Windward Chess Club & 2005 U.S. Open news 01-02

Its Middle of August:

You can sense summer coming to end and the start of school year, but you can also sense there is OTB (over the board) chess battles going on everywhere, especially in the mainland. EMILY J LAU tied for 4th place against (47 players - 6 rounds 4 1/2 points) in the 2005 SP National Invitational for Girls! DANTON T LEE against (44 players - 6 rounds 2 1/2 points) played in the Denker Tournament of High School Champions and found some very tough competition! Only (home schooled 9th grader this year) Robert Lau Hawaii Scholastic co-champion with Danton Lee played in the 2005. U. S. Open this year, out of 454 players in this event Robert was the only Hawaii player in the huge U.S. Open tournament! Hmm what happen to the rest of the Hawaii USCF rated players? I know Gas prices are to high, hmm I was not able to make it either! Maybe next year in Chicago, IL!

Last time I (Frank Alejandro) was there (Chicago, IL) playing chess was in 1973 in the National High School Championships, I think its time I visited the U.S. Open again this time in Oakbrook, IL! Last trip to U.S Open was in 1999 in Reno, NV had 5 points (4) 1/2 points byes and won 3 out 5 in rounds 5 through 9.

Reminder: Both the Denker and Polgar scholastic tournaments gave away up to 5 scholarships worth $40,000.00 from the University of Texas at Dallas offering a four-year, full tuition and fees scholarships this year, two in Denker and three in the Polgar, plus many other awards! So is it worth playing chess and winning these events, what do you think!!!

Updated 8/16/05: After 9 rounds ROBERT M LAU finished with 6 points, having taken a 1/2 point bye in the first round and having scored an additional 5 1/2 points in rounds 2 to 9. We'll see if Emily, Danton or Robert will each give us a notated chess game to be presented here later this month! Please congratulate these fine scholastic chess players for traveling to Phoenix, AZ and representing Hawaii in these three events!

Emily will attending college so we wish her much success and we hope she continues playing in chess tournaments! Both Danton and Robert will be returning for another year of outstanding Hawaii interscholastic chess tournaments! Please give Guy Ontai and Randy Prothero a big Mahalo for their continuing support of scholastic chess and USCF /CXR rated events!

For those looking for the USCF wallchart of the July 4th - Rapids Chess Championship tournament, here's the link from USCF web site: http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200507042371. The 2005 Hawaii Rapids Champions are PAUL Y IINUMA & CORNELIUS RUBSAMEN both with 5 1/2 points out of six rounds!

The Windward Chess Quads continue, the last one for the summer will be on August 24 and the top Quad winners for Adults and scholastic will be awarded a free entry into the Hawaii State Championships, so if you have not been to Windward Mall lately, what are waiting for? Current leaders are Nelson Rodriquez (4 wins) (but due to a 59 day TDY to S. Korea he will not be here) so its wide open! For Scholastic Katie Tanabe and Billy Swartworth are tied as the current leaders with three Quad wins each! I will be on vacation August 28 to 31, but will see you Labor Day weekend!

For additional CXR ratings stats please visit www.chess-express.com! Russ Mollot just added a seasonal rating column that will start Sept 1 for all players! Resets each year in Sept, so now you can measure how your doing each year, the more you play the better the stats will help you know your game! The seasonal rating starts no matter if your a provisional or rated player! Russ is currently working on some more upgrades so we we will keep you posted! Want to start your own CXR club, just email Russ at info@chess-express.com for details and he'll get started! Of course all the other ratings and stats will continue to update after each game, they do not reset each year, just the seasonal rating and then its also added to your overall stats and ratings just like USCF, but you lots more data! Hmm! Think of it as you any sports, each year teams start with no stats and at the end of the year you have seasonal stats which are added to the overall stats, well CXR is doing something like that! No other chess rating system has ever attempted to do this for chess players, and at such a low annual cost you cannot go wrong using it!

Always check Hawaii Chess Federation web site for up to date information on Hawaii chess events tournamnets and results! www.hawaiichess.org.

August 21th & 28th Poolside Chess Camp at Mililani by Cornelius Rubsamen

Sept. 3rd Hawaii Blitz Championship at Ohana East Hotel Waikiki - TD Frank Alejandro

Sept 3rd to 5th Hawaii State Championships at Ohana East Hotel at Waikiki USCF rated - TD Larry Reifurth

Sept 24th Mililani Chess Day at Mililani - USCF rated - TD Randy Prothero

Sept 24th 2nd Annual Le Jardin Academy Open Scholastic Tournament CXR / HICL rated Kailua - TD Frank Alejandro

There will be at least 5 maybe 6 more scholastic tournament this season and of course more USCF tournaments so be sure to check Hawaii's Chess Federation web site regularly at www.hawaiichess.org!

USCF elected a New 2005 US Executive Board they are: Robert Tanner, Secretary (AZ), Joel Channing, VP Finance (FL), Greg Shahade (NY) (POC for the CXR affiliate New York Masters League), Bill Goichberg, President (NY), Don Schultz, VP (FL (photo L to R)

For more photos and news about U.S. Chess visit Susan Polgar's web site at http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com

Reminder to CXR players: ALL your USCF rated games games will also be rated by CXR! If your playing out of Hawaii (mainland) please advise via email to frank713@windwardchess.org to ensure I am aware and I can explain the details I'll need! There is no additional cost (besides the annual dues) for this service! So take advantage of it! I normally have 7 days for completion of tournament so be sure to let know ASAP about your mainland tournament plans!

Did you know you can stored your chess notation of each CXR rated game at www.chess-express.com, just log-in and find the game ID number and then follow menu to location where you can copy and paste the chess notation for future review! Remember both players have access to this game to ensure the notation is correct!

I know this a chess blog, but I also run the only affiliated American Go Club the "Kaneohe Go Club" http://go.meetup.com/179 and AGA just finished their own 489 players U.S. Go Congress in Washington State see www.usgo.org for more details see http://www.usgo.org/congress/2005.

Mahalo, and see you OTB either on the Chess board or Go board!!