Twelve Warren Scholars and twelve members of the Chicago Industrial Chess League braved flooded roads and horrendous traffic Saturday, July 24 to play a match at the Wheaton Public Library. Each Warren Scholar played one G90 game with a higher-rated CICL member, with an average rating difference of 143 points per board. Despite being outrated, the Warren Scholars came pretty close to snagging the match, winding up with 5.5 points to the CICL's 6.5 points.
GM Mesgen Amanov was on hand to provide game analysis afterwards, aided by Warren Scholar NM Eric Rosen, and CICL NM Steven Tennant (who also played Board 1 for CICL).
"The success of the match is not to be measured by the score, but by the quality experience for everyone, from the Juniors being challenged by the much more experienced and higher-rated adults, to the adults encountering eye-opening strength from the Juniors," said CICL president Tony Jasaitis.
Both sides had to make herculean efforts to get to the match, which had been scheduled months before, because of bad storms which flooded roads and closed down some expressways. Warren Scholars came from as far away as Bloomington and Rockford to attend. Many thanks to both Jasaitis and CICL member Matt Vail, for underwriting the cost of the event and securing the space, and to Warren Scholar dad Jian Li for all his organizational work, and to all the participants (and the Warren Scholar parents) for making the extra effort to get there.
Below are the individual board results, along with each player's rating and the rating differential on each board. The Warren Scholars had White on the odd boards. Almost all of the games were close and hard-fought. Congratulations and thanks to all who participated.