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The July edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

Colorado Senior Championship Colorado Quick Chess Championship Colorado All Girls Scholastic Championship Colorado State Class Championship DCC 2024 Spring Classic DCC 2024 Denver Open 2024 Candidates Tournament 2024 Cairns Cup & Ultimate Moves and more!

Download the issue

The new Colorado Hall of Fame Special Issue of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

Richard W. “Buck” Buchanan Alexander G. Fishbein Royal E. Franklin Christine L. Hendrickson and more!

Download the Special Issue

The April 2024 edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

Gambit Coffee Grand Master's Chess History of Chess in Denver 2024 Scholastic State Championships Tribute to MLK Tournament 2024 CO Closed Championships and more!

Download the April Edition

Earle Wikle is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: CSCA Board Zoom Meeting Wed. 3/27, @7:30pm
Time: Mar 27, 2024 07:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

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Present: Earle Wikle, Jesse Cohen, Nicholas Brookins, Andy Starr, Duwayne Langseth, Todd Bardwick, Neil Bavikatti, and Tom Nelson join at 8pm.

OLD BUSINESS - Deferred to later for Dean to come online.

FINANCIALS
Cost of Arapahoe County Fairgrounds were presented.
NEW BUSINESS
-2024 Colorado State Scholastic championship. Todd put out an email with all the TD’s included.
Todd stated same crew as last year, should have any problems.
By request: Earlier in the year, last year there was an issue. Bye policy. 1⁄2 point for a bye and
must be requested 1 hour prior to the matches. Todd states he doesn’t want people requesting
later byes during a tournament because it could impact pairings in the final two matches. He
states it could allow participants to manipulate the system. It is almost like people requesting
byes to allow people to buy their way into a prize position. We should not give out byes in
rounds 4,5,6, per Todd. Earle, post it in an advertisement and we are covered. Earle states Todd
is the Tournament Director, and he can make any changes. Rule in the book: 21c2 and 22c2 and
only take 1⁄2 point buy from rounds 1 through 4 and not allow 1⁄2 point buys in rounds 5 and 6.
Then send out an email to reflect the change in an email to those who have already registered.
Voting to recommend 1⁄2 byes for rounds 1-3. 0-point byes are allowed. The vote passed
unanimously.
Volunteers that we have working being discussed to ensure we have enough. Tom organized this
all, but Tom is not here. Dean is doing the pairings. Earle can do the pairings and Andy can do
the pairings as well. Everyone has to have their USCF memberships up to date prior to the
pairings being posted for those players.
Food Trucks: Jesse was spearheading this facet. Paradise tavern. Food truck usually pays to be
there. We have cost associated with the venue; comes with two kitchens, warming kitchens, but
not to cook in. Just cooling and warming. One entity is in the building, “Paradise tavern” $200 is
their option that they chose per day. Three other food trucks: Romo’s Mexican food truck
(Tacos). Q’s Cuisine (Barbecue), What Would Cheesus Do (cheese sandwich’s). We must get a
permit from Firefighters if they are going to cook to have it inspected for concerns.
If the second kitchen is not accessible, we may have to not have Cheesus involved. Jesse spoke
with Jessica Heights stated we have two kitchens. But one of the kitchens will be utilized by the
Chess administrators because it is too close to the chess players and would disturb the actual
tournament.

Set up for the tournament. Earle will be there the night before to set up the DGT boards. Todd
will set up the board numbers and the boards. Todd is requesting another person to help with
setting up the venue. Starting on Friday for set up. There will be three divisions: K-3 K-5, K-12.
Three DGT boards for each section. Benjamin Beaver, Zach hired to take over his operations.

Benjamin offered his services and other coaches. Setting up the chess sets is the most time-
consuming issue. Todd would like for him and Jesse Cohen to set up the chess sets alone and

not utilize the volunteers.
Tom: has the sets. Tom will be arriving at 3p.m. on Friday. Tom will be bringing the trophies and
booklets, as well as the score sheets, pencils or pens.
Earle at the end will go up on stage with a microphone and present the trophies. Earle spoke
with someone working for the tournament and wanted they wanted their child to be given a
free tournament and have their fees waived. The issue is giving out free things, the money is
actually used for travel for the kids to other venues if they win. It isn’t fair to everyone that
someone got a free tournament for whatever reason.
ACTIONS
Voting to recommend 1⁄2 byes for rounds 1-3. 0-point byes are allowed. The vote passed
unanimously.
OLD BUSINESS
Website project: Dean is not here. Neil is promoting a proposal to work on the website project,
he has been involved in the college application process. He is recommending a possible
professional option. Jesse Cohen is stating that there are no energy moving forward, motivation,
is not there. Jesse would like to hire professional services to get it accomplished. The project has
stalled, and Jesse wants to get this project moving forward. Dean is not assisting actively
enough to get this project done. Jesse suggest we hire someone for $200-$300 to transfer our
website. We use WordPress and then have someone build our website up. Then have the board
take over. Security is a concern during the conversation related to Jesse Cohen having his
website hacked. Someone recommended we not tie our bank accounts to the online site. The
recommendation is that we discuss with Dean and see what his thoughts about using Stripe for
payments. To see if Dean is going to assist with moving forward and be interactive in this project
Earle: Would like Jesse to send Earle the website link to see what their rates are. Jesse is
suggesting, “FIVER” is a list of people that will work with you for a price and you can choose and
decide which entrepreneur to choose versus price.

Motion to close the meeting by Earle, seconded by Jesse Cohen.

Signed

Nicholas Brookins, Colorado State Chess Association Secretary

Earle Wikle is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

The January 2024 edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

2024 Scholastic State Championships DCC Fall Classic US Chess Championship St. Louis Rapid & Blitz Incarceration Unvealed Clear, Pragmatic, Powerful and more!

Download the JanuaryEdition

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The October 2023 edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

2023 Colorado Chess Awards Colorado Chess in the News Denver Open Colorado Open You Can Help! How's it going, Beelzebub? Fisher's Repertoire and more!

Download the October Edition

CSCA Zoom Meeting 9/20 @7:30pm

Earl W
12:27 AM (1 minute ago)
to Jesse, Andy, DuWayne, Nicholas, Neil, Vedanth

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The July 2023 edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

NM Lior Lapid's Farewell Lecture Colorado Quick Championship State Senior & U50 Championships DCC Spring Classic Colorado Class Championships The American Cup 2023 GM James Tarjun Simul Game and more!

Download the July Edition

Old Business:

Treasury Report
Membership Report

Upcoming Events:
Senior and under 50 tournament: June 3-4
Class Championship: June 10-11
Quick Championship: June 3
Blitz Championship: Sept 1
Colorado Open: Sept 2-3

New Business:
Girls State Scholastic Championship: August 12
USCF Afiliate membership
Denver Open Stipen for GMs
Any other new business

The April 2023 edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

NM Lior Lapid's Message to Colorado State Scholastic Championships DCC Clone Wars Colorado Closed Championships Tata Steel 2023 Wijk Aan Zee USCF Top 100 Colorado Players Chess and the "Hawthorne Effect" and more!

Download the April Edition

Old Business:
Post State Scholastic Championship; Results, Stipens, Lesson learned, and plans for next year.
Closed Championships: March 17-19; Prizes, Streaming, Expences, and provide Lunch or awards dinner.
Senior and under 50 tournament: June 3-4
Class Championship: June 10-11
Quick Championship: June 3, or June 10
Blitz Championship: Sept 1
Colorado Open: Sept 2-3

New business:
Memberships
Girls State Scholastic Championship: ?
Taxes
USCF Afiliate membership
Denver Open Stipen for GMs
Any other new business

Link Below

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87453589062?pwd=WEVDUlFuTDZ4V1k5QnhROHlPWFJQUT09

Here is the link for the live DGT boards at the Scholastic Championships.

https://view.livechesscloud.com/#c2d22646-b45a-4b5a-92aa-ead6c7ad0945

Thank you to everyone for making this event a success.

