Last Tournament of the Year May 4 Burnsville Diamondhead Educational Center
Ratings
Cavan | 986 |
Q | 776 |
Simon | 738 |
Thomas | 573 |
Alex R. | 488 |
Reyka | 201 |
Jade | 196 |
Alex O. | 174 |
Jannick | 167 |
Soren | 165 |
LESSONS
We went over the Surprise! worksheet and the advanced pins worksheet.
Last Tournament of the year is May4 in the Burdnsville Educational Center. Since the top 16 players from the statewide tournament will be in their own tournament, this gives others a better chance to earn a trophy.
RATINGS
Cavan | 968 |
Q | 771 |
Simon | 738 |
Thomas | 539 |
Alex R. | 488 |
Reyka | 201 |
Jannick | 178 |
Jade | 176 |
Alex O. | 170 |
Soren | 165 |
Statewide Tournament Results
Name R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 PTS bef aft chg
Q L W L D L L B 2.5 778 771 -7
Thomas L L L B L L L 1.0 553 535 -18
In spite of what looked. at first glance a disastrous result, there were some highlights. Thomas earned his silver medal and his rating went down only a small amount because he was an underdog in every games. Q managed a draw against a 1600 player. His win was against a 971 player.
Summary of tournament playsrs
Merit |
Name |
21-Apr |
17-Apr |
41 |
Cavan |
962 |
962 |
21.25 |
Q |
771 |
778 |
30 |
Simon |
738 |
738 |
25.5 |
Thomas |
535 |
553 |
5.25 |
Alex R. |
488 |
488 |
TOURNAMENTS
State Championship Tournament this weekend - 7 games in two days.April 20-21 at Robbinsdale Middle School
LESSONS
Pins for the inexperienced players and difficult and surprising moves for the advanced players.
Solutions to a couple of the more complicated problems will be posted here tomorrow.
PINS Worksheet problem 7. As we study the position, we notice. that we are down a pawn, but the black knight is pinned to the rook. We would like to attack the knight again, but we see that black has two good replies. He could take our knight and give up his rook because he can play Nf3 forking our rooks thus gaining back the lost material. Or he could simply play Rxd1+ which wiggles out of the pin with no cost.
So the correct move is 1. Rxd8+ Rxd8 2. Ne4 Nxe4 3. Bxd8 Nxf2 4. Rf1 Ne4 5.Bxc7 and when the dust settles we have a B, a R, and 5 pawns, Black has a B, a N, and 6 pawns
Pins Problem 8
The knight in c3 is not well-protected and is on the same diagonal at the King. 1. Ba4 pins the knight! 1. ... Qd7 is met with 2. Nd4 or if Black tries 1. ...Bd7 2. Qxd5 forking the knights.
Problem #4 from the Surprise! worksheetIn a position like the one below, nothing obvious jumps out, but we know we have several advantages - a pawn on the 7th rank, two other pawns, we have access to the black king. We look at forcing moves - mainly checks. 1) Rf8+ RxR 2) Qh7+!! (Access to the king and a forcing move. It's actually easy to see that the queen cannot be taken because we can take the rook with the pawn promoting it to a knight which forks the king and the queen leaving black with no pieces.) 2) ... Kf7 3) g8(Q) with double check! Black has 2 choices 3.... Ke8 which loses almost immediately to Qxe6, or 3. ... Kf6 4. Qhg6+ then 5. Qxe6+ Kxe6 6. Qxf8 with an easy win.
RATINGS
Cavan | 962 |
Q | 778 |
Simon | 738 |
Thomas | 553 |
Alex R. | 488 |
Reyka | 201 |
Jannick | 173 |
Alex O. | 170 |
Jad | 161 |
Soren | 160 |
LESSONS
Beginners learned about hurdles and skewers
Advanced players learned about interference
UPCOMING TOURNAMENTS
APR 20-21 Two Days, 7 Rounds Lots of individual and team trophies! Top sixteen qualify for official state championship! This year's theme is "There are more adventures on a chessboard than on the seven seas!" Dress like a pirate
RATINGS
Cavan | 945 |
Q | 759 |
Simon | 738 |
Thomas | 550 |
Alex R. | 473 |
Reyka | 170 |
Alex O. | 163 |
Jannick | 159 |
Jade | 148 |
Soren | 147 |
Tournament Results
Lessons
Advanced: Vacating
Beginners: Forks
Upcoming Tournaments
Sat. Apr 6 Diamondhead Education Center, Burnsville
Sat.-Sun. Apr 20-23 Robbinsdale Middle School State Championship Lots of trophies for both for individuals and teams. Team score is total of the top 4 scores. 7 Rounds. Dress like a pirate!
