2015 National Dragon Day Tournament

January 16th is National Appreciate a Dragon Day and to celebrate, the BCSD Chess Club (under the guise of Silver Creek Dragons!) showed their appreciation with a celebratory tournament.  This is the second year of the tournament which features the Sicilian Dragon opening lines:  1. e4 c5  2. Nf3 d6  3. d4 cxd4  4. Nxd4 Nf6  5. Nc3 g6

Dragon Chess Set as prize

The G/15 0d tournament proved to be a favorite of some of the players as I heard them exclaim, "I love this defense!"  I try to offer theme tournaments in order to expand and challenge players to learn and try new things on the chess board.  The game is meant to be a scientific, hypothesis, prediction, and experiment-ridden smorgasbord of openings, middle game tactics, and endgame strategies.  The kids I work with appreciate my philosophy and our style remains flexible, creative, and fun.

Wesley Brimstein vs. Journey Iverson

The tournament was held in the Silver Creek High School science classroom where I hang my hat most of the time.  Twelve players showed up to play with most of the high schoolers curiously absent due to jobs.  The time proved fun and the tournament started strong for Desmond Porth and it appeared that he was going to stay on top.  G/15 games can take a nasty turn and in the 3rd round, he had an unexpected loss to Otto Olsen.  Otto used time to his advantage and capitalized on Desmond's temporal deficit.  Desmond withdrew and attended a lecture for educators and parents by Daniel Pink.  I was sorry to be missing the presentation.

Wikipedia says, Pink has written five books that focus on the "changing workplace," and that have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list:

• To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
• The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need
• A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future
• Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself

His articles on business and technology have appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Wired.  As of 2012, Pink's 2009 talk on The puzzle of motivation was one of the 10 most-watched TED Talks.  In 2011, Thinkers50 named Pink as one of the 50 most-influential management thinkers in the world.

The games continued and Levi Catangcatang, Wesley Brimstein, and Spencer Gaudereau shifted to overdrive.  By round 5 Levi and Wesley were tied for first place (though Wesley had 0.5 point lead in the first tie-breaks).  They agreed to play an Armageddon Match to settle the placement and win the Dragon Chess board graciously donated by Tyler Avila last year.  An Armageddon Match is decisive in that white has time odds and black has draw odds.  That is, white has 3 min. on the clock and black had 2 minutes on the clock.   If black draws then it is considered a win.  Wesley was white and Levi was black.  

Levi Catangcatang vs. Wesley Brimstein

Wesley calmly moved like a machine with constant intervals between moves.  Levi chose a fast opening and then slowed too much to think about some middle game tactics and finally lost on time.  A fun, energizing, and heart-racing end to a tournament.

CrossTable

No.	Name	Pts	Rnd1	Rnd2	Rnd3	Rnd4	Rnd5
1	Brimstein, Wesley	4.0	W5	L9	W3	W6	W4
2	Catangcatang, Levi	4.0	W3	L4	W5	W8	W6
3	Gaudereau, Spencer	3.0	L2	W10	L1	W11	W7
4	Iverson, Journey	3.0	W10	W2	L6	W7	L1
5	Llantoy, Bayro	3.0	L1	W11	L2	W12	W8
6	Porth, Darwin	3.0	W7	W8	W4	L1	L2
7	Enriquez, Froilan	2.0	L6	W12	W10	L4	L3
8	Olsen, Otto	2.0	W12	L6	W9	L2	L5
9	Porth, Desmond	2.0	W11	W1	L8	-U-	-U-
10	Quesnel, Zach	2.0	L4	L3	L7	-B-	W12
11	Quesnel, Skade	1.5	L9	L5	D12	L3	-B-
12	Cross, Kaiden	0.5	L8	L7	D11	L5	L10

