Alberta Junior Championship and Reserve 2009

The Alberta Junior Championship and Reserve 2009 will be held at Calgary Chess Club on November 7-8, 2009. It will be a 5 round open swiss or round robin (if we have low entries). The winner of the "Championship" section will recieve ACA sponsorship to the next Canadian Junior Chess Championship. The Calgary Junior Chess Club will purchase plaques and will be given to the winner and runner-ups of both sections. Cash prizes will be available for both sections. Time control is Game in 90 minutes + 30 second increments per move. The round times will be 10:00am / 2:30pm / 6:00pm on Saturday and 10:00am / 2:30pm on Sunday (may change to give time to player to get lunch and dinner). All byes must be requested before round 1 (with last round counting as 0 point bye).

The full details for this tournament can be found on the following website: http://www.albertachess.org/Alberta_Junior.html

You can still join by emailing simong89@yahoo. ca (Tournament Director is Simon Ong).

CHAMPIONSHIP SECTION (OPEN):
(1) YueKai Wang of Calgary (1808)
(2) David Miller of Grand Prairie (1627)
(3) Aaron Ting of Calgary (1329)

RESERVE SECTION (RESTRICTION: BELOW 1700 CFC):
(1) Raymond Ong of Calgary (1613)
(2) Naveed Virgi of Edmonton (1478)
(3) Yaroslav Babich of Calgary (1256)
(4) Artsiom Akhverdziyev of Calgary (1186)
(5) Kevin Zhao of Calgary (1110)
(6) Krishneel Singh of Calgary (1077)
(7) Chenxi Zhao of Calgary (929)
(8) Jackson Prather of Calgary (877)
(9) Bill Xu of Calgary (772)
(10) Ryan John Tebbutt of Calgary (608)
(11) Andre Angelo Tolentino of Calgary (587)
(12) Lee Ma of Calgary (589)
(13) Zeling Li of Calgary (531)
(14) Patrick Angelo Tolentino of Calgary (513)
(15) Derek Zhang of Calgary (474)
(16) Imran Virji of Edmonton (UNR)

Alberta Blitz Championship 2009

Alberta Blitz Championship 2009
Date: Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Location: University of Calgary, Macewan Hall, Room Cassio A/B
Registration: 9:00 AM to 9:45 AM (Tournament finishes around 4:00 PM)
Time Control: 5 minutes
Entry Fee: 5$ for U of C Chess Club members; 10$ for other players
Prize Fund: 100% of entry fees
Contact and Pre-Registration: Adie Todd, chess@ucalgary.ca

Pre-registration list:
(1) Ben Schmaltz
(2) Nicholas Moloney
(3) John Morrey
(4) Michael Wanless
(5) Jacob Smith
(6) Chase Cunningham
(7) Dan Kazmaier
(8) Steven Blahitka
(9) Robert Gaforth
(10) Simon Ong
(11) Monica Sommerville
(12) Brett Collier

University of Calgary Simul

Hello everybody,

I got a message from Adie saying:

"U of C will be hosting a simul on Thursday, October 1st. If there are any players from the CCC who would like to participate, it's open to everyone!

Players: Daniel Kazmaier and Nicholas Moloney
Date: Thursday, October 1st
Location: North Courtyard, Macewan Hall, University of Calgary
Time: Register to play at either 11:00 AM or 1:00 PM
Email chess@ucalgary.ca to register"


They will have the giant chess set there as well so sounds like a fun event. I will encourage everyone to go there and play, give it a try. Thanks!

Stephan V.

Match Day

Tired of inflexible tournament conditions? Annoyed by players hiding behind computer programs online? Need a break from the anonymity of correspondence chess?

Here's your chance to play live and on your own terms.

Every Friday, starting on September 18th, the Calgary Chess Club will be open for Match Day. Reply to this post by clicking "Comments" to appear on the club's sign-up sheet, or respond to someone else's ad by the same means. Be sure to set your conditions:

* number of games

* rated or unrated (but please include a ranking for information purposes)

* time control (with or without clock)

* bounty or no (to be decided between the players)

* standard rules, chess at odds, chess 960, or even blindfold

* starting time (remember that club hours are 6-11 PM)

Online submissions for a particular date close at 6:00 PM on that evening. Walk-ins will be accepted at any time. The cost to you will be only $2 per evening.

Let the games begin!

Bob Macfie

Active Grand Prix #2

Hi everybody,

20 players showed up for our Active Grand Prix #2. We added another section so we had 5 sections of 4 players in each.

(btw do you like this active format? do you like the Grand Prix idea? any input would be appreciated!)

We used CFC regular ratings in order to assign sections, but the event will CFC active rated! So don't worry, your active rating will change!

Here are the results for each section:

Section I

Eric Hansen 3 pts -> $30

Stephan Vasilev 1.5 pt -> $15

Brett Campbell 1 pt

Daniel Kazmaier 0.5 pt

Section II

David Zhang 2.5 pts -> $30

Martin Robichaud 2 pts -> $15

Hafiz Carmali 1 pt

Walter Watson 0.5 pt

Section III

Brian Miller 2 pts -> $22.5

Bill Bentley 2 pts -> $22.5

Tom McKay 1 pt

Art Milne 1 pt

Section IV

Vlad Constantinescu 3 pts -> $30

Joseph Mugodo 2 pts -> $15

Cris Kuczaj 1 pt

Simon Ong 0 pts

Section V

Raymond Ong 2 pts -> $22.50

Deweese Wood 2 pts -> $22.50

Guillaume Masclet 1 pt

David Crimmins 1 pt.

Each section also contributed $15 towards the final standings in the Grand Prix.

For the Grand Prix we will tally overall scores for all six active tournaments. All of them are CFC active rated and you must be a CFC member.

