Kahuku Chess Tournaments survives flood warnings and has a its 1st Annual "Open" Scholastic Chess tournament on its own school grounds. The event was free and the school provided food and drinks as well as really nice awards. Thirty triple weighted chess sets and boards were given away as well as medals and a perpetual wooden trophy. We also had great doors prizes that were a hit!
Who said April 1st is "unlucky day" and yes it was a Saturday chess tournament, some outdoor events were canceled due to water soaking the fields, and chess being an indoor event had no such problem, accept for the the two giant chess sets at Kahuku High School now having a moat of water around them now! Yes the same ones that GM Susan Polgar played chess on a few years ago!
We had a really great tournament at Kahuku High School on the North side of Hawaii (April 1st), it was a beautiful morning and we did get not get any rain and lighting but not until about 3:00pm, but it did not last long! Anyway we also ran a Bughouse tournament of 6 rounds besides the the 5 round G/15 rapids tournament and the players wanted more, Nate Blevins Kahuku Chess coach even said lets keep playing, but I was tired out and also realized the rain was back and so we finished the last round about 5:00pm.
Steven Yee 4.5 points was the top player again (won on tiebreakers), he also won the Iolani Tournament and held back Marissa Krienke 2nd place also with 4.5 points and Makaio Krienke 3rd with 4.0 points . The Team winner was new team at Kapolei Middle School from Leeward Oahu, the Kahuku Intermediate School chess team came in second and Hanahau'oli School came in third place!
Lots of players did not come or show due to possible flood warnig's and so we had a 38 players in the Rapids and and we did have a great Bughouse tournament with 38 players with adults allowed to play and so we had the top Hawaii Bughouse players from Honolulu and everyone had great time!
David McDonald a was not as lucky player on the chessboard but did well enough to win a chess set and was the lucky winner in the draw that was drawn by our youngest chess player Pre-K Jacob Prothero and so David won the top award of a digital chess clock! He was one happy little guy! He now has another story to add to his collection of stories he loves to tell people about, Marissa and Makaio I believe can attest to that, right!
I will try and get some photos especially the double giant chess sets that Kahuku had built a few years ago and due to the rains was surround by water and so they had path around it and so it looked cool with a moat of water surrounding it! I am still pretty tired stayed up to late the night before getting things ready, had to use my friends laptop and so had to download and load my programs and data files to prepare fro the tournament!
Anyway we now have 11 new CXR players, and believe that will put us at 1830 people unless someone else joined in the last few days! with approx 450 CXR players in Hawaii now!
Note: Its has rained now 42 days in roll here in Hawaii and has caused mudslides and boulders to to roll down hills and homes sink, fall and flood as well as Kahala Mall was flooded near Diamond Head area. But lucky for us I had my fingers crossed for April 1st we did have a good turn out even though some parents were concern about the flood warnings, the weather held out just long enough for us to have a good turn out and expect next year's Kahuku tournament to be even larger.
Nate Blevins the Kahuku Coach and the Kahuku School provided food and drinks and purchased the chess sets we gave away and Windward Chess Club donated medals and perpetual awards the was won by Kapeoli Chess Team. I had lots of help from Nate Blevins, John Imperial, Lynn Imperial, Randy Prothero and Adam Victoria-Santarone and lots of Kahuku Chess members and other players and parents that came out!
I was told I needed to work on my award presentations, which is true, I was rare tired and had a little problem pronouncing some names. I learn some more things about WinTD and bughouse setup and will do lots better next time.
Many of the players were asking me when if we planed a scholastic event this summer and another bughouse event, we had forty players playing in the bughouse event and they just wanted to keep playing. Iolani and Kahuku Bughouse events have indicated that this type of tournament is popular so I will lot into running another event this summer!
Anyway that all from for now from Kaneohe, Hawaii and yes its raining hard and lighting everywhere. I better turn off my computer, before it gets zapped!
We plan on having this tournament again next year, so make plans to travel to Kahuku High School next year, for results from this tournament go to Kahuku tournament results.
Mahalo,
Frank