Agenda:

Old business:
State Scholastics Championship: Feb. 10-12
Insurance
Tiebreakers
Closed championships:  March 24-26
Scholastic closed tournaments:  March 17-19
Quick Championship: April 21, or June 3
Class Championship: April 21-22
Senior and under 50 tournament: June 3-4
Blitz Championship: Sept 1
Colorado Open: Sept 2-3
Maybe add a team championship: Sept. 30 - Oct. 1

New business:
Scholastic T-Shirt Sales
Fundraiser

Agenda:

Old business:
Tiebreakers
Insurance
State Scholastics Championship: Feb. 10-12
Closed championships:  March 24-26
Scholastic closed tournaments:  March 24-26
Quick Championship: April 21, or June 3
Class Championship: April 21-22, or April 28-29
Blitz Championship: Sept 1
Senior and under 50 tournament: June 3-4
Colorado Open: Sept 2-3
Maybe add a team championship: Sept. 30 - Oct. 1

New business:
Scholastic T-Shirt Sales
Fundraiser 

The January 2023 edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

DCC Fall Classic USCF Top 100 Colorado Players Colorado Springs Chess Dissecting a Chess.com Puzzle Sealer-Sweeper! NM Lior Lapid Lecture World Fischer Random Championship and more!

Download the January Edition

CSCA Board Meeting

Sunday, October 30, 2022, at 4:30pm

Agenda:

Old business:

Andy has made progress, but is still working to get access to the bank account. Need past officers to help transition.

Tiebreakers

Mass Texting

Planning tournament dates (I plan to have the tournament dates closer to actual dates by meeting time):

State Scholastics Championship: Feb. 10-12, or Feb. 17-19  (Super bowl is Feb. 12)

Closed championships:  March 17-19, or March 24-26

Scholastic closed tournaments:  March 24-26, March 31-April 2, April 13-16

Senior and under 50 tournament: April 1-2, April 15-16

Quick Championship: April 22, May 6

Class Championship: April 22-23, May 6-7

Blitz Championship: Sept 1

Colorado Open: Sept 2-3

Maybe add a team championship: Sept. 30 - Oct. 1

New business:

Standards for tournaments: time controls, round times, payments, prizes, and locations.

Classical Championship games all round time controls: G/90;+30, or G/120;d10

Quick Chess Championship games: G/12;+3, or G/12;+5, or G/15;d3

Blitz Chess Championship games: G/5;d0, or G/5;d3, or G/3;+2

Round times: 9am-2pm-7pm

Scholastic T-Shirt Sales

Fundraiser 

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The October edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

Colorado Open Champions Showdown : Chess 9LX Sunil Weeramantry Lecture in Parker D14 QGD Slav exchange The 1977 American Open The Chess Detective Tactics Time! and more!

Download the October Edition

There will be a CSCA online board meeting on Sunday, September 18, at 7:00 pm.

Agenda:
Old business; Making transition to new positions
New business; 
Planning tournament dates for:
Scholastics tournament in Feb
Closed championships
Scholastic closed tournaments
Senior Championship and under 50 tournament
Quick Championship
Blitz Championship
Class Championship
Colorado Open
Maybe add a team championship.
Tie-breakers for Colorado Open
Standards for tournaments: time controls, round times, payments, prizes, and locations.

Congratulations for winning national awards at the 2022 US Open Chess Journalists Awards!

Denver Chess Club - JC MacNeil

Best Club Newsletter Online

Honorable Mention

Taylor Shaw - Denver Post 

Best Mainstream Media Chess Article

Story on Griffin McConnell

https://mailchi.mp/eff641d2265a/discount-rooms-for-colorado-open-have-been-extended?e=04bd4d0f59

Congratulations to our Colorado Team that completed play in the US Open Tournament of Champions alongside the 2022 US Open Championship July 30 – August 2^nd in Rancho Mirage, California!

All our players faced tough national level competition and did Colorado proud!

Here are the final results from the six round tournaments.

Denker Invitational High School Championship GRIFFIN THOMAS MCCONNELL 3.0 placed 21st

Barber Invitational Middle School Championship HARSH MALI 3.0 placed 28th

Rockefeller Elementary Championship IRIS LI 3.0 placed 23rd

Haring Girls Invitational Championship KAAVYA SAKTHISARAVANAN 3.0 placed 28th

Irwin Invitational Senior Championship DUWAYNE LANGSETH 2.0 placed 35th

Attending this CSCA Board meeting: Brad Lundstrom, Jesse Cohen, Scott Lett, Josh Samuels, Andrew Roerty and Tom Nelson.

Also, CSCA members: Richard Buchanan and Earle Wikle.

2022 Colorado Blitz Open Championship – covered details of event for Setember 2

2022 Colorado Open – discussed details for the tournament September 3-4th.

Discussed more CSCA board member support physically present before tournament starts this year.

Discussing upcoming elections. Brad is stepping down, Earle is interested. Jesse is willing to stay, Andrew Star is interested in Treasurer, Andrew Roerty will stay if none are interested.

Everything is open to membership vote. Any CSCA member that desires to serve is eligible to be nominated for board positions annually.

Appreciation awards to be presented at the Colorado Open membership meeting September 4th.

Discussion of future of Colorado Informant, John Brezina has expressed interest otherwise Jesse is willing to step up, create monthly videos with updates, and post it. Maybe we can have both!

Members of the board reflected  on the past year and spoke on desires for the upcoming year. Earle would like the inclusion of cross tables for each tournament added to the magazine/reporting.

Hope to see all CSCA members at the Colorado Open!

Jesse Cohen covered minutes for this meeting as Scott was indisposed until later in the meeting.

Some amazing and truly great news for Colorado about our own Iris Li!

As the official representative of the US Chess Team, Iris won the gold medal of the 2022 Pan-American Youth Chess Festival (under 10 girls section) which was held from Jun 25 to Jul 02 in Montevideo, Uruguay! You can find the result here. It was an unforgettable and great experience for Iris, and she was really proud to be able to represent the US, and also Colorado, on the international stage. You can find her happy face in the award ceremony in the attachment.

Colorado is so proud of you Iris... Congratulations!

There will be a CSCA online board meeting on Monday, August 1st at 7:30 pm.

Agenda

Colorado Blitz Championship - September 2nd

Colorado Open - September 3-4th

Annual CSCA Membership Meeting - September 4th 

CSCA Board support at these three events

CSCA Amazon Smile Program

New communication in Colorado Chess - Jesse

CSCA Awards

Brad Lundstrom is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: CSCA Board Meeting 

Time: Aug 1, 2022 07:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

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2022 Colorado Open - September 3-4th

Wednesday, August 3rd is the last day to get the chess players room discount at the Sheraton Inn.

See Upcoming Tournaments for all the information and the registration links.

Hope to see you there!

The July edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

This is Fred Spell's last edition as editor! Many thanks to him for all the time and effort it takes to produce these.

In this Issue:

Hall of Famer, John Harris Joshua Samuel at the National Open                Denver Open Colorado Class Championships Colorado Quick Championships The 1988 Peoples Tournament Colorado Senior Open

and more!

Download the July Edition

Post from John Brezina

https://parkerchessclub.godaddysites.com/

The Parker Chess Club is excited to announce the return of a very special guest who will be giving a lecture at our club on Monday July 11, 2022 from 6-8pm during our regular club meeting time. We are honored that Sunil Weeramantry will return to give a lecture and sign copies of his books which we'll have a limited supply of. Mr. Weeramantry is the executive director of the National Scholastic Chess Foundation as well as a member of the USCF Scholastic Committee since 1986. In addition, a FIDE Master and a former two-time New York State champion. Sunil is one of the most successful chess coaches in the country. He is also the author, with Ed Eusebi, of the best-selling chess book, Best Lessons of a Chess Coach. His many accolades in chess are too numerous to list here. He is also the step father to Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. In addition, we'll have NM Kris Littlejohn in our lecture audience. He is Nakamura's long-time second. Please join us and welcome these two special guests to Colorado at the Parker library upstairs in the Event Hall room A on Mainstreet in Parker, Colorado.

Email me with any questions at skibrezina@gmail.com."

We need YOU

Congratulations to Colorado's newest National Master Daniel Herman!

http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202206187402

Following Daniel's repeat as the 2022 Colorado Master-Experts Champion and tie for 1st in the Colorado Quick Chess Championship, Daniel had another great tournament with a 4-0 performance to launch him from 2197 at M-E Class Championship over the 2200 mark to 2210.

Congratulations Daniel and all of the Colorado Chess community is very proud of you!

