He's Done It! 1300 Mark Regained!

DeKalb Chess Club veteran Cliff Adams has regained the 1300-plateau he hadn't seen in 18 months. With Saturday's solid performance at the Northwest Illinois Open, Cliff bumped his USCF rating to a highly respectable 1318.

Of the more than 2300 active USCF tournament players in Illinois, Cliff already ranks in the top 30% -- and he promises to enter even more rarefied air as the rating system catches up on his recent results.

He's also in the top 30% of the almost 48,000 active USCF tournament players nationwide.

With a fourth round victory over yours truly, Cliff compiled a 2.0/4 showing in the upper section at Saturday's Freeport tournament. He clearly had a well-planned response as White to my tame Sicilian Defense and ran his knight amuck in my backfield.

Route 20 Chess Club put on an outstanding event with eight open players and 18 in the under-1000/unrated section. That's 26 players enjoying a lot of chess action for $5 on a stormy spring day.

Cliff's projected 1318 rating represents a seven month blitz on the local chess world where his rating has climbed 271 points! If he duplicates that improvement, he'll be rated 1589 by Thanksgiving!

Back in September of last year, the former DeKalb County Highway commissioner saw his rating drop to 1047 with DeKalb's second open tournament.  This was a sad day, but every chess player has one of those.

Since then, he "paved the way" for his comeback with an 88-point boost from the McHenry Area Chess (MAC) October tournament in Elgin.

Cliff saw a 63-point bump from December's MAC tournament, a 25-point increment from DeKalb's 2011 Illinois Kick-off, a 30-point hike from January's MAC tournament, a 22-point hike in DeKalb's late January event, a 58-point escalation in DeKalb's March tournament before this 54-point enhancement from Saturday's Freeport event. Wow!

Since 2004, Cliff's highest USCF rating has been 1361 which he enjoyed in May of 2008. USCF records indicate he had a rating of 1443 prior to their conversion to a new data collection system in 1991. Alas, that pre-'91 history is not factored in to his current ratings path.

Cliff's consistent tournament play has certainly paid off and DeKalb Chess Club is lucky to have his venerable knight moves in its midst.

Chicago's Kittilsen runs table at Mid-Month Sunday Challenge

Guy Kittilsen was the sole undefeated combatant  in today's Challenge. James Freestrom and Adam Ford scored 3.0 out of 4 to split second and third place monies. Guy enhanced his rating 26 points while Adam continued his incredible spring, incrementing his rating 38 points. Mysteriously, James actually dropped 9 points, but I'm sure that will be made up soon.

Perhaps the big winner of the day was Michael Fisher who bumped his rating 106 points after going 2-2 against stiff competition. Keep it up, Michael!

Between rounds we even celebrated a birthday, but unfortunately the guest of honor was unable to make the party. There's always next year!

Exciting Registrations For Sunday Tournament

Registrations are filtering in for the Sunday, April 10 tournament. Once again, we'll be at American National Bank. USCF members may continue to provide pre-registration information through 8am Sunday morning by emailing registration@dekalbchess.com.

A Game/40 format will allow for four rounds of play. Players with digital clocks shall use Game/35 with a 5 second delay. On-site registration will be cut off around 11:45am, with play beginning at noon and wrapping up by 6pm.

Participants will have a chance to vote on tournament dates for this summer.

If you're unable to attend the tournament, but have opinions related to a summer tournament schedule, please contact us (the same email address can be used).

Without your support, these tournaments would not be possible. Thank you parents, coaches, and, of course, players for keeping chess in Illinois going!

Decatur Chess Phenom Profiled

The Decatur Herald & Review has profiled a downstate 6-year old who did well at the recent Illinois K-8 championships. He went undefeated in the 1st grade section, winning all 7 matches in the Game/30 competition. He'll move on to Nationals in Dallas.

Herald & Review Article 

 His father is quoted regarding his son's passion for chess.

"He doesn't play video games," said his father. "He plays chess. He does a little bit of piano. He does a little bit of tennis," and there is some soccer in the mix, as well. But Aydin's routine, and down time in the classroom, relies heavily on chess. School mornings involve a half hour of chess and chess problem-solving before catching the school bus.

It doesn't hurt that his pops is the top-ranked Correspondence chess player in the United States.

No word whether young Mr. Turgut will be joining us at the Mid-Month Sunday Challenge. You'll have to show up to find out.

Open Play Experiment - Wednesday 4/6

Club member Al Johns has arranged a one-time only evaluation of an alternate location for Open Play.

For this Wednesday, April 6th, the club will hold its open play session at the Conference Room at the clubhouse of the Sycamore Park District Golf Course. The course is on Route 64 (East State Street) about a mile or so east of downtown Sycamore.

For those of you using a GPS, set your destination to 940 E. State Street. The conference room is behind the Administration office, enter at the rear of the building.

As usual, we'll get going at 3PM and see how it goes. Afterward, members are invited to drop an email to DeKalbChess@gmail.com to express their preference. Don't be shy -- your voice matters!

Thanks, Al, for arranging this awesome opportunity!

Sunday 4/10: And of course, members and the public are invited to participate in this weekend's USCF-rated Mid-Month Sunday Challenge at the American National Bank (1985 DeKalb Avenue, Sycamore). Details are in the right column of this page. Please take note: due to space limitations, there will be no casual game play at the tournament site.