Seth Homa Gives Chess Exhibition at LCCC!

FIDE Master Seth Homa

FIDE Master and Michigan Open Champion Seth Homa stopped by LCCC to give a simultaneous chess exhibition – taking on all interested players - at the same time!
A lucky thirteen players lined up to face Seth, and in the end, only Vince Valente was able to get a draw. The rest of us….well, at least we have a score sheet showing we played a FIDE Master. Seth went 12-0-1.

Everyone had a great time and Seth was a friendly and gracious guest. It was such a fun event, LCCC will do something like this again. Maybe a Seth Homa lecture next time. Stay tuned.

Let’s hear from Don Jones, participant in the simil for his take of the event:

“Seth Homa complimented our club, saying that we have a lot of extremely tough players. He said that most club exhibitions are done in about an hour and a half, but most of our players were still going at 2 hours and 3 games lasted almost 3 hours (when we had to be out of the building).

I lasted 30 moves but that is misleading. I used a chess engine called Houdini that is rated at over 3000 (the current world champion is rated around 2850) to analyze my game. At move 29 it said I had an equal game with Seth, meaning that neither of us had an advantage (in the opinion of Houdini, but I liked Seth's position better).

But the rules of the exhibition say we have to move immediately when he comes around to our board and I was in the middle of analyzing a very difficult and complex position when he arrived. I was considering a plan that looked promising but very risky so I quickly picked a move that seemed harmless.

But immediately after I moved I realized it was actually a blunder that resulted in me losing a rook so I resigned. To add insult to injury, Houdini says the best way to continue the game would have been the plan that I was considering when he arrived at my board.



Seth and Don Jones in the background.

I should have trusted my instincts rather than wimping out and trying to play a 'safe' move.

Of course, losing the rook didn't require ending the game immediately but I felt that continuing the game against a player of his strength would have been pointless and an insult to him.

Considering that Seth is rated at around 2430 or so I was quite pleased that my game didn't collapse by move 10, especially since he played a very aggressive attack.

Seth is very young and could be a grandmaster in a few years if he can raise money to play in more international tournaments.

The guy who drew Seth asked him to sign his game sheet, and plans to frame it and hang it on his wall, because he says otherwise nobody will ever believe that he had a draw against a world class player. Of course, Seth was essentially playing 14 simultaneous games of speed chess while we only had one game to worry about and could think the whole time he was looking at other games.


We invited Seth back for another exhibition in the spring and he agreed. Hopefully we can find a date that works for everyone. I will definitely play again. It was a very amazing experience and I learned a lot.”

Thanks Don!

Our event did bring us three new members of LCCC – Dan C, Geoff O, and Will S. Welcome to LCCC gentlemen.



Seth continues the loop around the players.

Dan and Geoff played in the simil. Don’t worry guys. For your information, the rest of the players at LCCC are not as strong as Seth! Although, some are a lot closer to Seth’s strength than others. The fun part is to come and play chess at LCCC - and find out who those players are on your own.

Just a reminder: League night is next Monday, December 16^th. It will be our last regular meeting for the year at the Hartland Senior Center, as the Center will be closed for the Christmas Holidays. We will return there on January 6, 2014.

The Club will still meet at the Teekos Coffee and Tea Shop in Howell at Grand River and Latson Road on Thursday nights – December 12, 19, 26, Jan 2, 9, etc.

Be sure to stop by, have a coffee and play some chess.