Local Universities Compete at Amateur Team North

By on February 25, 2013 in

By Matt Barrett

The 2013 U.S. Amateur Team North took place in the Chicago suburb of Schaumberg, Ill., between Friday, February 15, and Sunday, February 17. The event featured numerous titled players and chess players from around the midwest region. Representatives from Saint Louis included two teams from Lindenwood University and two from Webster University.

The format for this team tournament required an average rating under 2200 spread out across four boards. As a result, teams implemented a variety of strategies to fit under the cap. Webster's "Gorlok Express," for example, featured GM Anatoly Byhovsky (2617) on board 1 and GM Denes Boros (2552) on board 2, IM Vitaly Niemer (2485) at board 3, and Paul Truong (1120) at board 4. Other teams, such as University of Chicago, had four players all of similar ratings, without a single player over 2200. In the end, team tournaments of this kind make it somewhat difficult to predict which strategy will bear the most fruit.

Round 1 presented an immediate challenge for "Lindenwood," as they were pitted against Webster University's "Gorlok Express." Surprisingly, the Lindenwood team was able to pull off an upset as Calvin Parnon played a very precise game against Niemer, Josh Cardenas scored an important victory at board 4, and FM Kostya Kavutskiy and WGM Anna Sharevich each held their higher-rated grandmaster opponents to a draw. Ironically, Webster and Lindenwood could have saved the gas by playing at home. The two schools have now travelled to two national events out of state and have been paired together both times (LU lost a close match 2.5-1.5 to Webster at the 2012 Pan-Am Collegiate tournament).

Meanwhile "Lions," the other Lindenwood submission to this year's U.S. Amateur, scored a win 4-0. We immediately began to speculate when and if the two LU teams might be paired to face each other, hoping that such a meeting wouldn't happen until later. As it turned out, they did not ever meet despite sharing the same record at the end of each of the first three rounds.

Round 2 had "Lindenwood" playing NM Tenzing Shaw's "Chess X-men," and "Lions" faced "We have Adream." Micah Losee did, in fact, have Adream. His opponent was Adream Liang, one of two very talented and young brothers who have trained with World Champion Garry Kasparov. Micah played quite well to win that board 4 challenge. IM Levan Bregadze played Awonder, who at 9 years old is the youngest player in history to defeat a grandmaster in tournament play. Bregadze won again and continued his spectacular play from the past several tournaments. Parnon also maintained his strong play this round, pulling out another excellent win. Both teams cruised to victory to sit at 2-0.

Round 3 matched IM Angelo Young's "TMCC: Mating Specialist" against "Lindenwood." This was a match that LU was certainly winning, but Parnon may have played a bit quickly in an easily won endgame. When his game ended in a draw, the match was drawn. In retrospect this match showed how the strength of this Lindenwood team, since this was the only blemish on the record of TMCC, which went on to tie for the championship at 4.5 with Unversity of Illinois.

The fourth round presented a very stiff challenge in the way of "WI Chess Academy," led by GM Josh Friedel. Lindenwood lost this match convincingly, posing little challenge for the very poised Wisconsin team. "Lions" nearly fell victim to a scrappy "Attackamania: III," headed by NM Kevin Czuhai, but swindled a draw in the questionable endgame play of the tournament.

The final round featured "Lions" and a second Illini team in a battle for one of the top places. Lions won handily to finish in a tie for third place overall with a final record of three wins and two draws. The memorable, and undoubtedly longest, game of the tournament was played in round 5 by WGM Anna Sharevich. It was impressive to watch her calmly maneuver and defend a difficult endgame for hours. Round 5 began at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. All of the other games were finished by 7:30 p.m. Meanwhile, Anna and her Chicago opponent played rook and pawn versus bishop and pawn for another two hours and 15 minutes. After an astounding 225 moves, the game ended in a loss, and the spectators cleared. Sharevich may not have won the game, but her performance in the spotlight was extraordinary.

This game certainly provided an entertaining ending to a fun weekend of chess!

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