Chess Journalists Awards 2022

Colorado Nominations by Colorado Chess Association President Brad Lundstrom

Best State Magazine/Newsletter

Colorado Chess Informant:  Quarterly Issues

Editor: Eric Fred Spell

Link: https://www.coloradochess.com/informants.shtml

Single Article of Local Interest

The Colorado Closed and Scholastic Closed Tournaments

By TD and Colorado Scholastic Director: Tom Nelson

Chess Informant:  April 2022 Issue… pages 8-13

Link: https://www.coloradochess.com/informants.shtml

Best Club Newsletter

Denver Chess Club

Editor: JC McNeill  Club President: Richard Shtivelband

Denver Chess Club - Home

Link: https://www.facebook.com/DenverChessClub

Click on News tab for monthly club newsletters

DCC Newsletter also reprinted in the Colorado Informant

April 2022 Issue… pages 24-27

Link: https://www.coloradochess.com/informants.shtml

Best Instructive Article

The Chess Detective

Article by, NM Todd Bardwick

Chess Informant:  April 2022 Issue… page 38

Link: https://www.coloradochess.com/informants.shtml

Best Coverage by Mailstream Publication 

– Colorado has two entries note 2nd  is past the June 1, 2022 cut off so the second news feature will be a CJA 2023 Colorado Nomination

Online search: Griffin McConnell Denver Post

- Reporter: Taylor Shaw October 31, 2021       CJA to create a link for this article

GM Timur Gareyev visits Zack Bekkadahl’s Chessmates Summer Camp and plays 55 Colorado kids simultaneously – Channel 31 Denver Fox News - Reporter Evan Kruegal - June 17, 2022

https://kdvr.com/news/local/chess-grandmaster-timur-gareyev-chessmates-camp-fort-collins/

Chess grandmaster Timur Gareyev plays 55 kids at once …

https://kdvr.com/news/local/chess-grandmaster...

5 hours ago · Chess Grandmaster Timur Gareyev takes on 55 kids at once at a Fort Collins camp on June 17, 2022. (KDVR) Chess Grandmaster Timur Gareyev takes on 55 kids at once.

Awesome last day at Zachary Belkedahl's Chessmates summer camp in Fort Collins as we hosted International Grandmaster Timur Gareyev for a simultaneous exhibition. Our visiting Grandmaster spoke to our students and allowed every one of them to individually challenge him… Timur scored a perfect 55-0-0 but a few courageous warriors gave him a good fight. Everyone enjoyed meeting this brilliant living chess legend. Timur was friendly, kind, funny and absolutely lethal on every chess board. A day these kids will never forget.

Calling out to all Colorado chess players.

If you have played any good chess games you'd like to see published in the July issue of the Colorado Chess Informamt here's your opportunity!

These need to be in pgn and can be the game score only or with your notes and analysis.

Send them to Brad Lundstrom chesscoach2014@gmail.com by June 21st.

Congratulations to our 2022 Colorado Class State Champions!

Master Expert - Daniel Herman

Class A - Larry Wutt

Class B - Joe Llacza

Class C - Johnathon Sealander

Class D - Peter Needham

Class E ended in a tie...

Karthika Sakthisarananan

Nathaniel Lasaga-Ivey

If any players have games they'd like featured in the upcoming July issue of our Colorado Chess Informant (pgn with or without your notes) send them to me by June 21st. Brad Lundstrom chesscoach2014@gmail.com

Thanks to our great TDs Tom Nelson and Peter Barlay.

Also, thank you to Earle Wikle who engineered  our excellent playing site and ran the DGT boards.

Congratulations to Rhett Langseth and Daniel Herman on their 1st place tie at the 2022 Colorado Quick Chess Championship held June 3rd in Colorado Springs. The 6 round event featured a 10 minute - 5 second delay and both players scored 5-1.

Under 1600 saw Luke Donofrio and Tyler Thieszen win that prize with an excellent result along with National Master Brian Wall at 4.5

29 players battled it out for fun and for blood.

Our TD was the legendary Tom Nelson who as always did an excellent job.

Congratulations to DuWayne Langseth for winning clear 1st with a perfect 4-0 in the 2022 Colorado Senior State Championship held in Loveland April 2-3.

Finishing just behind after their final round draw which left them tied at 3.5 were NM Brian Wall - our 2021 Senior Champion and Josh Samuel - our 2021 Senior Representative at last year's US Open.

As our Colorado Senior Champion DuWayne earns the right to compete in this summer's US Open - Tournament of Champions against the senior state champions from all 50 US states, 

The Under 50 section ended in a three way tie at 3.0 between NM and Denver Chess Club President Richard Shtivelband, Rhett Langseth and Anthony Whitt.

As always many thanks due to our stellar Tournament Director - Tom Nelson. 

The April edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In this Issue:

2021/2022 Chess League Colorado & Scholastic Closed tournaments 2022 Colorado Scholastic State Championship                Chess in Colorado Springs Martin Luther King, Jr. tournament The 1987 Peoples Tournament The Chess Detective

and more!

Download the April Edition

Congratulations to Colorado's new National Masters: Griffin McConnell and Neil Bhavikkiti!

They both passed the magical 2200 US Chess rating barrier last Saturday, March 19th at the Summit School of Chess Tournament directed by CSCA Vice President and NM Jesse Cohen. 

Here is a link to all the results from this never to be forgotten tournament.

http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php...

Along with Sullivan McConnell Griffin's brother, this now gives Colorado three High School Players that are US National Masters!

Amazing work Griffin and Neil... Congratulations!!

Our CSCA Board is accepting applications for our Colorado Delegate if you'd like to represent Colorado during the 2022 US Open national US Chess meetings during the US open July 30 - August 7th to be held in Rancho Mirage, California.

We currently have filling in as our state delegate Paul Covington, our CSCA past president and President Emeritus a non-voting CSCA Board member. He is in a long process of being back and forth from Colorado to his new home in Oklahoma but has filled this position before and would be happy to do it again this year in 2022.

Although he is a great choice since he is ultimately leaving Colorado, we are opening it up to any other CSCA members that are planning on attending the US Open this summer.

If you are playing and a delegate it makes for a full day of delegate meetings then your US Open tournament game will be played in the evening.

If you are interested email, by April 30, 2022 to be considered.

Brad Lundstrom;  chesscoach2014@gmail.com

Jesse Cohen: jessecohen@gmail.com

WHAT IS A DELEGATE? This is an introduction. It does not include complete details. For complete information please see Article 5 (pages 5-8) of the US Chess Bylaws. Where do delegates come from and where do they go? Delegates are named by state chapters to represent their state by voting in-person at the annual Delegates’ Meeting, which is traditionally the final Saturday and Sunday of US Open week. The US Open is usually the last week of July or the first week of August. The event is rotated around the country at different venues from year to year. See our National Events Page for where the next one will be held: https://new.uschess.org/national-events-calendar/. How many delegates is each state allowed? Much like our US House of Representatives, each state is allotted a specific number of delegates based on how many US Chess members reside in that state. Each state is also asked to name an equal number of alternates so that if a delegate can’t attend, the alternate will take the delegate’s place. To see how many delegates your state is allotted, visit the Current Delegates List. The number of delegates allotted is listed after the state abbreviation. Who can be a delegate? In simple terms, you can name anyone who is a US Chess member in good standing (dues paid and no suspensions) from your state or a neighboring state. The person doesn’t need to be a rated chess player—or a chess player at all. Parents of young chess players who are US Chess members themselves can be delegates. There is no age restriction for delegates. People employed by US Chess cannot be delegates. What do delegates do? At the meeting, delegates vote on motions that affect the running of US Chess. Delegates also write the motions, whether ahead of time or at the Delegates’ Meeting. Delegate motions can be about any change a delegate, or the state they represent, would like to see in the way US Chess runs, including ethical conduct, rules, membership, etc. There is no limit to the number of motions a delegate can make. Do they have any real power? The body of delegates makes decisions regarding US Chess as an organization. According to Article V, Section 1, of the US Chess Bylaws, “Among other things, it shall have the authority to amend the Bylaws and the USCF Official Rules of Chess, approve the annual budget, approve the sale of real estate owned by the USCF, approve any borrowing secured by real estate owned by the USCF, establish, amend or revoke one or more trusts for the management of Life Member assets and appoint or remove one or more Trustees for the purpose of administering said trusts, and supervise the ethics compliance process of US Chess.” Motions can also be referred to a US Chess committee, or the Executive Board, for further evaluation.

