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Blitz and Bughouse Results

After our 12 am trek to Boise and then flights all day, bus to the hotel on Wednesday, getting up was very difficult for everyone.  Bughouse was very much a tough proposition with my team moving in slow motion compared to the other teams.  This is a good way to get the nervousness of a tournament dealt with.

Shopping at North Market

Andre and Wesley scored 6.0 points (37th place)
Desmond and Dylan scored 3.0 points (53rd place)

With a brief rest and some food, the Blitz tournament began.  The Silver Creek team was now fully awake and aware of the possibilities.  Desmond and Andre continued to lead our team round-by-round and ended with 6.0 points each (better than last year's results).  In Andre's games, there were some weird occurrences.  One of his opponent's picked up his pawn an moved it backwards and then mentioned a racist comment.  Later in the tournament, Andre saw a TD warning the player about racist comments.  I was taking picture from the balcony of Wesley's game and then witnessed a "slight of hand" by his opponent.  The player moved a bishop one square diagonal to take a piece of Wesley's and then returned it to the original square in one slick movement.  Pressed for time, Wesley did not notice.  Our team went into the last round  in 27th place and had nearly 4 points to gain in order to overtake the 20th team (assuming their team did not earn any points!).  I at least expected us to break the top 25, but we were 2 points behind them.  Desmond won both his games handedly as well as Andre.  Wesley scored 1.5 points and Dylan scored one ending our tournament in 22nd place.  We moved up 5 positions!

Desmond 6.0 points (166th place)
Andre 6.0 points (172nd place)
Wesley 5.5 points (192nd place)
Dylan 4.0 points (273rd place)

Hopefully we will bring one of these home

Desmond, Dylan, Andre, Wesley, and Levi are in Columbus, Ohio enjoying the heavy rain, but more importantly playing the greatest game among the nations finest players. 

Bughouse (a chess variant with teams)

• Andre and Wesley scored 6 points and are 37th in the nation.
• Desmond and Dylan scored 3 points and are 53rd in the nation

Blitz (fast chess G/5) is tonight beginning at 5 pm eastern time. 

Classical (G/120 d5)  begins tomorrow at noonish

I will begin publishing more today and throughout the tournament.

2015 Girls State Chess Champion!

Temiloluwa Aderogba is the 2015 Girls State Champion and will be the Idaho representative for the Susan Polgar invitational Chess Tournament and the National Girls Invitational Tournament!  Temi is a 5th grader at Eagle Elementary School of the Arts and is a newcomer to Idaho and the United States via England.  We are very happy to offer her a warm welcome into the vibrant chess community that Idaho offers. Congratulations!

Here are the results of this fabulous event:

Overall Championship

1st place Temiloluwa Aderogba

2nd place Carmen Pemsler 

3rd place Dylan Porth 

Overall 6-8th grade

1st Amelia Mussler-Wright

2nd Katlyn Genta

3rd Heidi Mungall

Overall 4-5th grade

1st Celeste Hollist

2nd Darci DeAngelis

3rd Alex Schrader

Overall K-3rd grade

1st Machitas Fernandez

2nd Sara Hollist

3rd Veronica Richmond

1st place 12th grade Abby Shiner

1st place 1st grade Audrey Richmond

1st place 2nd grade Simone Williams

1st place 3rd grade Daniela Valencia

Even though there was 21 participants, there were not enough  K, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 grade participants to award those prizes.  Sign up next time so you can be your grade's champion.  Thank you to all the donors, participants, parents, and volunteers to make this one of the best events.

Pictures posted on FB: BCSD Chess Rage

Girls State Chess Championship

Greetings, 

It is so nice to see pre-registrants at this historic event!  On Friday night before the tournament, a free, open blitz tournament will be hosted by the BCSD Chess Rage at the Community Campus at 7 pm.  We have some donated prizes for this event.  

On Saturday, plan to arrive a bit early to double check your registration information.  Remember to request any byes.  

9:00 am - 9:45 am Check-in

9:45 am - 10:00 Welcome (in CC Theater)

10:00 am- Round 1

11 am Round 2

12 pm Round 3

1 pm Round 4

2 pm Round 5 (3 pm for Championship Section)

3 pmish Other Section Awards (CC Theater)

5 pmish Championship Section Awards (CC Theater)

Beginning at 10:30 am, Brooklyn Castle (CC Theater)

12 pm Searching for Bobby Fischer (CC Theater)

2 pm Knights of the Bronx (CC Theater)

Simul by Levi Catangcatang (part of a school project) Ongoing 9:30 am until done.

Analysis by Fred Bartell and Desmond Porth

The BCRD has offered free workout passes.  E-mail to claim ticket (there are only 10!)

Door Prizes and donors:

Java (gift card)

Barnes & Noble (gift card)

The Closet (gift certificates)

Wise Guy Pizza (gift certificates)

Smith Optics ($250 in SWAG)

Chartwells (free drinks to winners)

Snow Bunny (free ice cream to participants)

Mason's Trophies (trophy award donations)

The Coffee House (Discounted drinks - mention chess)

The Wood River Inn (Discounted rates - mention chess)

BCRD (Workout Passes)

This is a great way to celebrate Easter Weekend - See you soon!

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