By Mark Mix
Home day care providers would be forced into unions
Like one of those busy Pieter Bruegel peasant harvest paintings that seem to be breaking out of the frame, the annual blowout Tata Steel Tournament at the Dutch coastal city of Wijk aan Zee features an almost overflowing bounty of chess. There's a huge nine-round Swiss event for amateurs, a seven-round rapid tournament and, of course, three -- count 'em, three -- 14-player invitational round-robin tournaments in which the weakest "C" tournament boasts six grandmasters and an average rating of over 2460.
He didn't finish in the money, but Boston IM Marc Esserman had a major say in the outcome of last week's 112th U.S. Open in Orlando, Fla., the nation's premier open event, won in a sudden-death playoff by young New York GM Aleksandr Lenderman over fellow GM Alejandro Ramirez.
The powerhouse University of Maryland-Baltimore County squad did not capture the recent collegiate team chess championship, but GM Sergey Erenburg, UMBC's second board, bounced back with a fine second-place result in the strong Berkeley International, which concluded Jan. 8.
