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| Don't Mess with this Pussy Cat! |
After a long recuperation after my hand surgery, I am now able to type with some dexterity and finesse. My fine Siamese Cat of 12 years old decided to jump on my face while sleeping at three in the morning. Of course I grabbed the kitty, named Kitten, by the scruff of the neck and was going to bring him outside. But, Kitten would have nothing of that and somehow twisted around to bite my hand. By noon, my hand was burning hot and not very happy. To make a long story short, the tendons and my knuckle joints got infected and required surgery and intense antibiotics (vancomysin and invanz) to rid me of the intruders. I am now rehabilitating my hand so that I don't lose any movement.
Our West Jordan story picks up where we left off. For the last four years we have won 1st place high school, and last year we won 1st place high school and junior high. This year we are going to have a harder time as we are rebuilding our team. Of our eleven competitors from the Wood River Valley, we have one in the elementary (k-3) section, one in the 4-6th grade section, a team in the 6-9th grade section, and one high school team. Our entire high school team consisted of players that have never competed. And half of our 9th graders are relatively new to competitive chess. I am very proud of our results in the large tournament that had nearly 200 kids and 16 different schools competing. Our Junior High team won 2nd place.
High School Section
46 players, 14 schools
Tyler 0 0.5 1 0 0 1.5
Kalen 0 0 1 0 1 2.0
Charlie 1 0 0 1 0 2.0
Christoffer 1 0 1 0 1 3.0
Max 0 1 0 1 1 3.0
Junior High School Section
47 players, 16 schools
Quin 0 0 1 1 0 2.0
Riley 1 0.5 1 0 1 3.5
Desmond 1 1 1 0 1 4.0
Jake 0 0 1 1 0.5 2.5
Elementary Sections (87 players K-3, and 64 players 4-6)
Dylan 1 .5 1 1 0 3.5
Dar 1 0 1 0 1 3.0
I try to train our players to begin play with sound opening theory. It sometimes pays off as demonstrated in Riley's game.
In Round 3, Riley Clark, whom was playing very hard this tournament, caught her opponent cheating and called him on it. However, she asked Desmond for some advice on how to deal with her case and was almost forfeited by the TD for talking to a teammate! After pleading her case, the TD allowed the game to continue and I am happy to say that she beat him.
Christoffer plays a solid opening that eventually wins the game. I believe . . .
In the high school sections, players struggled against experienced players. Many attempted to record their games but I was only able to salvage some of the games because of errors on the score sheets. It is clear that I have some work ahead of me to get students to follow my opening guidelines. Some played really too fast and this greatly affected their results. A player with little experience should not blitz an experienced player!
In the last round, Desmond and Dylan were both playing for 1st place in their section and their grade categories. I am happy to say that Desmond came out on top, but lost in tie-breaking points to only win the grade level trophy. Dylan played hard against a boy that opened with Scholar's Mate, but succumbed in the end game after a 59 minute battle that left her with seconds on the clock before the flag fell. She dropped to seventh place.
Dylan gets a nice fork on move 16 and her opponent blunders their queen away.
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| Charlie is shocked at how hard the games are. |
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| Max played slow and won three more points than last year! |
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| Dylan played slow in every game - and did great. |
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| Darwin gets into it! |
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| What a long day! |
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| Weally Tiwerd . . . |
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| 10 trophies and 11 kids - great work. |
More pictures can be found here.