Tiebreaks

Place	Name/Team	Score	Solk	CumOp	Cum	MMed
1	Brimstein, Wesley (1)	4.0	15.0	46.0	11.0	12.0
2	Catangcatang, Levi (2)	4.0	14.0	45.0	11.0	12.0
3	Porth, Darwin (9)	3.0	15.0	48.0	12.0	13.0
4	Iverson, Journey (6)	3.0	14.5	43.0	11.0	13.0
5	Gaudereau, Spencer (5)	3.0	12.5	32.5	7.0	11.5
6	Llantoy, Bayro (7)	3.0	11.5	33.0	7.0	11.0
7	Olsen, Otto (8)	2.0	13.5	40.5	8.0	9.5
8	Enriquez, Froilan (4)	2.0	11.0	33.5	7.0	8.0
9	Quesnel, Zach (12)	2.0	8.5	26.5	2.0	5.5
10	Porth, Desmond (10)	2.0	7.0	20.5	9.0	3.0
11	Quesnel, Skade (11)	1.5	9.5	24.5	1.5	6.5
12	Cross, Kaiden (3)	0.5	9.5	25.5	1.5	6.5

February Chess Event Report

Levi Catangcatang lead the Silver Creek High School to a 2nd Place.

While most attention was on Olympic battles this past month, there were quieter and much more local competitions that featured as much excitement and as much glory as the Olympics.  Though, it was the best mind that won. The Idaho Closed Chess Championship is the premiere chess competition sponsored by the Idaho Chess Association and has named a state champion since 1947.  This year 24 competitors with nearly 50 years between the youngest and oldest played for three days in games that averaged about 3 hours each, and sometimes up to 6 hours at the Shilo Inn in Twin Falls.

2014 State Champion

Five players from the BCSD Chess Rage Club attended and played excellent games against the top players in Idaho.  Adam Porth, Desmond Porth, Dylan Porth, Andre Murphy and Keegan Crowson had their sight set on the class prizes.  In chess, players are ranked according to their abilities and separated into classes though the tournament is of open format and it is all-against-all.  For example, Larry Parsons from Boise is 18 time state champion and is a class A player with a rating of 2000.  He, of course, was in attendance and spent most of the tournament on board 1.  The lowest ranked player was rated 521, is new to chess this past year, and is class F.

In the end, Caleb Kircher of Boise became one of the youngest chess champions in Idaho, winning 4 games and drawing 2 games in the 6 round event.  The wood river representatives fared well with Desmond Porth earning Top Junior, Andre Murphy winning 1st place Class E, and Adam Porth winning 2nd place Class D.

Andre Murphy

Desmond Porth

With most of the school district news focused on adults and finances, it is important to recognize the achievements of the children that attend the Blaine County School District.  The Scholastic Triple Crown was also held this last week and the BCSD Chess Rage was there.  The Triple Crown included the Novice Championship, Girl’s State Championship, and the Elementary Championship with Idaho representatives for National Events chosen from those pools of players.

Girl's State Championship

In the Girl’s State Championship, Dylan Porth vetted her mind against 6 other girls in a round robin event.  Dylan has chased a placement in this tournament for six years and successfully scored 5.0 points of 6 possible and earned 2nd place and a possible birth into Grand Master Susan Polgar’s National Girl Invitational Chess Camp this summer.  Her only loss was to 2-time Girl’s State Champion, Carmen Pemsler of Meridian.

Otto Olson

In the elementary novice section, Otto Olson (4th grade) won 1st place 4th/5th grade with a perfect tournament score of 5.0!  The high school novice section was very exciting with Silver Creek High School pitted against Renaissance Technical Charter School.  Beginning chess players, Levi Catangcatang, Kaden Rinehart, Jordan Pulliam, Journey Iverson, Cooper Dean, and Zac Spor worked together to win the team trophy, but ended up with 2nd place by only 0.5 points.  Levi, Cooper, and Kaden won medals for 2nd through 4th place but their 3.5 points each were unable to de-throne one Renaissance student that had a perfect tournament.  This is the first Silver Creek High School team to compete in an event, but look for them in other events.

The Novice High School Section

The next tournament is a local K-12 Spring Warm Up on March 8 in the Community Campus.  This prepares players for the Scholastic State competition on March 15 in Boise.  This next month, 6 Wood River High School and Silver Creek High School students will combine efforts in the High School Nationals in San Diego.  Contact Adam Porth, aporth@blaineschools.org  if you would like to sponsor a student traveling to one of these events, or would like more information about chess.