New faces for the Grand Prix were master Brett Campbell, expert David Zhang, veteran A class Cris Kuszaj, Joseph Mugodo from Hamilton(he is new to our club), veteran A Class Walter Watson, as well as the current two time Alberta Champ "The Hansenator". :)

Grand Prix #3 will be on October 6th, 2009 which is a bit long to wait because we have the 5 round Fall Open starting on September 1st. The Annual General Meeting is scheduled for the 15th of September so please attend.

Thanks for playing and see you on Friday!

From TD Roy Yearwood, report - Stephan Vasilev, and Simon Ong.

CJCC Back to School Open 2009

Hi all,

CJCC's "Back to School Open" had a modest turnout of 15 players that were put in 3 sections of 5 players each. The players were required to record their moves, the "touch move rule" was in effect, and there were medals for the top 3 of each section. In the second and third sections playoffs were necessary in order to award the medals.

Section winners are as follows:

Section 1:

1st Yuekai Wang 4 pts.
2nd Vlad Constantinescu 3pts.
3rd Diwen Shi 2.5 pts.
4th Artyom Akverdiev 2.0 pts.
5th Kevin Zhao 1 pt.

Setion 2:

1st Stanley Wang 4.5 pts.
2nd Krishneel Singh 3.5 pts.
3rd Andre Tolentino 2.5 pts
4th Patrick Tolentino 1.5 pt.
5th Lee Ma 0.5 pt.

Section 3:

1st Chenxi Zhao 3.5pts(tiebreak winnner).
2nd Zeling Li 3.5pts.
3rd Bill Xu 2.5pts(tiebreak winner)
4th Anna Chaykovska 2.5pts
5th Mehtaab Gill 0.5 pt

Thanks all for playing!

We want to see you all of you at our next tournament, which is on September 26, 2009 at St. Vincent Elementary School 4525 - 49 St. NW. Please don't show up at the chess club for this event!!! For more info or if you have any question, please contact Angelo Tolentino at 403-680-4374 or post on this board. Please show up on time for the registration of this event - from 9:00am to 9:45am!

From TD Roy Yearwood

Positive Experiences at the Chinatown Street Festival

Hello all,

Here is a brief report of the festival:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chinatown Street Festival: Calgary Chess Club

Chinatown Street Festival is one of the most popular festivals in Calgary. Itconsists of merchant booths and entertainmentslocated at 3rd Ave and 1st St SE. It usually attract 50,000 people from allparts of Calgary. Every year this annual festivalconsists of the same activities: 3 on 3 soccer, mini golf, and Chinese Chess.However, there was something different about the9th annual Chinatown Street Festival. There were two tables set up with sixchess boards and pieces under 10'x 10' tent. Nextto the tent was a giant chess board that was set up by Bob Macfie, AngeloTolentino, Roy Yearwood, Raymond Ong and myself. The giant chess pieces wereassembled by our junior club players including the Tolentino brothers and Bill Xu. Then, the youngest of the Tolentino brother, Khino ("young Fischer"), placedthe assembled pieces on the giant board and ready to start a game against anyvisitors.

Regardless of the chilly weather in the morning, more and more visitors gatheredaround the giant chess board observing the gamebetween Bob Macfie and challengers from the crowd. The games on the giant chessboard were not short, the challengers actually givingBob a hard time at some point of the game. Other than the giant chess board wasa hit, visitors came to the tables to play chess against our president, StephanVasilev, and our veteran player, Roy Yearwood. Throughout the day, StephanVasilev, Roy Yearwood, and BobMacfie talked with visitors and answered any questions about our club. As wellthey handed out ACA&CCC pamphlets and Alberta Chess Reports. I helped answered any questions regarding to our junior chess club and passed out the CJCC newschedules. Stephan helped sellchess sets to visitors. It was nice to see the cooperation of our CCCexecutives.

Otherthan our CCC executives, we have many juniors playing chess in the festivalincluding David Zhang, YueKai Wang, Tony Cai,Diwen Shi, Chenxi Zhao, Kevin Zhao, Lee Ma, Gordon Cheung and juniors which Ihad already mentioned earlier in the report. Our juniors were playing blitz and bughouse. Some of our younger juniors werechallenged by visitors. It was suprising to see how our juniors were victoriousagainst visitors who are many times their age. I remembered seeing the AlbertaGrade 1 champion, PatrickTolentino, checkmating a visitor who claimed that he has been playing chess for more than 10 years. Never underestimate our juniors.

Later on the day, we have Raman Shanker dropped by to play chess games. The onlygame I saw Raman played was against Gordon Cheung. Raman easily won the game. Thanks for coming, Raman.

Overall the promotion of our club in this festival was a great success. We hopethat the visitors we met in this festival willcome to our club in the near future. It was a very positive experience for ourCCC executives, CJCC juniors, and visitors. Itwould be great if the CCC board will consider running the same thing in the 10thChinatown Street Festival. If we are doing thesame thing in the future, I strongly encourage our CCC/CJCC players to come outbecause after the festival you will be left withwonderful memories which I cannot explain unless you experience yourself.Stephan managed to capture some of the highlights of this festival and kindlyposted on the Calgary Chess Club Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo_search.phpoid=2837384436&view=all

(I'm not sure if one need a facebook account to see these pictures).Again, I want to say "thank you" to all who came to help out in promoting chessand/or play chess in this festival. Special thanks to Stephan Vasilev, RoyYearwood, Bob Macfie, and Stacy Liu (Chenxi's mom) for helping with the teardown.

P.S. It would be great to see our CCC executives and CJCC players who came to the festival and write their experiences.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Simon Ong
Secretary, Calgary Chess Club