Jim Dean, DAnny Gater, Garrett Smith and Drew Hollinberger, the winning team.
When the third seed wins the tournament by overpowering seeds one, two, and four, it’s a good sign that the winner did not have it easy. When it happens in a team competition, one can state without a doubt: the strongest team won.
Jimmy Runs Deep (Jim Dean, Garrett Smith, Drew Hollinberger, Danny Gater) was put together by the known FIDE master Jim Dean from Indiana. It is fair to say that the team lived up to its name, perhaps even to the multiple meanings of the name! Round three was probably the closest call for the winners as they faced the future runner-up and rating favorite Vaja International House of Pancakes (NM Erik Santarius, NM Ashish Vaja, Joe Richards, Jake Kohlenberg). Erik Santarius declined a line that would have led to a draw and ended up losing, while Jake Kohlenberg went astray in what looked like a winning position right out of the opening. After Vaja won on board two, it was left up to Joe Richards to salvage the match, but this wasn’t meant to be as Drew Hollinberger defended the opposite color bishop ending down a couple pawns rather accurately. Round four saw Jimmy Runs Deep prevailing over the strong Chicago Industrial Chess League and in round five they beat the other team from Indiana, Kistler’s Team (FM Dennis Monokroussos, Kevin Fyr, Leslie Kistler, Mathew Leach). Here is the key game from board four:
2903
[Alex Betaneli]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 b5 5.Bb3 Be7 6.0–0
I am not sure if Black's move order can be outright "refuted," but it appears that 6.d4 can pose serious problems: [6.d4 exd4 (6...d6 7.dxe5 dxe5 8.Qxd8+ Bxd8 9.Bd5 Nge7 10.Nxe5±) 7.c3 Bb7 a) 7...dxc3?? 8.Qd5+-; b) 7...Nf6? 8.e5 Ne4 (8...Ng4 9.cxd4±) 9.Bd5±; 8.cxd4 appears far from equal as far as black is concerned.
6...Nf6 7.Re1 0–0 8.d4 d6 9.c3 Bg4 10.d5 Na5 11.Bc2
We have now reached a known theoretical position.
11...c5
Here 11...c6! is considered to be the best move for black.
12.Nbd2 Nb7 13.Nf1 h6 14.Ng3 Nh7 15.h3 Bd7 16.Be3 Qe8 17.Nh2
White is looking for action on the K-side, but perhaps Q-side play is more prudent here. For example, 17.b4!? assures that the N on b7 remains unhappy for the foreseeable future.
17...Nd8?!
17...Bg5 looks like a logical follow-up to the Nh7 idea; white has a pleasant position, but his edge is slight.
18.f4 Bh4 19.Qf3 f6 20.Rf1 Bxg3?!
Although black has a worse position, this move seems like a real concession. After 20...exf4 21.Bxf4 Nf7 black is in the game.
21.Qxg3 Nf7 22.Nf3 Kh8?
And this move is an outright mistake as white ends up winning material without facing problems. 23.Nh4 exf4 24.Ng6+ Kg8 25.Bxf4 Nhg5 26.Nxf8 Qxf8 27.h4 Nh7 28.Qd3
Perhaps more energetic was 28.e5!? but the game move does not spoil anything.
28...Ne5 29.Bxe5 dxe5 30.a4
White opens up the position and his rooks enter the game with decisive effect
30...Qe8 31.axb5 axb5 32.Qd1 Rb8 33.Ra7 Nf8 34.Qf3 Qc8 35.Rfa1 Ng6 36.g3 Bg4 37.Qf2 h5 38.Kh2 c4 39.R1a6 Qd8 40.Qc5 Bd7 41.Bd1 b4 42.cxb4 Nxh4 43.Qc7 Qxc7 44.Rxc7 Bb5 45.Raa7 1–0
Perhaps some consolation for the Kistler’s Team was the fact that two of their players (Fyr and Kistler) tied for first place in the very strong Midwest Blitz Championship held on Saturday evening. The other two winners were Erik Santarius and Alexander Velikanov.
Chicago Industrial Chess League (Anastasia Antipova, Fred Allsbrook, Yuri Fridman, Suman Kalavagunta and Tom Friske) looked strong, but was possibly hurt by the fast pace of the 2-day schedule (first two rounds were g/60). In round two they ran into an underrated team from Green Bay that took the best u1900 prize in the end (Green Bay Team: Kelly Borman, Josiah Stein, Luke Ludwig, and Tim Bogenschutz). The match finished tied:
2901
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 Qc7 9.0–0–0 Nc6 10.Be2 Nxd4 11.Rxd4 b5 12.e5! Bb7 13.Qg3 dxe5 14.fxe5 Bc5 15.Rd2 b4
16.Nb5!
After this move black's king never finds any peace.
16...axb5 17.Bxb5+ Bc6 18.Bxc6+ Qxc6 19.exf6 0–0 20.Bh6 g6 21.Bxf8 Rxa2 22.Rd8
Even though this move is simple, it's the only move that wins for white! Staying cool in face of time pressure pays off big time.
