Elmhurst Chess Club News
Elmhurst Chess Club News
By Vince Hart
It is once again my humble privilege to bring you the Elmhurst Chess Club news. I would like to apologize for missing the last issue, but I had failed to plan for the fact that the April 15 submission deadline for the ICB was also the submission deadline for the IRS. My wife is a wonderful woman( not to mention darn cute) who is generally quite tolerant of my addiction to chess, but I was unable to persuade her that reporting on the Elmhurst Chess Club was more important than reporting to the Federal government.
The highlight of the club’ s spring schedule was the Elmhurst Class held March 23-24. Three International masters lead the field of eighty-four players competing for a prize fund of $ 3000. Roger Birkeland and Blair Machaj ably directed the four round Swiss that was played in five sections at G120. The Master / Expert section was decided in a last round battle between IM’ s Dominik Pedzich and Osman Palos who along with Zhe Quan entered the round with scores of 2.5- 1.5. Pedzich managed to prevail over Palos who had the consolation of knowing that he faced the toughest pairings of the tournament going up against Pedzich, and two out of the three second-place finishers, IM Angelo Young and Igor Tsyganov from New Jersey. Quan, who drew his last round game with Albert Chow, shared in second place at 3-1.
The Class A prize was taken by Chris Neinert with a score of 3.5-. 5 that carried a performance rating of 2256. Douglas Middleton and Dan Modes tied for second. Neinert’ s 1715 rating entering the event made his victory particularly impressive, adding more than 100 points to his rating. First place in Class B was shared by Isaac M. Braswell and Jacobo Moreno at 3.5-. 5 with Chris Baumgartner and Andrew Hubbard close behind at 3.0-1.0. The only perfect 4-0 score was produced by local legend Kermit Dodson in Class C. The cagey veteran is an inspiration to all of us in the over-forty crowd who sometimes get the feeling that we are just rungs for the junior players to step on as they climb the ratings ladder. Second place at 3-1 was shared by Charles Giertz, Tim Ailes, and Gary Levine. Michael Cummings took first in Class D and below with 3.5-. 5. James Van Petten, Kevin Wong, and Salvador De la Mora tied for second with 3-1.
Finding events this spring was often an adventure, as our kind hosts at Elmhurst College needed the club’ s regular space for a computer camp. For several weeks the club was moved from spot to spot before settling in spacious digs at the Hammerschmidt Chapel. Despite these difficulties, twenty-eight players managed to track down the club in the College’ s
Chess Clubs
executive boardroom on February 24 for a five round G15 Swiss. Displaying his customary dominance at the short time controls, Jacob Moreno took first place with 4.5-. 5. Second place at 4-1 was shared by Goran Galiot and Darwin Nyberg whose strong showing included a draw with Moreno. U1600 went to Isaiah Pettye with 3.5-1.5 and U1400 was taken by Aaron Anderson with 3-2.
From April 7 to May 5, twenty players participated in the Elmhurst Club Championship at the leisurely pace of G120. Your correspondent managed to win the tournament with a perfect score of 5-0 aided by the fact that a couple of our stronger club members forgot to set their clocks ahead on April 7. Happily for me, masters of the minority attack and corresponding squares may still fall victim to the vagaries of spring forward / fall behind. Of course a half-point bye was available to those who wished to start the second week, but a magnificent eighty-degree day on April 14 discouraged all the potential late starters except hardcore chess junkie Mark Engelen. This tournament also marked my debut as a tournament director, a job that is made much easier these days with the help of computers. However, I have to say that I was as surprised as anyone when the pairing program gave me the white pieces in all five rounds against opponents with an average rating of 1129. Richard Easton, Peter Kuhn and Brian Egerton shared second place at 3.5-1.5. Kevin Potts and Vladimir Djordjevic shared in the U1600 prize with 3-2 scores while Chris Wood took U1400 with 2.5-2.5.
On June 2, eighteen players turned out for a five-round G15 Swiss. Club members originally thought they would get a break with FM Dejan Maksimovic taking the evening off to watch the seventh game of the Kings-Lakers series( where sadly his countrymen Vlade Divac and Pedrag Stojakavic were unable to prevail). It was not to be though as IM Dominik Pedzich chose that evening to grace the club with a visit and delivered a whacking to the rest of the field in Max’ s place with a score of 4.5-. 5. Second place at 4- 1 was shared by Matt Pullin who managed to nick the IM for a draw and by David George. New club members Martin Butz and Douglas Strain quickly wore out their welcomes by taking U1600 with 3-2 and U1400 with 2-3 respectively.
On June 9, fifteen players participated in a G5 round robin. Jacob Moreno took first place with 12.5-1.5. Runner-up Matt Pullin turned in a strong showing for the second consecutive week with 10.5-3.5. Your correspondent finished first among the A players with 9.5-4.5 while George David and Darwin Nyberg shared the B prize with 9-5. The sensation of the event, however, was clearly Dan Dugovic who took the C prize with a score of 10-4 that included wins over your
Illinois Chess Bulletin 35