Tickets Set for June Grand Prix Final

Teme Sejko—known as "Teme2000" on WCL—a 15-year-old from the Bronx, NY, snagged the last free ticket to the Online Grand Prix Final for this month, which will be held June 26 on World Chess Live. Sejko, who scored 5.5/7.0 in the overall event, had to face off with 18-year-old Vincent Glorioso ("glorioso") in a 3-game blitz match playoff. Sejko won his first game with White, but lost the second with Black before coming back to win the final game with White again. This was an early birthday present for Sejko—he turned 16 the next day!

Sejko reports that he is that he is "pumped" about playing in the Grand Prix Final and is excited to have the opportunity to compete alongside—and against—the two previous GP qualifiers.

WCL's Online Grand Prix awards prizes as well as points in USCF's 2008 Grand Prix Series.  You must be a USCF member to enter.  Check out the USCF pages on WCL for full details.

Surprises in Cleveland

Last weekend saw big-time chess return to the city of Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland Open, held June 13-15, was a new major Grand Prix event—and was packed with surprise performances. The top two seeds—GM Alexander Shabalov and GM Atanas Kolev—were defeated in the final round by GM Nikola Mitkov and GM Sergey Erenburg, who shared first place.

15-year-old twin brothers Mark and Alexander Heimann both finished with 4.0/5.0, splitting third place. Although their final scores were the same, the two Pennsylvania masters took different routes to their big-money finishes. Mark won his first three games straight and finished with two draws on Sunday against GMs Sergey Erenburg and Anatoly Lein. Alexander suffered a loss against GM Kolev in Round 2, but recovered brilliantly by winning his final three matchups. NM Justin Daniel of Michigan also split third with 4.0/5.0, but top seeds Shabalov and Kolev finished out of the top money with 3.5/5.0. You can read the light and entertaining report written by teenage chess journalist Joe Fogarty here.

NM Tyler Hughes Wins US Junior Closed

Colorado chess superstar Tyler Hughes topped a tough field, including newly-crowned U.S. High School Champion FM Daniel Yeager, at the 2008 U.S. Junior Closed, held in Lindsborg, Kansas over the past week. Conrad Holt won the U.S. Cadet, open to younger players. A full report on www.uschess.org will follow shortly. For more on the nature of the tournament and to learn more about the personalities playing, see the preview article.

Chess.FM Video Lectures

WCL is proud to announce NM Dan Heisman's new video lecture series. These lectures were designed to help amateurs and up-and-coming players of all varieties learn many practical aspects of chess. The topics of the lectures are:

1. "Introduction to Safety and Counting" (For players below 1500)
2. "Introduction to Time Management" (all players)
3. "Introduction to Thought Process" (800-1800)
4. "Common Evaluation Misconceptions" (1000-2200)
5. "Is It Safe?" (below 1900)

So kick back and enjoy yourself with these video lectures. After all, watching a lecture allows you to absorb the wisdom of a master in the most painless way imaginable!