Ratings
Name | 3-Apr |
Cavan | 960 |
Simon | 803 |
Q | 751 |
Thomas | 524 |
Alex R. | 473 |
Reyka | 165 |
Alex O. | 153 |
Jannick | 148 |
Jade | 143 |
Soren | 138 |
LESSONS
Beginners worked on King and Rook vs King, Practice at home and get 15 points next week.
Practice the King and Queen mate: Get checkmate in one minute and earn 10 points
Practice the two rook checkmate: Do it in one minute and get 10 points. That's a total of 35 points.
Advanced players learned different ways to draw when behind. They did a worksheet on draws.
UPCOMING TOURNAMENTS
The most important tournaments of the year for us is coming up next weekend, March 23, at the Diamond Head Educational Center in Burnsville. It's the Statewide grade level championships. That means we won't have to play any 7th or 8th graders. It also is a team tournament. Team score will be the total of our top three scorers
RATINGS
Cavan | 936 |
Simon | 741 |
Q | 712 |
Thomas | 461 |
Alex R. | 457 |
Alex O. | 147 |
Reyka | 137 |
Jade | 131 |
Soren | 130 |
Jannick | 118 |
Tournament Results
Alex, that was just weird! You had to play all three of your teammates. The next tournament is a team tournament so you should never have to play your own teammates.
Name R1 R2 R3 R4 Pts Bef Afr Chg Merit
Cavan W L L W 2 959 935 -24 39.5
Simon L W L W 2 694 711 +17 29.5
Thomas L L L L 0 478 443 -35 19.0
Alex L W L L 1 436 443 +7 4.3
PHOTOS
Thomas tries to heed the advice from his own shirt: "Don't hurry."
Cavan appears to be ahead against Alex.
Lessons
Today the beginners worked with KQ vs K Checkmate, and then RR vs K. We learned what checkmate and stalemate are. In checkmate the King is in check and has no move to get out of check. The player who cannot move loses the game. In stalemate, the player has no legal move but is not currently in check and the game is a draw.
The advanced group looked 2 to 4 moves ahead to find a combination of fork, hurdle, pin, and discovered attack. We had a worksheet with 6 problems worth 2 points each. Scores ranged from 6 to 12 points out of a possible 12.
Tournament
Saturday March 2 at the Diamondhead Educational Center there is a tournament. Our 6th graders will be playing agains 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Simon will be presented with a silver medal for having won 25 games in tournament competition,
Ratings
Name | Rating |
Cavan | 958 |
Simon | 694 |
Q | 668 |
Thomas | 478 |
Alex R. | 437 |
Reyka | 110 |
Soren | 110 |
Jade | 110 |
Jannick | 110 |
Alex O. | 109 |
Chess Club Spring of 2024
Lessons
Advanced group brushed up on forks
Beginner group learned:
1) how all the pieces move and the value of each piece
2) how to name each square and a few new words like "orthogonal", "file" and "rank"
3) we also briefly discussed checkmate and stalemate which we'll study next week.
There is a tournament this Saturday, March 2, at the Diamondhead Educational Center in Burnsville. There are sections for K-2, 3-5, and 6-8.
March 23 is the State grade level Championship at the Diamondhead Educational Center in Burnsville. This is our best shot at a team trophy. We have five good 6th graders but we'll have to practice really hard the next 4 weeks.
Ratings
I have a rating system which I use for the following reasons:
1) It encourages every child to play hard every game
2) Students can see their progress
3) They'll know which students they should play against for an evenly matched game.
4) I'll know when they are ready for interscholastic tournaments on Saturdays.
5) When playing matches against other school I need to be able to rank them.
Students start out with a rating of 100. They earn 5 points for attendance, 2 points for every worksheet problem solved correctly, 10 points for drills performed accurately, and anywhere from 1 to 31 points gained or lost in a game depending on the two players ratings. A win is 16 points +- 1 point for every 25 points difference in ratings. A loss is -16 +- 1 to 15 points for every 25 points difference in ratings. For example, if a 200 beats a 400 its 16+(400-200)/25 or 24 points for the winner which he takes from the loser. If a 400 beats a 200 its 16-8 or 8 points for the winner while the loser loses 8 points.
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Congratulations to Q who received his bronze medal, and to Simon who has earned a silver medal!
It looks like we took a little bit of a hit in the ratings, probably because we haven't been meeting on Wednesdays for the last two months, but Chess Club resumes on Wed. Feb 21.
Name R1R2R3R4R5 Pts Bef Aft Chg Merit
Simon L W L W L 2 658 661 +3 26.5
Cavan W L W L L 2 930 917 -13 37
Q. L W L W L 2 675 659 -16 12
Alex L L W L L 1 438 410 -28. 2