Sept 27, 2017

Someone left a nice bright red and black sweatshirt at chess last week.
No one picked it up this week, so I put it in the Lost & Found.

Today we were introduced to the gambit using the King's gambit.
We had a worksheet on checkmate and stalemate.
Also we learned how to checkmate with 2 rooks or with a King and Queen.

Name	Sep 27
Henry	711
Miles	629
Isaiah	625
Luke	577
Niko	522
Jaden	511
Torben	463
Jack	365
Owen	190
Nolan	154
Tom	147
Naomi	141
Ben	126
Patrick	124
Derrick	117
Isaac	116
Jesse	116
Quinn	113
Davis	111
Gere	111
Tyler	110
Zach	107
Winston	100
James	100
Sahasra	100
Nick	100

Sep 20 Chess Club

We had a good turnnout.
We covered a lot of territory today - Giuocco Piano opening variants.
We learned the 3 objectives in the opening
1) attack the middle
2) get knights and bishops out of the back row
3) castle

Henry	686
Miles	629
Isaiah	599
Niko	555
Luke	547
Jaden	498
Torben	470
Jack	378
Tom	143
Winston	105
Owen	105
Patrick	105
Isaac	105
Tyler	105
Zach	105
Derrick	105
Quinn	105
Davis	105
Naomi	105
Jesse	105
Nolan	105
James	105
Sahasra	105
Lilly	100

Chess Club 2017-2018

Chess Club will meet after school on Wednesdays starting Sept 20 3:25 until 5:00 in room 123.

If you'd like to compete in tournaments there are a lot of tournaments for children, based on grade, run by the School Chess Association. There's a link to the right with a full schedule for the year. Tournaments are on Saturdays (8:30 - approx. 2:30) and often held at Metcalf Middle School in Burnsville and cost about $20. As the year progresses I'll select some tournaments that we'll attend as a team

If, for any reason, you don't want your child's name appearing on this blog, please let me know and we'll get a code name for him/her.

Results from Nationals

Here are some of the outstanding performances by Minnesota chess players at the Supernationals held in Nashville May 12-14, 2017. There were about 135 kids from Minnesota there. All but a handful finished in the top half of their section.

I list Section and Team Awards followed by:

Grade Name and Place. Keep in mind to get on this list, you had to win 5.5 games out of 7 or more. Maybe you recognize some names. Next year maybe your name or team will be here! National Champions are in blue, runner ups in red.

K12 Championship Wayzata HS – 13^th

  12 Andrew Tang 3^rd

K12 U1900

  9 Logan Ferkinhoff – 1^st

K12-U1200 Burnsville HS - 1^st

K12-U800

  9 Lyla Lichliter 6^th

  7 Ava Piccolino 9^th

  8 Sam Kielas 10^th

K9-U1250 Metcalf 15^th

K8-U750 Metcalf 2^nd

  7 Gus Diedrich 3^rd

  6 William Moe 7^th

K6 Championship Wayzata Central 10th

  6 Samrug Narayanan 15^th

K6U1400

  5 Isaac Traynor 1^st

K6U1000 Seward 9^th

  5 Noah Weiser 1^st

K6Unrated

  5 Matthew Marvin 1^st

  4 Stuart Strack 2^nd

  5 Alma Quiroz 17^th

K5U900

  4 Rowan Falk 4^th

K3U1000

  3 Ethan Benjamin 7^th

  3 Aditi Sinha 19^th

Final Ratings

Hope you all come back and we add some. We lose only Aidan and Grant, but Aidan thinks he might come back next year if they don't have a chess club at Sibley.

Rank	Name	10-May
1	Aidan L	815
2	Oscar	688
3	Henry	686
4	Miles	624
5	Isaiah	594
6	Grant	576
7	Niko	550
8	Luke	542
9	Jaden	493
10	Torben	465
11	Jackson	413
12	Jack L	373
13	Christian	333
14	Aidan D	261
15	Rohan	178
16	Dain	139
19	Tom	138
20	Kiran	130
21	Max	100

May 3 Ratings and Tournament Results

Next Wednesday is the last day of chess. I'll hand out awards and cookies.
I have 5 ribbons, and a top U500 award.
BTW You rocked that funsheet! Those were problems that baffled world class players.

Rank	Place	Name	Rd1	Rd2	Rd3	Rd4	Total	TBK	Award
1	1	Aidan L	W4	W8	W6	W2	4	8.5	1st
3	2	Henry	W12	W7	W5	L1	3	8.5	2nd
2	3	Oscar	L5	W10	W4	W7	3	7.5	3rd
9	4	Luke	L1	W11	L3	W6	2	10	4th
10	5	Torben	W3	L6	L2	W11	2	9	5th
4	6	Miles	W13	W5	L1	L4	2	8.5
8	7	Niko	W11	L2	W10	L3	2	8	U500
5	8	Isaiah	W10	L1	H	F	1.5	5
6	9	Grant	H	W14	F	F	1.5	0.5
13	10	Christian	L8	L3	L5	B	1	6.5
19	11	Tom	L7	L4	B	L5	1	6
11	12	Jackson	L2	H	F	F	0.5	3
12	13	Jack L	L6	H	F	F	0.5	2
7	14	Jaden	H	L9	F	F	0.5	1.5

Note: Niko was under 500 at the start of the tournament.

Name	May 3
Aidan L	800
Oscar	674
Henry	670
Miles	622
Isaiah	588
Grant	576
Luke	540
Niko	526
Jaden	497
Torben	468
Jackson	413
Jack L	373
Christian	349
Aidan D	261
Rohan	178
Dain	139
Tom	134
Kiran	130
Max	100

Zwischenzug

I was studying chess today with Lectures by Jonathan Schrantz who has become my favorite chess commentator - he's understandable, witty, and gives good, clear instruction. If you want to improve, click above the link.

Here's a position I ran across today studying one of Magnus Carlsen's games.
It's actually black's turn, but the question is not what is Black's best move, but rather
(as I have taught you) what move could White make that I need to prevent.

Answer: 1. Rxe6! QxQ (black can try to trade queens, but...we're going to take his queen but not just yet) In the game, Black played Kg7 where now Rxe6 cannot be played because of fxe6. The actual game lasted many more moves but White prevailed because of that d pawn.
2. Re8+! Zwishenzug! winning the game easily