Lesson Today 

We learned how to use a chess clock.

We ran an in-house tournament to determine the school champion. I divided the group into two sections a ran a round-robin tournament for each section

Tournament Section (Over 300)

       Cavan  Q  Thomas Alex R.     AWARD

Cavan    -    W     W     W    3.0. 1st Place (School Champion)

Q        L    -     D     L    0.5  

Thomas   L    D     -     W    1.5  Second Place

Alex R   L    W     L     -    1.0. Third Placeo

Novice Sections (U300      )

         Jade Alex-O Jannick 

Jade.     -     L      D.      0.5

Alex O.   W     -      W       2.0  Honorable Mention

Jannick   D     L      -       0.5

Year End Ratings

Cavan	995
Simon	738
Q	734
Thomas	588
Alex R.	498
Alex O.	221
Reyka	201
Jade	165
Soren	165
Jannick	151

TOURNAMENT

Name    1 2 3 4 Bef Aft Chg

Thomas  L L L W 573 567 -6

Alex R. L D W L 488 486 -2

RATINGS

Cavan	986
Q	776
Simon	738
Thomas	567
Alex R.	486
Reyka	201
Jade	196
Alex O.	174
Jannick	167
Soren	165

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! worksheet

In 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

I think what happened today is that it was a relatively small tournament and the weather was nice, so only the ardent chess fans were out today.

                Bef Aft Chg Mer

Cavan X L L D L 960 927 -33 39.5
Simon L L L B L 803 738 -65 29
Alex  L B L L L 473 452 -21  4.25

Meanwhile Q and Thomas played in the Bughouse tournament

and finished with 4 wins and 6 losses.

Next tournament 

is April 20-21, a two-day 7 round tournament to determine the official chess champions of Minnesota!

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

 Tournament Results

Q lost 2, Drew 1 and Won 2. 2.5 points is the best he has ever done!

Name R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 Pts Merit Bef Aft Chg
Q     L  L  D  W  W 2.5 14.5  741 773 +32

Ratings

Merit	Name	23-Mar
37	Cavan	936
14.5	Q	773
26.5	Simon	766
18.25	Thomas	479
2	Alex R.	454
	Reyka	160
	Alex O.	148
	Jannick	148
	Jade	143
	Soren	133

 LESSONS

Beginners did a worksheet on checkmate/stalemate

Advanced group had a lesson on exchanging pieces.

TOURNAMENT

Sat. Mar 23 State Championship for 6th graders  - individual and team - GO HERITAGE!!

RATINGS

Cavan	936
Simon	766
Q	741
Thomas	479
Alex R.	454
Reyka	160
Alex O.	148
Jannick	148
Jade	143
Soren	133

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

LESSONS

Beginners worked on Checkmate and Stalemate. Congrats to Reyka and Alex O who both scored 17 out of 18 problems.

Advanced players went through the combination worksheet.

RATINGS

Cavan	917
Simon	724
Q	690
Thomas	452
Alex R.	448
Alex O.	147
Reyka	132
Jade	126
Soren	125
Jannick	113

 

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.

Tournaments

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.

Name 28-Feb 21-Feb Cavan 936 Simon 680 Q 659 Thomas 478 Alex R. 427 Alex O. 105 Reyka 105 Soren 105 Jade 105 Jannick 105