Another Website?

Yes it's true, I built another one for my travel club.

Costa Rica

2011 Winter Tournament

Santa Claus kicks off the Winter Tournament

Sleigh bells were jingling as eleven Blaine County School District students competed in the Winter Tournament.  It appears that our little tournament was also in competition with the numerous activities and holiday warm ups as many of our usual chess suspects were not available.  Despite the chilly turn out, the Winter Tournament attracted Santa Claus and some very interesting games.

A Master Description

Kurt Vonnegut's review of a chess book, "Grandmaster's of Chess," by Harold Schonberg.  Mr. Vonnegut elegantly describes chess folk:

"This charming history of modern chess will not be surpassed in our time....Mr. Schonberg has given us a playful,musical,haunting account of huge,often irresponsible,unsociable animals who have devoted their lives to thinking that is pure as snow" - Kurt Vonnegut

New Classroom Website Announced

Yo, Desmond had the household Skyrim tied up most of the weekend . . . so I revamped, rethought, and reinvented my classroom website.  My students really liked the new look and the better perks.  I fashioned  an icon system for faster navigation (like the smart phone aps), stream-lined each page for faster loading, and created a much better course organization.  Let me know what you think.

Chess Rage Newsletter Resurrection

Using my level 10 Resurrection spell from Skyrim, I was able to conjure up a newsletter that I used to produce.  It was killed when I began putting all my websites together back in 2008 and I am now going to commit myself, my class, and my club to publishing again.  I will make the newsletters available at our club website in PDF format as it is a pain to do in blogger.  Here is our first official edition of the year to be released Monday at school.

Memory Chess and Exercising a Cognitive Skills

I read an article about Susan Polgar once and I remember reading that she can look at a chess board for 10 seconds and replicate where up to 32 pieces were on the board with nearly 100% accuracy.  Or, some such

5 Steps to Chess Viewer Deluxe

I discovered that Chess Viewer Deluxe opened much faster without any "Kill" page message from chrome when I created a whole new sister blog to The Chess Nut Blog.  This blog page now opens faster than it did before.  If I get rid of all the widgets, I bet this blog would be even faster, but it would lose its appeal.  I called the new sister site,  Chess Nut Games and it will house the game files so that you can view multiple games from each year.  Of course I posted a link to the Chess Nut Game blog from the home page of The Chess Nut Blog called Games.  You can spot this tab or button in the upper right side of the page menu.    Here are some other quirks that I did my best to work out in 5 steps.

Why is this cool?  Because you can display multiple games without using someone else's server to store game data, and it looks rather nice with an easy-to-use interface.  Flash PGN viewers (that I have found) only show one game at a time.  My favorite Flash viewer being ChessFlash PGN Viewer.

Blog Anchors and Internal Links

This is some documentation so I can remember how to create an internal link (a jump from one spot on a page to another spot on the page.  The example I provide is from the States page where I jump from the "N" to "Nebraska."

Here is the code where I want to jump to:
First, you should create the document and decide where you want your internal links to go. You label these using the anchor tag (a) with the name and id attributes. The name and id attributes should be identical.

e.g. <a name="anchor1" id="anchor1">Anchor text</a>

Here is the code where I want to jump from:
Then second, you create the link to the site using the anchor tag (a) and the href attribute. You indicate the named area with a pound-sign (#). 

e.g. <a href="site.html#anchor1">Anchor link</a>

The important thing is that href= (enter the page URL you want to create a jump).

(no spaces) Also, to write an example of code in a blogger post without it being interpreted use these instructions:
Replace all the < characters with  & l t;(no spaces) 
And all the > characters with & g t;(no spaces) 

Creepy Rooms and Monkey Chess at SIO

Jeff v. Caleb in an intense game with draw offers on the table.

The Southern Idaho Open 2011 was as entertaining as it was competitive on Saturday, November 12.     Desmond, me and two other Wood River Valley residents attended the one day, 4 Round G/60 event.  Des, Riley and I were slated for the U1400 Reserve Section, but Nick Bruck wanted to play in the Open Section.  I won 1st place (3.5 pts.) and my son, Des, won 2nd place (3.0 pts.).  Cash prizes were for placements while chess books from the library of the late Glen Buckendorf, 10-time Idaho State Champion, were donated to 3rd and 4th places for each section.