Iris Li, Colorado's 2021 Girls State Champion and our 2022 Elementary State Champion has received exciting news from US Chess!

US Chess published the list of US Chess members who are the official invitees for the 2022 World Youth and World Cadet Championships. Iris is on the list (Girls Under 10)!

The announcement can be viewed on the US Chess website at https://new.uschess.org/news/us-chess-announces-2022-world-youth-world-cadet-championships-invitees.

Latest information on the 2022 World Cadet Championships is that they are scheduled to be held September 15-28, 2022, in Batumi, Georgia (https://fide.com/calendar/18857).

US Chess will provide us more details once they get further information on the event.

Iris, Colorado Chess Players are all very proud of you and wish you continued great chess play!

The McConnell family is embarking on a wonderful project in bringing the 2022 North American Chess Cup for Children with Disabilities Tournament to Denver on June 21-26th this summer.

We will be inviting and hosting players and their families from the US, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America for this event.

There will be a huge need for volunteer help and this is an early call out to Colorado chess players that are willing to donate their time and efforts to help in a wide variety of ways for this tournament.

Contact Kevin McConnell mcconnell2@yahoo.com if you are interested in being a part of this amazing event

Congratulations to NM Sullivan McConnell repeats as our 2022 Colorado Closed Champion!

Denver Chess Club President - NM Richard Shtivelband shared 1st and 2nd prize money as he also scored 3.5 but finsihed 2nd on tiebreaks.

Closed Challengers Champion is our current state co-champion Rhett Langseth.

Closed Scholastic State Champion - Sikander Baker-Nager

Closed Scholastic Challengers Champion - Liam Newell

Thank you to our awesome Tournament Directors; Tom Nelson and Buck Buchanan

Rated Event: 202202130042 2022 SCHOLASTIC STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS Rated on 2022-02-27

Congratulations 2022 Colorado Scholastics Champions!

K-3 George Lin

K-5 Iris Li

K-8 Harsh Mali

K-12 Griffin McConnell

Rated Event: 202202130042 2022 SCHOLASTIC STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS Rated on 2022-02-27

Hello everyone,

The 2022 Scholastic State Championship is rapidly approaching February 12th-13th. 

We are beyond thrilled to see so many of your wonderful faces that we missed last year in person but we also understand this is still a trying and confusing time for many with the persistence of COVID and the Omicron variant which took the world by storm. 

We know many are still hesitant to sign up because of uncertainties.

Will the event be canceled? 

Will I be well enough to play?

Is this event safe?

1) The 2022 Scholastic State Championship will definitely be happening in person - there will be no cancellations 

2) We are extending the deadline to signup until Wednesday February 9. This will give everyone enough time to determine if they are well and able to participate.

3) We will be taking the highest precautions: screening participants for temperatures, strict mask policy, ample spacing between players, hand sanitizing stations & whatever else we can do to ensure a safe environment for everyone.

REGISTRATION LINK: 

https://caissachess.net/online-registration/index/1299

Thank you!

CSCA Team

Colorado State Chess Association 

CSCA Board Meeting 

A board meeting was called by CSCA President Brad Lundstrom, and held online 17 January 2022. 

Attendance 

1. In attendance: 

Voting Board Members: 

○ Brad Lundstrom, President 

○ Jesse Cohen, Vice-President 

○ Scott Lett, Secretary 

○ Josh Samuel, Treasurer 

○ Andrew Starr, At Large Representative 

Non-Voting Attendees: 

○ Shirley Herman 

○ Richard Shtivelband 

○ Brian Wall 

○ Kevin McConnell 

○ Lex Huberts 

2. Purpose of meeting 

The purpose was a regular board meeting. 

3. Summary 

Brad brought the meeting to order. 

Brad summarized progress on the CSCA tournament schedule. Please see https://www.coloradochess.com/newtourn.shtml for details. 

Brad announced the agreement with Tom Nelson to act as chief TD for CSCA tournaments. 

Josh summarized recent financial transactions of the CSCA. 

Scott recapped the prior meeting. 

Scholastic events: 

The upcoming scholastic tournament (February) was discussed. Two major topics were discussed. First, a call for help and the slow registrations. Second, the topic of how to select scholastic players to represent Colorado at the national level. Of special interest

was the topic of selecting a girls’ representative and the need to organize a girls’ championship soon, as presented by Jesse. 

Events and fundraising for young players with disabilities 

Kevin McConnell introduced his nonprofit (Chess Abilities Inc.), the efforts to field a team for the upcoming Olympiad for young players with disabilities in Russia and an upcoming (June 21-27) tournament he is organizing in Denver. He discussed the difficulties in getting children with disabilities to participate in person playing over-the-board. He asked for assistance with fundraising and onsite tournament help. He will follow up with details to the board. 

Denver Chess Club and Denver Open 

Richard discussed efforts to organize the Denver Open, the effort to invite (and pay for) top chess talent, and requested co-sponsorship from CSCA 

Richard introduced Lex Huberts, who recently moved from California, where he was active in local chess. He wishes to contribute to the good of chess in Colorado, and expressed his view that many strong players will attend the Denver Open. 

Brian Wall was also available to add detail to the DCC effort and help needed with the visiting VIPs. He also mentioned that Colorado player Mirza Peljto lost his Louisville home in the Marshall Fire. 

Shirley requested that the CSCA not participate in any way with any event where her children could not compete because of a COVID vaccination & masking requirement, singling out the Denver Open. No action was taken, except to assure Shirley that her donation wouldn’t go to the DCC. Brad expressed sadness that we are in a time of 

controversy, and suggested the board may take up the matter by vote at a later time. Richard made no further comment about the COVID safety requirements, but said that they had come in the spirit of good relations between DCC and CSCA. 

Brad asked for a volunteer to act as delegate to the USCF at the US Open…nobody stepped forward. 

4. Actions taken: 

○ Board Votes 

None taken. 

○ Discussions, Followup Assignments from the President: 

None

CSCA Board Meeting - Tuesday, January 18th at 7pm

All CSCA members are welcome to attend.

Zoom link

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81489148450?pwd=RkdNYnBVZWhtNXFJZ2MrVGx2TWFsQT09

Agenda

-Roll call and opening comments - Brad 

-Minutes from last meeting - Scott

-Treasurer update - Josh

-2022 Colorado State Championship Tournaments Update - Brad

Scholastics K-12 - Tom

Colorado Closed

Senior Open

Class Championship

10 minute Championship 

Girls Championship 

Colorado Blitz Championship

Colorado Open

- Colorado Delegate for US Open

-North American Disabilities Championship - Kevin McConnell

-Denver Open - Kevin

Your questions and suggestions

Hi everyone,

Our early sign up for the Colorado Scholastic Chess Championship is up and taking online entries.

This is for grades K-12 and champions earn the opportunity to represent Colorado at the US Open this coming July in the Elementary, Middle School and Hight School "Tournament of Champions".

There is also a separate Scholastic Blitz Tournament scheduled for the Friday evening prior on February 11th.

Visit the CSCA Scholastic Upcoming tournaments site for all the details.

If you can pass this along and share this message to your chess contacts, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,

Brad  

The January edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In this Issue:

Colorado Masters & Experts Invitational      L.M. Brian Wall Simul The Elements of Magic, Part 1 Tactics Time The Chess Detective and more!

Download the January Edition

Colorado State Chess Association 

CSCA Board Meeting 

A special board meeting was called by CSCA President Brad Lundstrom, and held online 27 October 2021. The meeting began at 7 PM MDT with Brad Lundstrom, CSCA President, presiding and Scott Lett, Secretary reporting minutes. 

1. In attendance: 

Voting Board Members: 

○ Brad Lundstrom, President 

○ Jesse Cohen, Vice-President 

○ Scott Lett, Secretary 

○ Josh Samuel, Treasurer 

○ Andrew Starr, At-large Representative 

○ Alayne Wilinsky, At-large Representative 

Non-Voting Attendees: 

○ Shirley Herman 

○ Paul Covington 

○ Tom Nelson 

2. Purpose of meeting 

The purpose of the special meeting was a regular board meeting. 

3. Summary 

Brad brought the meeting to order. 

Brad recapped the financial outcome of the Colorado Open. He also gave a proposal for staffing future tournaments, revising his proposal from the previous meeting. 

Brad recapped some press coverage of CSCA events and in particular article(s) about Griffin McConnell. 

