman
Three dozen competitors turned out for the August 7th Lincoln Penny Challenge in Sycamore (eight scholastic players and 28 others). The DeKalb Chess Club hosted this Scholastic and Open tournament in honor of the 102nd anniversary of the first Lincoln-faced coin.
In an exciting 5-minute blitz play-off, Glen Gratz defeated James Marshall, but both experts had gone undefeated in three rounds of tournament play.