Saturday, March 23, 2019

XXIX Hales Corners Challenge (Southwest Chess Club)

Hola darlings!  It's that time of year once again.  Goddesschess is sponsoring cash prizes for female players which are paid in addition to any prize money for which the player may qualify.  Goddesschess is pleased to have provided prize money for Southwest Chess Club's Spring and Fall tournaments since Hales Corners Challenge VIII!

This year's 29th Spring Tournament will be held on Saturday April 13, 2019 - 4 rounds in one day, whew!  We're back in a Milwaukee location, whoop whoop!  This year's event will be held at the Crowne Plaza Milwaukee Airport Hotel at 6401 South 13th Street in Milwaukee.

US Chess Grand Prix Points: 10
Wisconsin Tour event! 
4SS, G/60;d6. 2 Sections: Open & Reserve (under 1600). 

You can find further details at the Southwest Chess Club blog, as well as a link to the flyer. 

Goddesschess Prizes:

Open: $50 per win/$25 per draw
Reserve: $20 per win/$10 per draw
Perfect Score Prizes for Females: $80 in Open/$40 in Reserve

This year we're scheduled at the same time as a national girl's chess competition in Chicago so some of our best female players may not be with us this spring.  This may present a great opportunity for some new chess femme future stars to shine at the Hales Corners Challenge!!!!!  They're great events, I hope there will be a "fabulous, dahling" turnout!

2019 U.S. Women's Chess Championship

It's that time of year again, darlings!  Yes, once again, the "St. Louis Chess Club," whose formal name is too long for me to remember, something with Chess and Scholastic and Center in it -- is hosting the U.S. Chess Championships.  It's smaller than you'd expect (at least it was in 2009 when I visited the city) in a great location on this wonderful mini-pedestrian mall area in an upscale neighborhood of St. Louis, right across the street from the World Chess Hall of Fame with its fabulous shows and displays. 

This year's Championships started on March 18 and end on April 1.  Not exactly an auspicious date (in my humble opinion) for ending a world-class tournament.  The prize fund is $100,000, which is fabulous.  Except the male players are competing for $185,000 in total prizes.  And the $64,000 Fischer Award will be paid to ANY player(s) who have a perfect score.  Yeah - well, you never know...

This year's field of twelve players features some "venerable veterans" and several young and eager up and comers, many with ELOs below 2400. Here's the Field:

GM Irina Krush 2533, age 35
IM Anna Zatonskih 2489, age 40
WGM Tatev Abrahamyan 2462, age 31
WGM Jennifer Yu 2398, age 17
WIM Carissa Yip 2384, age 15
WGM Sabina Foisor 2362, age 29
WIM Annie Wang 2360, age 16
WGM Anna Sharevich 2354, age 33
WIM Akshita Gorti 2352, age 16
WIM Maggie Feng 2333, age 18
WIM Emily Nguyen 2310, age 16
WIM Ashritha Eswaran 2295, age 18

Standings after Round 3 (chart courtesy of www.uschesschamps.com):
:


Cross-Table and Round 3 Pairings (chart courtesy of www.uschesschamps.com):




Tani Adewumi Wins His Age Group in New York State Championship While Family Lives in Homeless Shelter

By now you would have heard the story.  There is more coverage at The New York Times:

This 8-Year Old Chess Champion Will Make You Smile
Overcoming Life's Basic Truth:  Talent is universal, but opportunity is not.
By Nicholas Kristol (Opinion writer)
March 16, 2019

Our Chess Champion Has a Home
The 8-year old refuge who last week was thrilled to have a trophy suddenly has so much more.
By Nicholas Kristol (Opinion writer)
March 3, 2019

This article is from The Washington Post.  Tani made the big time!

Chess victory is ticket out of shelter for 
8-year-old boy
From AP
March 19, 2019


NEW YORK — An 8-year-old boy’s victory as New York state chess champion will be his family’s ticket out of a homeless shelter.
The New York Times reported that Tani Adewumi (TAH’-nee ah-deh-WOO’-mee) won the state chess title for his age group this month even though he learned to play only about a year ago.
Tani and his family have lived in a New York City shelter since fleeing Nigeria in 2017. The Christian family feared attacks by the militant group Boko Haram.
Tani’s chess coach Russell Makofsky (muh-KAHF’-skee) set up a GoFundMe account for the family after Tani won the championship.
Makofsky joined Tani on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday and said that thanks to donations, the family is moving into an apartment.
Tani says he “felt surprised” by his win.

And Garry Kasparov wrote a piece for The Washington Post.

By Garry Kasparov
Contributor, PostEverything

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