Chess

National master Mario Murillo won the University of Maine Quick Chess Championship on April 28 with a perfect 4-0. Tied for second were national master Jarod Bryan and Ghezai Menelik, both 3-1. Frank Thompson’s 2 1/2-1 1/2 gave him fourth place. Trond Hildahl took fifth with 2-2.

The next Wednesday Night Tournament of the UM club will be Gruenfeld Defense Thematic Quads May 26 at the UM Memorial Union. Registration is at 6:45 p.m. All games must start with: 1.d4 Nf6, 2.c4 g6, 3.Nc3 d5, which is the Gruenfeld Defense Opening.

The Gruenfeld Quads will be the last tournament directed by Tony Adkins, who is moving to Dallas, Texas, June 8.

Club ladders are slippery things as Menelik discovered. He was on top of the ladder right up to the last game of the quick championship. Then disaster struck. He lost a game at the same time that Hildahl won, putting Hildahl on top of the final ladder with 116.36 points, compared with Menelik’s 115.80. Third place went to Corey Butler with 114.43. Butler also won the most active award. Butler’s wife, Barb Hawes, may have been last at 96.83, but she received an award as the second most active player.

Maynard Jalbert at 105.20 was nineth on the ladder but the third most active player.

Other ladder standings are: Pete Markiewicz, fourth with 113.48; Adkins, fifth with 108.67; Frank Thompson, sixth with 108.38; Allan Brooks, seventh with 107.66; and Bill Gallagher, eighth with 106.81.

Solution: Today’s solution is the queen sacrifice: 1.Qxh5+ Kxh5 (forced), 2.Rh7 checkmate. Why is this two-move mate so easy to overlook? The reason may be that we prize the powerful queen too much. We never even consider any move that imperils the queen. The late world champion, Tal, advised us to look at the result of all possible ways to lose our queen. The aspiring student of chess can learn a lot by following Tal’s advice. Most of the time, it will be clear that the sacrifice is not sound, but it is truly amazing that so many chess games can be won by a particular way of losing the queen. Find those ways to lose the queen, and win!