Tennessee’s WMDs

It’s not often you see a 2600+ super GM and a recent U.S. chess champion on Board 2 of a USCL match, but that’s what it’ll look like this Wednesday night when the Tennessee Tempo throw everything they’ve got at the Chicago Blaze in an attempt to break their three-match losing streak against our Windy City squad.

It’ll be Jan vs. Jaan on Board 1, IM Jan van de Mortel of the Blaze against one of the nation’s strongest players, GM Jaan Ehlvest of Tennessee. On Board 2, Chicago’s IM-elect Florin Felecan won’t have it any easier, facing another of the nation’s strongest players, former U.S. Champion GM Alexander Shabalov, whom the Blaze have never faced before. Florin will have the Black pieces.



Here are the pairings. The Blaze players are in bold. We’ll have White on Boards 1 and 3 and Black on Boards 2 and 4.

Board 1
IM Jan van de Mortel (2456) vs. GM Jaan Ehlvest (2697)

Board 2
FM Florin Felecan (2430) vs. GM Alex Shabalov (2624)

Board 3
IM Angelo Young (2325) vs. FM John Bick (2260)

Board 4
Trevor Magness (2138) vs. Gerald Larson (2140)

Blaze Avg Rating: 2337 / Tempo Avg Rating:2430

Can the Tempo do it? Can they finally beat the Blaze with two top grandmasters? Do we stand a chance against such firepower? To find out, tune in Wednesday night at 7:00 Chicago time, on the Internet Chess Club, Chicago’s Midway Chess Club, and Twitter. Or better yet, come and cheer the team in person at the Skokie Holiday Inn. All fans are welcome. Go Blaze!

The Blaze Ignite

Chicago finally gets on the board with a 2.5-1.5 victory over Tennessee


Photos: Daniel Parmet

It’s good to win. That was the sentiment at the Holiday Inn Skokie last night as the Chicago Blaze finally posted their first victory of the 2009 season, beating the Tennessee Tempo 2.5-1.5 and breaking a five-match losing streak that extended to the end of last season.

As might be expected, it was the ever-reliable IM Angelo Young, still undefeated in USCL play, who hit the Volunteer State crew first, with a victory over FM Todd Andrews to spur his teammates and even the score, after FM Florin Felecan, with the Black pieces and a near-impossible match-up against Jaan Ehlvest on Board 1, had fallen to his super-GM opponent.

That left IM Mehmed Pasalic on Board 3, and NM Jon Burgess, Board 4, with the burden of determining the outcome of the match. Both games looked iffy, and a somber mood momentarily descended on the venue until both players rallied, Mehmed to victory over FM Peter Bereolos and Jon to hold FM John Bick to a draw.

Here are the games:

1. GM Jaan Ehlvest (TEN) vs FM Florin Felecan (CHC) 1-0

2. IM Angelo Young (CHC) vs FM Todd Andrews (TEN) 1-0

3. FM Peter Bereolos (TEN) vs IM Mehmed Pasalic (CHC) 0-1

4. NM Jon Burgess (CHC) vs FM John Bick (TEN) 1/2-1/2

Tennessee was one of the weaker teams in the league last year, but with Ehlvest and former U.S. Champion GM Alexander Shabalov now playing for the Nashville cats, they started this season strong and, as the USCL site put it, look like “a different team” this year. Last night’s match was their first defeat of the season. It came harder, and is in some ways more satisfying, than the two Blaze victories over the Tempo last year.

Special thanks to Larry Cohen, who served as our Celebrity Tournament Director for the evening’s match. Kudos also to Blaze Assistant Manager Daniel Parmet, who ran the match superbly in the absence of Manager Glenn Panner.

It’s a short week, and there won’t be much time to celebrate. We come back and play the mighty San Francisco Mechanics on Monday. Tune in to the Internet Chess Club, or watch the live coverage by Chicago’s Midway Chess Club.

The Leader of the Pack

The fortunes of America's top chess players in this year's championship tournament are chronicled in the current issue of Chess Life magazine, and top billing goes to Barrington, Ill.-based GM Yury Shuman, who led the pack and brought the championship home to the Prairie State.

Yury, a member of the Chicago Blaze, had finished a close second at the championship meet two years ago. This year he arrived at the event in Tulsa knowing he had a good chance to win. He also knew he'd have to outplay reigning champion Alex Shabalov as well as former champs GMs Boris Gulko and Alexander Onischuk and other hungry competitors, like GM Sergey Kudrin, GM Varuzhan Akobian, IM Josh Friedel (who earned his final grandmaster norm in Tulsa), and Blaze teammate GM Dmitry Gurevich.

Here are two of Yury's most exciting games from the eight-round event. Check out the tripled-pawn situation he overcame in the endgame against IM David Preuss. And see why Chess Life Online used the word "carnage" to characterize Yury's seventh-round confrontation with GM Julio Becerra-Rivero.