ICCA Division Championship - Feb 7th

Last Saturday, I traveled back home to New Lenox to check out the ICCA Division Championship held at Lincoln-Way Central (My former high school). I planned on analyzing games of my former teammates to help prepare them for state, however due to there being an odd amount of players in the open I ended up playing in the open. First round, I played my former teammate Keith Swanberg, a freshmen at Joliet Junior College. He blundered a pawn in the opening, but he ended up getting some compensation for it. Short on time, he blundered most of his pieces. Second round, I played Matt Halloway. I played fast out of the opening missing some ideas and ended up in a passive position, however I was able to trade off most of his pieces and got into a bad bishop vs. knight endgame, which I easily won. My last round, I played against my teammate Ulysses Acevedo, a junior at Loyola University Chicago. I got a slight advantage out the opening and held it throughout the middlegame. However, it was hard to break through Ulysses position. He mostly just reacted to my moves and I still couldn't break through. I got in time pressure and got into a endgame with a strong passed pawn, which won the game. I thought it was funny that in the last round two Loyola students faced off for the title. Overall, the tournament was exceptionally run by Lincoln-Way Central's coach Kevin Dailey. This is the fourth year that the tournament was hosted by Lincoln Way Central. The only disappointing feature of the tournament was the turn out. This year the date of the tournament was switched to the week before state instead of two weeks after. This was thought to bring out more players, however it failed to do so. Being a player who competed in this tournament I believe that it is very hard to find a good week to have this tournament. In all other sports after state the season is over, which is why it shouldn't be after state. However, scheduling it right before state seems like a lot of chess before state since there are so many other tournaments taking place in January and Feburary. State is when you want your team to be rested and ready to play chess. Having them in a tournament the weekend before might not be such a good idea with all the traveling and playing. To finish up I want to congratulate Ilan Meerovich on finishing first in Division I and Fedor Titov on being the ICCA Representative in the ICA Denker Qualifier. You can find the results on http://www.chesscoach.org/