Scott recapped the last meeting, a special CSCA board meeting to address lessons learned from the Colorado Open. 

Josh and Scott recapped the progress of one of the tournament committees. 

Scott gave an update on curating a CSCA membership roster, which at present doesn’t exist, from the online database of membership on caissachess.net. There was a variety of discussion about standardizing the use of caissachess for directing tournaments and

making financial reports. There was also a discussion of the proposal to increase the minimum number of directors at future tournaments. 

Brad led the discussion of the proposed CSCA tournament schedule for 2022. 

Paul recapped a recent informational USCF meeting that he attended in place of Brad, who could not attend. 

4. Actions taken: 

○ Board Votes 

None taken. 

○ Discussions, Followup Assignments from the President: 

i. Scott to follow up with Dean Clow , Brad wishes to sit in. 

ii. Scott to draft a tournament guideline. (Later, Brad reassigned this to himself, and Paul provided a TD checklist from the USCF.) 

iii. Paul to provide a link to his recording of this meeting. 

iv. Brad to begin searching for venues for tournaments.

I sent a video of our Colorado state scholastics championship to John Elway at Denver Broncos and he replied. How cool is that!

“That’s fantastic. Pass along my congratulations to all of them.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Elway

This story is making world news and was recognized by Colorado Governor Polis -- it will run in the Denver Post this Sunday, October 31, 2021.

By TAYLER SHAW | tshaw@denverpost.com | The Denver Post

PUBLISHED: October 27, 2021 at 4:02 p.m. | UPDATED: October 27, 2021 at 4:25 p.m.

After four brain surgeries, 17-year-old continues to win at chess and inspire...

Nine minutes after the Denver Chess Club tournament started Oct. 16 in an Embassy Suites hotel, and eight months after his fourth brain surgery, Griffin McConnell sat down to compete.

He started the match by trying to open a plastic water bottle, but with only one fully functioning arm, the task was difficult and he instead made his first move on the chess board. Less than three hours later, he won the game and went on to second place in the tournament with two higher ranked players in a three-way tie.

Back on Feb. 25, competing in a chess tournament was only a hope for Griffin, now 17, of Golden. Doctors had just finished his second hemispherectomy, a procedure that disconnects the left and right side of the brain and causes some paralysis. The brain surgery was Griffin’s fourth since being diagnosed at age 5 with epilepsy, a common neurological disorder characterized by seizures of many types.

Seizures and surgeries became common in Griffin’s young life, but chess remained a constant for the boy who started playing at 4 years old. He always came back to chess. Seven months after his surgery, on Labor Day weekend, Griffin became a state champion, beating his younger brother, Sullivan, to win the 2021 Colorado Open Blitz Chess Championship.

“I wanted to get back to my normal self as fast as possible,” Griffin said about competing so soon after major brain surgery. “If I could still do chess, then I can do, kind of, anything.”

Treating epilepsy—a long journey

Griffin’s seizures started as subtle behavioral changes, making them difficult to identify, his mother said. But doctors told his parents, Kori and Kevin McConnell, that their son would likely grow out of it, Kevin said.

Epilepsy is “the most common childhood brain disorder in the United States,” affecting about 450,000 U.S. residents younger than 17, two-thirds of whom outgrow their seizures by the time they’re teenagers, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

But Griffin’s seizures got worse.

“There are a lot of different causes, there are a lot of different ways that it manifests,” Brent O’Neill, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital Colorado who’s performed all four of Griffin’s surgeries, said about epilepsy. “The first line of treatment is always medicine.”

Drugs did not help Griffin. At times, he would take as many as 30 pills a day, his father, Kevin, said. The side effects were many and included psychosis.

Even with the epilepsy, Griffin excelled at chess after Kevin taught him. The difficulty of the game intrigued him, Griffin explained.

“Chess was complicated and it’s still complicated in, like, 13 years of my experience,” Griffin said.

After medications failed to stop his worsening seizures, Griffin underwent two brain surgeries in 2012 when he was 7. In the first, a grid was placed on his brain to find the source of his seizures. Then doctors removed part of Griffin’s left orbital frontal lobe where they believed the seizures occurred.

The seizures only stopped for six days before getting worse, Kori recalled. And they increasingly became unmanageable with Griffin often breaking anything in his path, trying to run away and yelling at those around him, his parents said. Firefighters started to know the family by name as they’d call 911 to get help restraining Griffin.

As a result, in May 2013, 8-year-old Griffin underwent the first hemispherectomy to separate the left and right sides of his brain. The loss of the left hemisphere—which O’Neill said is the dominant side that stores critical language functions—caused Griffin to permanently lose some motor skills on the right side of his body.

A pathology report revealed Griffin’s epilepsy was caused by a rare combination of cortical dysplasia, a more common reason to have epilepsy, and Rasmussen’s Syndrome, a rare and mysterious disease that involves inflammatory cells, O’Neill said.

Griffin spent the next two months in intensive rehabilitation, learning how to talk, walk, cope with his partial blindness and learn how to use his left, non-dominant hand, his mother recalled.

Griffin wears a brace on his right leg and has some communication disorders, but has mostly had a strong recovery, his mother said, and he started playing chess again within six months.

“I was kind of amazed that he was able to go back to it more or less at the same level,” O’Neill said. “I feel like the chess was a great sort of rehab.”

Rebecca Slezak, The Denver Post

Griffin McConnell, 17, thinks about his next move in a match during Denver Chess Club’s fall classic tournament at Embassy Suites in Denver on Oct. 16, 2021.

For years Griffin lived a seizure-free life. But in ninth grade, at about 14 years old, Griffin confided to his mother that he was feeling different, his parents said, occasionally feeling like things were moving in slow motion before getting painful headaches.

Testing confirmed seizures were occurring again, Kori recalled, and they continued to grow in frequency. His thinking abilities declined, Griffin said, impacting his schooling, chess playing and overall quality of life.

“I was never happy,” Griffin said, explaining that he didn’t want to do any of the normal activities he used to enjoy.

After medicine failed to stop the seizures, Griffin told his parents he wanted to do another hemispherectomy.

When younger sister Moira, 11, learned of her brother’s upcoming operation, she screamed and sobbed into her pillow, she said. She feared that her brother would be permanently changed by the operation.

“I cried every night,” she said.

A hemispherectomy—which happens 10 to 15 times a year at Children’s Hospital Colorado—takes about eight hours, said O’Neill, and includes significant risks such as bleeding, fluid build-up on the brain and injuring the other side of the brain.

“It really was a matter of life and death,” said Lior Lapid, Griffin and Sullivan’s chess coach of more than three years. Lapid feared Griffin not only losing his life, but also losing his ability to play chess, which he said would be “a kind of death in itself.”

Griffin’s recovery, while shorter and not as intensive as in 2013, was harder, explained Griffin and his father, because Griffin was older and more aware of what was happening. But Griffin knew right away that his thinking abilities were improving, he said, and he’s been seizure-free since the operation.

Again, Griffin’s return to chess was swift. Sixteen days after his surgery—three days after getting out of the hospital—Griffin decided to compete in the 2021 State Scholastic Chess Championship in Denver, a competition he always played with his brother, Sullivan, a 14-year-old chess master.

“I didn’t want to ruin this streak,” Griffin said, adding that he wanted to prove he could still play the game that meant so much to him and his brother.

Rebecca Slezak, The Denver Post

Griffin McConnell, 17, walks into the room during Denver Chess Club’s fall classic tournament at Embassy Suites in Denver on Oct. 16, 2021.

Chess: A game that helped the whole family

As the McConnell brothers earned reputations as exceptional chess players, the game also served as a coping mechanism for the entire family, the parents said.

“I get overwhelmed very fast,” Griffin said. “And I love chess for that reason, because it’s very quiet.”

He’s known in the chess community for his positive demeanor.

“He is the most happy, optimistic, friendly, kind kid,” said Brad Lundstrom, president of the Colorado State Chess Association, who first met Griffin about nine years ago and has witnessed him and Sullivan advance as chess players.

Sullivan started playing not long after his brother did. Sullivan’s style consists of playing unpredictable moves and always waiting for a better outcome to arise—a tactic he used to cope with Griffin’s seizures.

“If I eventually would wait it out, Griffin would come back,” Sullivan said.

