Basketball buffs dream about going one on one with Michael Jordan. Stock car racing fans fantasize about drafting with Dale Earnhardt.
Chess devotees dream about matching wits with an international grandmaster of the game. And Monday night, 42 of them got what could be the chance of a lifetime when chess champion Alexander Yermolinsky took on all comers simultaneously at the Helen M. Plum Memorial Library in Lombard.
Yermolinsky, a 38-year-old Russian emigrant known in chess circles as "The Yerminator," is the reigning U.S. chess champ and a top-ranked international competitor. Last year, he won three major chess tournaments: the World Open, the New York Open and the American Open. In the Chicago area to compete in the recent U.S. Masters Championship, "The Yerminator" agreed to the highly unusual library exhibition at the request of Lombard resident Kenneth Marshall, who is president of the Oak Park-River Forest Chess Club.
"You know you won't win (against an international grandmaster), and very rarely will you get a draw, but it's a chance to play against the best," said David Wulatin, a 27-year-old trader and free-lance writer from River Forest who has played chess since he was 8. "The only way to improve is by playing people who are better than you are."
According to Marshall, participants in such matches, called chess simuls, generally expect to pay $20 and up for the privilege of playing a current or former top-ranked chess champ. With registration for Monday's event free to anyone holding a valid Plum library card, about two-thirds of Yermolinsky's challengers were age 12 or younger. But "The Yerminator," a veteran of more than 100 simuls, was taking nothing for granted.
"Of course, I lose a game now and then. I can't concentrate on 40 games as well as I can on one game," Yermolinsky said before Monday's mass matches began.
"Some of those kids can be tough," added Yermolinsky, who coaches adolescents and adults at his Yermo Chess Academy in Cleveland. "They don't have the baggage, the fear, that (older, more experienced players) have. They have more arrogance. They don't worry that they are making what might be a stupid move."
Josh Brown and Chris Hensley, both 5th graders at Madison School in Lombard, said they were confident they could hold their own against "The Yerminator." Chris said he had been playing for several years and had taught his mother to play. Josh had been practicing chess games on his computer in preparation.
Sarah Story, 11, of Glendale Heights, one of three girls challenging the international grandmaster, was more cautious in assessing her chances.
"He doesn't start out playing like anyone I've ever watched before," said Sarah after Yermolinsky had stood before her board for 2 seconds, advanced a pawn and moved quickly down the line to the next challenger. "Not many people develop the queen's pawn the way he did. His moves are way different."
Thirty minutes into the simul, "The Yerminator" claimed his first victim: Josh Minol, 11, from Butterfield School in unincorporated Lombard.
"I'm glad I played," Josh Minol said. "I learned some basic strategies."
So did Sarah, who managed to play for two hours before being checkmated.
"I concentrated on the obvious moves when I should have been watching for the sneaky moves," she observed. "I overlooked too much. But I think he would have killed my dad as bad as he killed me."
By 9:30 p.m., Yermolinsky had beaten nearly half of the players, including one grade-schooler who greeted the champ's final devastating move with the cheerful observation, "You got lucky."
But the U.S. chess champ also had conceded a game to Vladamir Kishinevsky, a Lombard computer programming analyst. Word quickly spread among spectators that the upset was not beginner's luck; before coming to the United States, Kishinevsky had been a high-ranked chess player in Russia.
"That was 20 years ago, though," said Kishinevsky, who graciously downplayed his victory. "I don't think that the grandmaster is in good shape tonight. I think maybe he is tired."
By 10 p.m., with only eight players left, Yermolinsky dueled to a draw with Jim Egerton, a Lombard computer systems manager and chess teacher. By 10:30 p.m. he had polished off all remaining players with the exception of David Wulatin. As is customary, the final game was finished blitz-match style, with each player having scant seconds to move.
Minutes later, clock ticking and stress mounting, Wulatin made an ill-advised move. "The Yerminator" moved in for the kill, and the hard-fought game was over.