GM Krush to appear at DIA

DIA to host chess club contest

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) will host chess international grandmaster Irina Krush in a simultaneous (simul) competition with 50 members of the Detroit City Chess Club (DCCC) on Friday, Jan. 10 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The museum is open until 10 p.m. on Fridays and the simul and other museum activities are free with museum admission and free for residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.

Krush won the U.S. Women’s Chess Championships in 1998, 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2013. The October 2013 International Chess Federation rating list for women places her as 16th best among active female players and first among active American female players.

Krush was born in Odessa, formerly in the Soviet Union and now the Ukraine, in 1983. She learned to play chess at age five and emigrated with her parents to Brooklyn that same year. She attended Brooklyn’s Edward R. Murrow High School, whose chess team is considered to be one of the top high school teams in the U.S. At age 14, she won the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship to become the youngest U.S. women’s champion ever. Krush played first board (the player assigned to face the strongest opponents) on the U.S. Women’s team in the 38th Chess Olympiad, when the U.S. team scored a bronze medal.

Krush became widely known for her series of chess training videos, the “Krushing Attacks,” and gained additional fame both inside and outside chess circles during the well-publicized “Kasparov versus the World” chess competition in 1999. Garry Kasparov played the white pieces and the Internet public voted on moves for the black pieces, guided by the recommendations of Krush and three of her contemporaries, Étienne Bacrot, Elisabeth Pähtz and Florin Felecan.

Detroit City Chess Club members range from five to 18 years old and have won national, regional and state competitions, with several members currently holding impressive national rankings. The young players recently won three titles at Western Kentucky University Masterminds Chess Open and two state titles.

Source: http://michronicleonline.com