Moira, a sixth grader at Denver School of the Arts, said she suffers from anxiety partially because of the chaos the seizures caused when she was younger. One method of coping for the entire McConnell family has been openly talking—and laughing—about their feelings, said Kevin, as they navigate their new normal with hope that Griffin’s seizures are finally behind them.

It takes a village: Receiving and offering support

Towards the end of 2012, as medical bills increased and rent became nearly impossible to pay, Kori McConnell started sharing her family’s story and asking for help.

She created a Facebook group, named “Eagle Lion” after Griffin, in March of 2013, before his first hemispherectomy. The group served as a place to share updates on Griffin’s progress and for others to express support.

Helping others, in return, has become Griffin’s mission, he said, adding chess offers a way to give back, especially as its popularity rises.

The Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit” and the COVID-19 quarantine increased the number of people playing chess, said Laura Nystrom, public relations manager at Chess.com, an online chess server with more than 73 million members, including Griffin and Sullivan.

The rise in chess playing offers more opportunities for Griffin and Sullivan, who teach after-school chess club sessions with PALS Chess Academy, an organization created by Lapid, their coach, at schools in the Denver area.

“I’m helping people,” Griffin said about teaching chess. “And that’s all I wanted to do in life.”

He wants to take it further by encouraging chess players to help teach children with disabilities, Kevin said.

Providing a platform for children with disabilities is important, said Lapid, who helped coach Griffin during the 2019 International Chess Federation (FIDE) Confederation Cup for People with Disabilities in Turkey—Griffin’s first abroad competition, during which he went undefeated. Lapid also coached Griffin as the Team USA coach for the 2020 FIDE Online Olympiad for People with Disabilities, where Griffin helped the team place 10th out of 61 competing international teams, Lapid said.

Through sharing his story, Griffin said he hopes people realize that anything is possible with hard work and that people with disabilities can do what others can. Currently, he’s raising money on a GoFundMe page to help finance the four Team USA members and their caregivers as they travel to Russia next year to compete in the FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities.

In February, Griffin will get testing to confirm the seizures have fully stopped, his mother said. And he’ll continue competing in chess, attending Golden High School and working to inspire others.

“Griffin, time and again, finds a way to come back from adversity,” said Lapid, likening his progress to a dramatic comeback ending in a movie. “But it’s not the end of the movie for him. That’s the difference. It’s just the beginning.”

Congratulations to our second class of inductees in the Colorado Chess Hall of Fame!

Michael Mulyar, Brian Wall, Todd Bardwick and John Harris! Great to see these living legends recognized and forever honored in Colorado Chess.

Thank you Randy Canney for graciously donating the awards.

For photos and more details see the new October issue available free online of the Colorado Chess Informant.

CSCA Board Meeting Agenda

October 27^th, 2021 Wednesday 7pm

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88017932143?pwd=dHRHSk9YY0FkZUN3VFloSk9HV0M1UT09

Meeting ID: 880 1793 2143
Passcode: 226909

Welcome to all and opening comments – Brad

Highlights from minutes from our last CSCA Board Meeting – Scott

CSCA membership update – Scott

Colorado Open take-aways and suggestions for the future – Scott, Josh, Tom

Assistant TD and CSCA support to welcome players - Todd

Planning CSCA Championship Tournaments this year - Brad

We do have already set: both in Denver

Scholastic Blitz February 11

Scholastic state February 12-13

Colorado Blitz September 2

Colorado Open September 3-4

Planning

Closed March 11-13 or 18-20

-Which supplement to order players for qualification?

-Challenger winner earns spot in Closed the next year model?  

-What tiebreaks or playoff will be used to determine Challenger Champion.

Senior/north  in April 2-3

• Add under 50 championship

Colorado 10 minute Championship – June 10

Class/south in May June 11-12

New Colorado Online Scholastic League – Jesse

Questions and comments – CSCA Team

Colorado teenager finishes 4th in state chess championship ...

https://kdvr.com/news/local/colorado-teenager...

Mar 21, 2021 · It is not a game one would typically consider playing just days after brain surgery, but 16-year-old Griffin McConnell is not your typical kid. The Golden teenager, and former state chess champion

Update: Griffin and Colorado Chess will be featured this Thursday evening on Fox TV channel 31 KDVR.  This will be following the Thursday night Broncos-Browns game in a prime time news spot.

Also, the Denver Post will feature a similar story in their weekend newspaper edition either this coming Friday, Saturday or Sunday edition.

Congratulations Griffin... we are proud of you!

------------------------------------------------------------------
We continue to build our Colorado Chess relationships with mainstream media. A nice turnout of 58 players at the Denver Chess Club Fall Classic today. We had KDVR Channel 31 and the Denver Post here focusing on the amazing adventures of Griffin McConnell playing here today at the Embassy Suites. Watch for television and newspaper coverage of Griffin and Colorado Chess this week in Denver news.

Congratulations 2021 Colorado Open Prize Winners - Final Results -- Checks to be mailed --We have your mailing addresses all good!

----- Over $5,100 in prizes being paid out!

Thank you for your patience!

Brad

OPEN

Placing Player Points Scored

1-2nd Lior Lipad 5

1-2nd Rhett Langseth 5

3rd Neil Bhavikatti 4.5

U2000-1900 Gary Warmerdam 4

U2000-1900 Andrew Starr 4

U2000-1900 Dr. Ted Doykos 4

U1700 Don Eugene Wisdom Jr. 4

U1700 Miles McGuire 4

Unrated No player scored

U1900

1st Jeffery Baffo 5

2nd Trevor Mills 4

3rd= Bennett OBrien 3.5

3rd= Paul Covington 3.5

3rd= Jose A Llacza 3.5

U1600 Eugin Pahk 3.5

U1500 Tyler Thieszen 3

Unrated No player scored

U1600

1-2nd Andre Menard 4.5

1-2nd William L Wolf 4.5

3= John Haring 4

3= Mark Zeringue 4

3= Kat Perlic 4

U1300 Derek Yin 4

Unrated Kaleb Ferguson 3

U1300

1st - Rated Laura Alsono 5

2-3rd - Rated Owen Vonne 4.5

2-3rd - Rated Rowen Oregel 4.5

1-2nd - Unrated Andrew Sheldon 4.5

1-2nd - Unrated Adam Gardell 4.5

3rd - Unrated Grant Tupper 4

http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202109053162-10410347

This is our updated version after all corrections.

US chess recommended we give until end of day this Thursday for any final corrections if any are needed.  

We will work off our completed list this Friday to pay prize winners.

If you see anything that is not right, send us an email by end of day this Thursday, October 14th

Thank you.

Brian Walker 

drtarrasch@yahoo.com

Brad Lundstrom 

chesscoach2014@gmail.com

The October edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In this Issue:

A Fantastic Cook       2021 Colorado Class Championships Colorado Open Extravaganza Colorado Scholastic Champions Colorado Masters & Experts Invitational and more!

Download the October Edition

I just completed a three hour plus zoom call with our TD Brian Walker and the top ranking director at US Chess Ratings, Korey Kormick. We have spent an enormous amount of time correcting the Colorado Open rounds and final standings. I personally covered every single email you sent us with Korey and Brian. Korey still will have some final work to do tomorrow at US Chess before all the changes show up. We are shooting for this Friday morning for all the corrections to show and the data to be final. However, even though the data will be updated, the rating re-calculations won't show until next Tuesday.

Our plan is to use the final complete report to pay out prizes next Wednesday. I know it has been a very long amount of time you have waited and especially long for the prize winners. Every effort has been made to get this all done correctly and it will be a great day sending the over $5,000 in prizes out.

You probably know that we have designated two committees of some of the brightest and most knowledgeable Colorado chess leaders dedicated to advise and help ensure our tournaments are nothing short of excellent going forward. Thanks for your patience, encouragement and kindness... we are almost there.

Brad

Today was our cut-off date for completing all corrections and sending our final copy to US Chess Ratings. However if we receive more, we will submit them to make things right.

We are sending electronically to US Chess and they will have our report Monday morning.

Their rating team will review it and when the final posting is up then we can determine our prize winners and pay out prizes. 

It will take them a day or more to update everything on what you will see on the US Chess rating site. The results should show as corrected but the ratings will not be adjusted immediately as there will be a time lag for those rating recalculations.

