Norman Rogers shines at 2025 Chicago Open
Norman Rogers of Philadelphia has returned to regular chess tournaments after a foray into poker. While he still plays poker, he recently played in the Chicago Open (under-2300) and scored 5.5/7, tying for 5th-6th place. When asked about his return, he says, “I’m already back.”
Photo by Daaim Shabazz/The Chess Drum
Norman Rogers: The Philly Legend
Rogers is a long-time fixture on the Philadelphia chess scene and is honored in the city’s Chess Hall of Fame. The FIDE Master has earned two IM norms. The first came at the 2001 World Open, beating three IMs (Nikolay Andrianov, Amon Simutowe, John Donaldson) en route to a strong 6½-2½ performance.
Rogers has scored some nice wins over strong players, including Pascal Charbonneau (featured in “Fire on Board“). However, he has demonstrated that his skills remain sharp. At the Chicago Open, he lost only once and won his last four games. Here was one of his wins…
Rogers played at John Bartram High, alongside Raymond Robinson, and against rivals Glenn Bady and Wilbert Paige, who both attended West Philadelphia High School. This established one of the strongest collections of Black masters in one city. This was in addition to the Vaux Middle School dynasty, led by Howard Daniels, who became a master at age 15.
Photos courtesy of Norman “Pete” Rogers
“You Went Over”
Rogers reached his floor of 2200, but gained 18 rating points. He told The Chess Drum that he didn’t play well at the Princeton Open the previous month, but it appears he came to Chicago prepared. He did have an unfortunate situation in the third round. After going out to dinner with Stephen Colding, they mistakenly thought the round started at 5:00 instead of the actual start time of 4:00.
As a result, both were behind nearly an hour on the clock. Despite being able to play to an equal position, he found himself needing to make eight moves in just 39 seconds. While confident that he would make the moves with the time delay, there was one issue. He needed to go to the bathroom… badly!
While his opponent was thinking, he rushed to the bathroom, but upon returning, the tournament director told him, “You went over.” It was a disappointing loss. Colding would also lose his game. Rogers said it was a lesson learned. However, he won his last four games in a row to finish only a half-point out of first.
Here are two of his games from the World Open.
