He's Done It! 1300 Mark Regained!

DeKalb Chess Club veteran Cliff Adams has regained the 1300-plateau he hadn't seen in 18 months. With Saturday's solid performance at the Northwest Illinois Open, Cliff bumped his USCF rating to a highly respectable 1318.

Of the more than 2300 active USCF tournament players in Illinois, Cliff already ranks in the top 30% -- and he promises to enter even more rarefied air as the rating system catches up on his recent results.

He's also in the top 30% of the almost 48,000 active USCF tournament players nationwide.

With a fourth round victory over yours truly, Cliff compiled a 2.0/4 showing in the upper section at Saturday's Freeport tournament. He clearly had a well-planned response as White to my tame Sicilian Defense and ran his knight amuck in my backfield.

Route 20 Chess Club put on an outstanding event with eight open players and 18 in the under-1000/unrated section. That's 26 players enjoying a lot of chess action for $5 on a stormy spring day.

Cliff's projected 1318 rating represents a seven month blitz on the local chess world where his rating has climbed 271 points! If he duplicates that improvement, he'll be rated 1589 by Thanksgiving!

Back in September of last year, the former DeKalb County Highway commissioner saw his rating drop to 1047 with DeKalb's second open tournament.  This was a sad day, but every chess player has one of those.

Since then, he "paved the way" for his comeback with an 88-point boost from the McHenry Area Chess (MAC) October tournament in Elgin.

Cliff saw a 63-point bump from December's MAC tournament, a 25-point increment from DeKalb's 2011 Illinois Kick-off, a 30-point hike from January's MAC tournament, a 22-point hike in DeKalb's late January event, a 58-point escalation in DeKalb's March tournament before this 54-point enhancement from Saturday's Freeport event. Wow!

Since 2004, Cliff's highest USCF rating has been 1361 which he enjoyed in May of 2008. USCF records indicate he had a rating of 1443 prior to their conversion to a new data collection system in 1991. Alas, that pre-'91 history is not factored in to his current ratings path.

Cliff's consistent tournament play has certainly paid off and DeKalb Chess Club is lucky to have his venerable knight moves in its midst.