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Erik and Andrew Karklins: 143 Years of Chess and Counting
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- Written by Ken Marshall Ken Marshall
Metropolitan Chicago has a history of significant chess activity dating back to the 1800s. Over the past half century alone the city and its suburbs have hosted six U.S. Opens and hundreds of other major events. Thousands of players have come and gone during that time, but two have played in virtually every Illinois tournament of consequence since 1962: National Master Erik Karklins and his son, FIDE Master, Original Life Master, and former Senior Master Andrew Karklins. Certainly the strongest father-son duo in Illinois chess history, the two of them combine for 143 years of chess experience.
Click here to read this reprint of a Chess Life article, presented complete with games.
Three Crucial Games from Eric Rosen's National High School Title Run
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To me, the striking thing about the following three games is the maturity of Eric Rosen's play and the universality of his style. He can play a pragmatic technical ending, get into a crazy slugfest and create problems for his opponents from the ugliest of positions, or play for strategic domination. In short, he's most deserving of the 2011 National High School title!
Eric was kind enough to annotate the first game: additional comments beyond Eric's are indicated by "RR" (the Informant symbol for editorial comments).
Sicilian Defense: The Most Useful Trap You've Never Seen
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NM Fred Rhine shows how a centralized setup can be a problem in a variation of the Sicilian Defense in this YouTube video. Or, visit ICA's Chess Blog to see all three new videos from NM Rhine.