Along with sending to the TD Brian, I asked everyone to copy me on all the corrections requested. With the final requests coming in today, I printed out every single correction I received and drove up to Cheyenne, where our our Tournamrnt Director, Brian Walker resides. We spent several hours going through every email request and making calls to clarify as needed. We submitted all the corrections we received. Our priority is everythng is right. I do feel we can be confident in paying out correct prizes to our winners later this week. 

The TD is handling things but I follow up with US Chess and I will keep you posted as I learn more.

Thank you.

Brad

 202109053162 

COLORADO OPEN 2021 Rated on 2021-09-27

Here is the link for all sections final results in the 2021 Colorado Open.

Please note there is currently an error in the Open section round 5 game Lior Lapid - Eamon Montgomery, as Lior won that game and won the state championship along with Rhett Langseth.

We will be making corrections as we receive communication and will review and correct them over the next five days.

If you see anything that needs to be corrected contact us by end of day this Saturday, October 2nd.

We will do everything we can in working with the US Chess rating team to make sure things are accurate. We will confirm final corrections with them next Monday, October 4th.

We expect to pay out all the Colorado Open prizes as early as possible next week. If there are issues our priority is always that things are accurate above all else.

If you need to report any errors you find send your email to these two locations:

Tournament Director - Brian Walker at drtarrasch@yahoo.com

CSCA President - Brad Lundstrom at chesscoach2014@gmail.com 

I have been in close contact today with the US Chess National Ratings Manager, Korey Kormick and they are working diligently on his side to make corrections they see are needed and are making good progress.

When the Colorado Open is finally rated and posted for everyone to see, we will allow 5 days for members to contact us if they see any errors. We will make corrections for our final results.

After that we will at long last get all the prizes paid out to the winners. 

So sorry for the long delays and we are committed to doing our best to get things done as accurately as possible. I will keep you posted.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is an update I just received from US Chess --  9/21    5:10pm

As I’ve talked about elsewhere, we completed the Colorado Open Championship on Labor Day weekend, but had to respond to diverse problems, with variable success. We also elected a new board at the membership meeting, with each board member elected by unanimous vote of the members in attendance. The new board went straight to work to complete the work on the Colorado Open and to make improvements for the future. I called for a special meeting of the board on September 13 to identify and address all the open items from the tournament. All the officers were in attendance, as were the acting Colorado Open tournament directors, some former CSCA board members, and our new at-large representative. Everyone worked cooperatively to make future CSCA tournaments be the well-run and enjoyable successes players and organizers should rightfully expect. The tournament directors reported on the results of the games played. The board voted to submit these results for USCF ratings and to publish the results to you. Barring corrections from players, the results will be used to send out the remaining tournament prizes next week. Please check your results on the CSCA website and let me know if you have comments. I also assigned a number of committees and individuals to take specific actions to ensure that tournaments are adequately staffed, directors have and use the best tournament direction tools available, problems are identified and corrected in time to pair rounds correctly, and everyone -- organizers and players alike -- knows their rights and responsibilities. I will report on these efforts as they are completed. I know they will help make our future tournaments the best they can be, and the successes we’ve come to expect from CSCA tournaments. Watch this space, and thank you all for your hard-fought chess games and feedback. Brad

Hello Colorado Open chess participants. Despite the unique challenges we saw in this years state championship, many hard battles and interesting games were played in every section. If you had a game you'd like to share and have published in our quarterly Colorado Chess Informant online magazine then send it to me by September 20th. Your game submission can be the moves only PGN or your notes are welcome. If you can send to my email, I will approve and submit for publication in our October issue. If you have any questions about this or anything about Colorado chess you are welcome to call me at 970-415-3855.
 

Need these games by September 21st for our October Informant. 

Send your games to me at chesscoach2014@gmail.com

I'm looking forward to seeing your best games!

Brad Lundstrom

CSCA President

Colorado State Chess Association 

Special Board Meeting 

A special board meeting was called by CSCA President Brad Lundstrom, and held online 13 September 2021. The meeting began at 7 PM MDT with Brad Lundstrom, CSCA President, presiding and Scott Lett, Secretary reporting minutes. 

1. In attendance: 

Voting Board Members: 

a. Brad Lundstrom, President 

b. Jesse Cohen, Vice-President 

c. Scott Lett, Secretary 

d. Josh Samuel, Treasurer 

e. Andrew Starr, At-large Representative 

Non-Voting Attendees: 

f. Paul Covington - President Emeritus

g. Earle Wilke

h. Shirley Herman

i. Rhett Langseth 

j. DuWayne Langseth 

k. Richard Shtivelband 

l. Tom Nelson 

m. Brian Walker 

2. Purpose of meeting 

The purpose of the special meeting was 

a. to report to the board on problems encountered at the 2021 Colorado Open Chess Championship, to receive from Brian and Earle the tabulated results of games played, to vote on specific actions, to provide an opportunity for feedback from other attendees, and to assign other actions deemed appropriate by the President. These aims were accomplished, as summarized here. 

3. Summary 

Brad provided a summary of the 2021 Colorado Open and special problems encountered. 

The tournament enjoyed an unexpectedly large turnout with many unrated players, which created a burden on data entry. The tournament director suffered a medical crisis, and was ultimately unable to continue as TD. Brian Walker (Open) and Earle Wickle (Blitz) stepped in, with lots of help from DuWayne Langseth, Shirley Herman and others, but data entry problems resulted in errors in results and pairings. Brad stepped in to

make and broker changes to the overall running of the tournaments, ultimately shortening both the blitz and classical open tournaments due to delays and other problems. 

4. Actions taken: 

a. Board Votes 

The CSCA Board voted to take the following actions. 

i. Based upon the level of confidence expressed by the TDs, accept the results for Colorado Open Blitz (Earle) and Colorado Open (Brian). 

Publish results on CSCA site and submit for ratings. Submit corrections to USCF if any players bring corrections to CSCA attention. Delay sending out of as-yet unpaid prizes until the players have a chance to appeal the results. (votes: 5 for and 0 against) 

ii. Accept the onsite decision to eschew the standard tiebreaks and award Colorado Co-championship to Rhett Langeth and Lior Lapid. (votes: 4 for and 1 against(Jesse)) 

b. Discussions, Followup Assignments from the President: 

i. State Championship Title 

Todd advocated for following the USCF rules of chess, which give explicit rules and recommendations for tiebreaks, and appealed to the 70-year history of awarding a single Colorado Champion title. Shirley and Andy also provided some clarifications of the USCF rules. DuWayne argued that the “decision was made,” despite the fact that a board vote was to be taken and had yet to be cast. 

Brad described the special conditions of the 2021 tournament, including force majeure of Buck’s medical crisis and the problems encountered by the replacement tournament directors and volunteers, the cancellation of one round of the tournament, resulting in two perfect scores at the end of 

the remaining rounds. Based upon agreement between Lior, Rhett, Brad, DuWayne and others, it was decided at the tournament to award 

co-champion titles to Rhett and Lior. The second board vote decided 

4-to-1 to ratify Brad’s onsite decision. 

After the vote, Scott echoed the preference expressed by Jesse and Todd to follow the sporting rules of chess and use tiebreaks or a playoff to 

select a single champion, rather than an ad hoc agreement between 

players and organizers, but ultimately decided not to overrule promises made onsite. Scott recommended establishing and publicizing policies for such force majeure events (e.g. tornadoes, earthquakes, medical 

emergencies, active shooters), but no action is taken at this time.

ii. Decorum at the Tournament 

Josh expressed considerable frustration that the tournament conditions were chaotic and noisy, and not up to standards he expects of the Colorado Open championship, that the tournament directors did not enforce quiet conditions, and that some senior players and board members were part of the problem. He pointed to the Colorado Chess By-laws to illustrate the importance of providing conditions conducive to good play. 

Scott pointed to Chapter 5 of the USCF rules of chess, which give rights of players to expect conditions to be conducive of good chess and the exceptions to standard rules, tiebreaks, etc, be announced and posted in advance. Brad appointed a committee of Tom, Josh and Scott to form a committee to make recommendations for future events. 

Jesse pointed out that this was an extreme exception to how Colorado Chess tournaments are run, that we should apologize and explain this to the unrated participants, lest they think this is how we run events. Brad pointed to the letter he posted on the CSCA website that he asserted should suffice for an apology. DuWayne recommended refunding fees to all unrateds. Richard suggested CSCA reach out to DCC tournament directors for advice and assistance. No specific board action was taken on these ideas. 

iii. Financial Reporting, Prizes and Expenses 

Josh requested that a more organized and transparent approach be taken to making requests of the treasurer to send out prize and other payments. Brad agreed to send a summary to Josh to help him organize these requests. 