22...Bxf8 23.Kb1 Ra8 24.Rhd1 b3 25.Qxb3 Qxg2 26.Qb4 Rxd8 27.Rxd8 Qf1+ 28.Ka2 Qa6+ 29.Kb3 1–0
Please visit http://www.chicagochessleague.org/ to learn more about Chicago Industrial Chess League that was founded all the way back in 1957! The team finished third after defeating talented Wisconsin juniors (Team Pan: Hongkai Pan, Neil Strugnell, Suhas Kodali, and Tim Broman) in the last round by the score of 3--1. However, the battle was tougher than one might suspect:
2902
1.d4 f5
Last round games often see the most combative openings.
2.g3 e6 3.Bg2 Nf6 4.Nf3 Be7 5.c4 0–0 6.0–0 d6 7.b3 Qe8 8.Bb2 Qh5 9.Nbd2 Bd7 10.Re1 Nc6 11.e4 fxe4 12.Nxe4 Rae8?!
13.Qd3?!
White had a chance to get a comfortable advantage after: 13.Nxf6+ Bxf6 (13...gxf6 14.d5 exd5 15.cxd5 Ne5 16.Nd4 also fails to inspire; whereas 13...Rxf6 14.d5 exd5 15.Qxd5+ Qxd5 16.cxd5 is simply winning for white) 14.Ne5! this wonderful move was found by DeepJunior. 14...Qxd1 15.Raxd1 dxe5 16.dxe5 Bxe5 17.Bxe5 Nxe5 18.Rxe5 Bc8 and white can torture black for the rest of the game.
13...Kh8 14.h3 Nxe4 15.Qxe4 Bf6 16.g4 Qf7 17.Re2 Nb4 18.a3
It's not clear what black had in mind after 18.Qxb7 Nd3 19.Qxc7.
18...Bc6 19.Qe3 Bxf3 20.Qxf3 Nc6 21.Qd3 Bh4 22.Rf1 Ne7 23.f4 d5 24.a4 Ng6 25.Bc1
[Had white played 25.f5! right away, the game may have ended before first time control as after 25...exf5 26.Bxd5 Qd7 27.Rxe8 Rxe8 28.gxf5 there is nothing but suffering for black.
25...c6 26.f5
But now black is in good shape to meet this advance.
26...exf5 27.Rxf5 dxc4 28.bxc4 Qd7 29.Be4 Qc7 30.Rxf8+ Rxf8
31.Bf5?
Until now white played rather well, but this move is a serious error that should have cost white the game. Resulting positions (Bishops of opposite color with major pieces on the board) are somewhat easy to evaluate: the side that gets to attack the King usually has a huge advantage. In this game, it's not even close as black can terrorize the white king relentlessly. By contrast, the quiet-looking 31.Bxg6! hxg6 32.Ba3 leads to a balanced, level position.
31...Nf4 32.Bxf4 Qxf4 33.d5 g6 34.Be4 Qf1+ 35.Kh2 Bg5
35...Bf2–+ makes the win easy 36.Rxf2 Rxf2+ 37.Kg3 Rg2+ 38.Kh4 Qf6+ 39.g5 Qf4#
36.Kg3 h5 37.gxh5 gxh5 38.Bf3 Bf6?
A mistake in the sudden death time trouble. The most convincing way was the immediate 38...Rg8! and white is helpless against the attack on the dark squares, for example: 39.Qf5 Bf6+ 40.Kf4 Qc1+ 41.Re3 Bg5+ wins a whole Queen for black.
39.Qe3
Now it all fizzles out to a draw.
39...Rg8+ 40.Kh2 Bg5 41.Qe5+ Kh7 42.Qf5+ Kh8 43.Qe5+ Kh7 ½–½
The Prize Table at the U.S. Amateur Team North. Photo courtesy www.gettingto2000.blogspot.com.
The final prize winner (best u1300) was the University of Chicago B team (Mike Mei, Jason Cigan, Ken Yuan, Allison Hegel). Unfortunately, University of Chicago missed the Pan American team tournament at the end of the 2008 (due to flight delays and cancellations all over Midwest), but you can count on them being there in full force this year.
Scholastic section was a one day event on Saturday and saw University School of Milwaukee (James Bowen, Saptarshi Ghose, Alex Yerukhimov, Ishan Sinha) take the top honors. Best high school prize went to P0N3YZ (Vince Paasch, Eli Baumann, Marshall Sumwalt, Thomas Lyneis), best middle school was Chocolate Banana ROOKies (Aaron Jing, Mihir Kansara, Andrew McNeel, Noah Zamzow-Schmidt), and the Knights of Muskego (Gregory Reese Jr., Evan Seghers, Reid Seghers, Kolton Otterbacher) was the top elementary school team.
The tournament was co-sponsored by Vaja International Chess Academy (www.vajachess.com), Wisconsin Chess Academy (www.wichessacademy.com), and by Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Association (www.wscachess.org). NTD Glenn Panner was the chief tournament director and Mike Nietman helped to run the scholastic section smoothly. Please visit www.wichessacademy.com and www.gettingto2000.blogspot.com for complete results, including blitz side event. Check out the complete MSA rated results here.