UChicago sweeps USAT North!

This past weekend, the University of Chicago chess club sent 2 teams to the US Amateur Team North event held February 18-20 in Schaumburg, Illinois. UChicago swept the competition, taking first and third place as well as the top college prize. The first team, ‘UChicago A’ entered with a staggering 2195.5 average rating and was the top seed of the event. The A team was comprised of FM Kapil Chandran, Christoph Eichinger, Dylan Sunjic, and Oliver Heggli-Noonay. While the A team had a more balanced composition, I played on the top-heavy B team. With myself, GM Praveen Balakrishnan, FM William Graif, and Brian Hu, our average came in at a more modest 2113.

Indeed, the A team proved their superiority by leapfrogging the B team early on. While we drew ‘TrixR4Kids’ in round 2, the A team led the charge by taking all comers on board 1 for the entire event! While the B team was struggling to put away teams on board 6 or 7, the A team appeared invincible on board 1. However, on the final day the A-team gave away 2 draws, allowing the B-team to sneak past into the first place. Truly a team effort!

Round 1 against ‘FatCat: King Cat Champions (1806.33) started off shakily for your author, a sign of things to come. In a common anti-grunfeld that soon transposed into an English, what started off as a comfortable opening position changed as I found myself getting unexpectedly outplayed despite the 700+ rating edge.

However, the most important game of the entire tournament was Brian Hu’s win against Aladdin Al-Haddad. This event was just Brian’s second otb event, which was difficult to tell with the enthusiasm he showed every round. His spot on the team was almost in question as he attempted to spread flyers for Bridge Club in one of our meetings, but we managed cut a deal where Bridge Club would receive at least four times as many flyers in return. A worthy negotiation!

Unbeknownst to our team at the time, this game would eventually decide the entire tournament.

If Round 1 was a shaky affair, round 2 against ‘TrixR4Kids’ (1910.5) was even shakier: Praveen won a solid game, but William suffered a freak accident, losing on board 3 in an intense time scramble. Down 2-1 at this point already, it all came down to my game against Avi Kaplan (2116). With the white pieces, I wasn’t expecting much, but by the time I started to think seriously, it was almost too late.

On the other hand, the A team did not stray away from their winning ways, with Kapil Chandran scoring a fine win in a rook endgame. Kapil eventually finished with 4.5/5, an excellent result!

Round 3 featured a battle between colleges, where we faced off against Purdue University A (2076). Ultimately, UChicago claimed the title with a solid 3-1 win. It’s just bad luck to be fighting for the title of best Chicago University against a school that has Chicago in its name.

Entering the final day, UChicago A was perfect with 3/3, while we were still in the running with 2.5/3. While UChicago A drew against ‘dreamy knights’ (2183), we delivered yet another 3-1 victory against ‘A Splash of Champaign.’ Once again, with the massive home field advantage, UIUC had little chance. Unexpectedly, I had a lost position already on move 14, but once again I was saved by the law of large numbers.

Finally, it all came down to the final round. Our fate was not in our hands, as ‘GM Wannabes (2160)’ was still perfect at 4/4 while both UChicago teams had 3.5/4. As the A team has the higher rating, they faced ‘GM Wannabes,’ while we played their previous opponents, ‘dreamy knights.’

My game against NM Joseph Wan was a curious affair. Starting off with a solid London where he seemed less familiar with the nuances, I quickly had a comfortable positional advantage. As it usually happens, when you have the rating advantage, the board advantage, and the clock advantage, you start getting outplayed and suddenly you have to fight for equality. Or is it just me?

Praveen also won a solid Catalan, grinding down his opponent in typical GM style.

On board 1, the A team held ‘GM Wannabes’ to a draw, with 2 strong wins on boards 1-2. First, Kapil won an aesthetic attack in an Exchange Ruy.

Christoph, on the other hand, had the option of checkmating his opponent, but decided to showcase his trademark German technique instead. Christoph has kindly annotated his game for us.

This meant that both ‘UChicago B’ and ‘GM Wannabes’ were tied with 4.5/5. When the dust was all settled, we finished atop the leaderboard by a quarter of a tiebreak point, the slimmest of margins. As mentioned previously, Brian's round 1 game ended up clinching the whole event. It seems that GM Wannabes are going to be wannabes for just a little longer…

Now to some team photos!

Besides carrying the UChicago Chess Team, Kapil is also the Sponsorship Chair of the chess club. Rumor has it that he has secured Olive Garden as an official sponsor of the UChicago Chess Club. All our future opponents will yield under the fiery barrage of breadsticks and pasta.

Next week we will back to CCL reports, so stay tuned for an update on that!