Brooklyn Castle

from IS 318 website

The Outreach Director of the documentary, Brooklyn Castle, contacted me about their project.  It was originally called Chess Movie, and it is about the IS 318 Chess Team.  Elizabeth Vicary and other scholastic chess celebrities organize and help run the chess club that is made up of junior high school students.  Ms. Vicary runs a blog that updates the world about politics, personal happenings, and the successes of the IS 318 Chess Team.  Now, the successes have attracted the attention of movie makers.

Support Veterans

Every year our high school chess club collects signatures and words of support for our troops abroad and we send our prayers along with chess boards.  Please think of everyone's veterans and soldiers around the world and pray that battles could be carried out on the chess board instead of with real bullets.

Idaho Chess Icon passes away

Glen W. Buckendorf
June 19, 1929 - September 12, 2011

Glen W. Buckendorf will be missed at chess tournaments and by his family and friends.  Glen passed away on September 12, 2011 at the age of 82 in his home.  Glen was a celebrity of sorts in the Idaho Chess community and was a tournament standard at the Idaho Closed for nearly 54 years!  In 2010, Glen was awarded lifelong supporter and Emeritus Trustee of the ICA (Idaho Chess Association).  He was 10 Idaho State Champion and was a contemporary of Dick Vandenberg, who recently passed away in 2010.  Without Glen's and Dick's avid support and efforts to enhance Idaho Chess, it would hardly be what it is today.  (Click here for the Times-News link).

Building websites is enjoyable

I made some nice changes to the WRHS Chess Club website.

Integrating a Simul into Integrating Chess

Olivia records a move

Austin likes his new opening repertoires

Playing chess seventh period every day is a great way to end the day.  The Integrating Chess and Critical Thinking Class is one of the most unique classes at Wood River High School and a popular one among the students that signed up.  For the students that were placed in the class by counselors searching for an open class, it was certainly an eye-opening experience.  One such student said,"I didn't realize there was so much [about chess]."  Another said that he can now "demolish" his brother.  Most of the students in this class are new to the game, but their are some veterans of chess club that I use to help teach concepts.

Happy Halloween (Gambit)!

It's Halloween Knight!

The Halloween Gambit,  or Leipzig Gambit, is an aggressive gambit in chess, in which White sacrifices a knight for just one pawn.  There are many different kinds  of gambits, but the usual aim of a gambit is to obtain an advantageous position after giving up material as white.   This gambit is related to the Four Knights Game and may transpose easily if your opponent is not cooperative. It was proven in 1888 to be an unsound opening meaning that you should not use it.

Chess Club

WRHS Chess Club Beginning!

Chess Club Starts tomorrow, afterschool, room c214, and every Thursday!

         Everyone at school is excited for Chess Club to begin.  Since soccer coaching ended for me on Monday at WRMS, I guess its now chess season for the rest of the year.  I in fact coached two teams, the WRMS and a 1st grade Blaine County Recreation team.  Both were over-loaded teams.

Sorry, I have been off the grid for a bit.  Only one more week of soccer and then the articles I have been sitting on will be posted.  Thanks for your patience.

Armenia's Gambit or gamble?

Chess is now a compulsory subject in all Armenian schools, including the secondary level (see also News.am).  This is great news as many studies have shown how chess can improve all areas of study for students that regularly engage in chess activities.  It appears the Ministry of Education is pledging $1.5 million for textbooks and manuals, equipment such as boards and portable tables, and even salaries for chess teachers.  The ministry indicates that chess will "foster schoolchildren's intellectual development" and improve children's critical thinking skills.

Idaho History: Western Idaho Open

courtesy of:  Jeff Roland, ICA Trustee for Web Development and Maintenance

If you read the article on the 1964 Western Idaho Open (shown below), the organizers of the day were very excited about the “large turnout” of 19 players! Last year, we had 27 players at the 2010 WIO, and I plan to really promote this year’s event even better. At the PCC Centennial Open in Portland a couple weeks ago, I actually asked several players, a couple of them masters, if they would come, and they seemed positively inclined, especially as they are excited about Idaho joining Northwest Chess. And I am planning to get our ad in Northwest Chess. However, the weather will probably be the biggest hurdle. It is hard to get over those Blue Mountains!!! However, not impossible for the chess fanatic! It is ironic that the time of year most conducive to indoor activities like chess also makes it difficult to travel to play in them!