Earle pointed out that the financial report generated by CaissaChess is automated and more than suffices for treasurer records. Andy also highly recommended standardizing on CaissaChess to avoid onsite problems with data entry errors, publishing pairings and results, and calculating tiebreaks. No specific board action was taken on these recommendations. 

iv. Updating CSCA Membership Roster, Tournament Director List Josh will update the USCF affiliate director list, in particular adding Brian Walker to the list of Colorado tournament directors. Scott will follow up with Brad to gain access to the source data for the official membership list.

During our CSCA Board meeting this evening it was agreed we would send both the Blitz and Colorado Open tournament final results in for ratings at US Chess tomorrow. Within three days the results should be viewable online at US Chess. Considering the number of adjustments made in the pairings there may be some errors. Let me know if you see anything that doesn't look right and with your feedback, we hope to see the tournament at full accuracy. We will extend now until Friday, September 24th  then we will finally pay out the Colorado Open prizes. We had hoped to do it earlier but decided the importance of accuracy was most important even with the added delay... sorry. We selected two new special committees: tournament player conduct and tournament planning that will assist us in immediate improvement in how we handle tournaments with a large number of new players going forward. It's going to be a great year in Colorado Chess that we all look forward to!

Brad Lundstrom 

CSCA President

Griffin McConnell wins state 2021 Colorado Chess Open Blitz Chess Championship

Press Release for the Denver Post

Earlier this year, Fox News, Channel 31 KDVR gave us some coverage and focused on the amazing story of Griffin McConnell who despite several recent brain surgeries played in the Colorado Chess State Scholastics and placed well.

Since then, Griffin has had another very serious and risky brain surgery. It went fantastic and Griffin is recovering well!

Over Labor Day weekend, we held the 2021 Colorado Chess Championship and the state Blitz Championship (fast chess five minutes each for the entire game) at the Embassy Suites North.

Griffin scored an astonishing 6-0 in the state blitz championship! He finished clear first  and is our new Blitz state champion!  And this despite several of Colorado's top adult masters playing in the tournament. In the final round he defeated his brother Sullivan who is a National Master and current Colorado Closed Invitational Champion. This marked the first time Griffin has beaten his brother in a state competition.

I am copying Griffin's father and his personal chess coach, Lior Lapid who is a major support system for Griffin and part of this unbelievable event. They have traveled and competed together internationally.

Feel free to call me as well.

Brad Lundstrom

Colorado Chess Association President

970-415-3855

There will be a special CSCA Board Meeting on Monday, September 13th at 7pm.

We will be discussing aol aspects of our recent Colorado Open and what we can take away to improve our tournaments going forward.

This meeting is open to all CSCA members.

Zoom link:

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84784580333?pwd%3DamdzbUlBa1pua0w2QTM4RlZ2QndRQT09&sa=D&source=calendar&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw2oflBqIOllvGyNmrU_D7Gc

Congratulations to our new Colorado State Co-Champions: Lior Lapid and Rhett Langseth!

And to our Colorado Blitz Champion: Griffin McConnell!

More news on our many prize winners soon. Over $5,000 will be paid out for the Open.

This was a record setting type event with over 155 players in the Open and 67 new Unrated players. The Blitz had 53 players.

The final results of the Blitz and Colorado Open Chess Tournaments are being reviewed and all the players communications to us are being taken care of before we submit to US Chess for rating, 

Any of the Blitz tournament prizes still not received will be sent out tomorrow, Tuesday, Setember 7th.

The final detail for the Open and the check payout should be completed on next Monday, September 13th. 

This tournament was a once in a lifetime chess mess with huge delays in round times Friday and Saturday. I know everyone is at a loss to understand how we could have had such a tough Blitz and Open tournaments this year,

The explanation is it was on me and my fault. I followed the same plan used for the last Colorado Open 2019 and it seemed to go very well then. We knew we had more unrated players coming in this time and then many more came in last minute. 67 new players was phenomenal and like a national event. Setting them up and explaining takes time and I should have had much more support there than regular for sure. If our registration is all accurate then after first round corrections it should be easy and smooth the rest of the way. Under huge pressure early mistakes compounded the later round issues. We worked in the tournament room until 1:30am Saturday night to get things in order enough to have close to a regular day Sunday. I must thank Buck Buchanan, Brian Walker, Shirley Herman, Paul Covington and DuWayne Langseth for stepping up to save a difficult situation. We learned a lot and rather that get discouraged and quit, I am going to redouble my efforts and utilize our excellent team to ensure we are on track starting next tournament. You elected me yesterday to do a job and I will do it much better going forward. I will not make the mistake of assuming things are the same ever again. This is a new year and a new chess enviroment and it's time to understand how to take advantage of the huge new upswing and interest in chess. I am here to make Colorado Chess great and I will not rest well until that happens, I can promise you that.

All of your feedback and advice is always respected and appreciated.

Brad Lundstrom

CSCA President 

Update-

CSCA Annual Membership Meeting Agenda and Election Results

September 5, 2021

CSCA Presidents summary for 2021 and a look ahead this year by Brad Lundstrom

Treasurer’s report by Josh Samuel

Elected Officers for the next year --
-President:  Brad Lundstrom
-Vice President:  Jesse Cohen
-Secretary:  Scott Lett
-Treasurer:  Josh Samuel
-Member at Large:  Andrew Starr
-Junior Representative:  Andrew Roerty

Paul Covington - US Open delegate report presented. We now need  a new Colorado delegate to attend the US Open and represent next year - let us know if you are interested.

Membership questions and suggestions

Look for a new Toothless section (for players rated under 1000) at the 2022 Colorado Open next year. More details to follow...

Our new CSCA Board is excited to work with all our Colorado chess partners and see many enjoyable chess tournaments this year.  The dates for this years state championship tournaments should be determined and announced within the next few weeks.

Well...  our long awaited 2021 Colorado Open is finally here!  Embassy Suites North September 4-5th.
Hope you can attend our prior Friday, September 3rd.  Colorado Chess Hall of Fame 2nd Induction! In this class four legendary Colorado chess heros will be honored. IM Michael Mulyar, Life Master Brian Wall, National Master and author Todd Bardwick and John Harris a leader in Colorado Chess Club n the 1960s and 70s that was part of bring Bobby Fischer to Denver in a 1971 world semi-final championship match. Hope to see you there! 
We will then complete registrations for our Friday evening event. The Colorado Blitz State Championship. Five minute games and nine rounds. All the info for both tournaments is on the CSCA website upcoming tournaments.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Minutes from CSCA Board Meeting - August 11th at 7pm

Attending this meeting:

Brad Lundstrom – President

Jesse Cohen – Vice President

Alayne Wilinsky – Member at Large

Tom Nelson - Scholastic Director

Paul Covington - President Emeritus 

CSCA members: arrived towards the end of the meeting: Earle Wikle and William Wolf.

Missing: Josh Samuel – Treasurer, Alexander Freeman - Secretary, Andrew Roerty – Junior Representative and Gracie Salazar – resigned prior to the meeting.


Brad opened the meeting and covered the CSCA year summary and provided these minutes is the secretaries absence.

This meeting was a quick year summary and look at next year. This is designed to ensure all CSCA board members are in sync as we close out our current terms. The annual CSCA membership meeting this September 5, 2021 will give members the opportunity to re-elect officers if they are still available or nominate and elect new officers.

Old business planning has been completed for this year and this will be a bridge to next year’s CSCA board team.
 
--Year review—
Since the last CSCA annual election September 2019 all elected officers resigned except: 

Tom Nelson - Scholastic Director 

--Board appointed current CSCA Team--

Brad Lundstrom - President

Jesse Cohen - Vice President

Josh Samuel - Treasurer

Alex Freeman - Secretary

Alayne Wilinsky - Member at Large

Andrew Roerty - Junior Representative

Paul Covington - President Emeritus (non-voting advisory member)

--Completed CSCA events --

Colorado closed

CSCA scholastic championship as an invitational⁃ CSCA sent elementary, middle school, high school, girls and senior representatives to the US Open Tournament of Champions

⁃ Received TV Fox News coverage at our scholastic event and featured special focus on the inspiring story of Griffin McConnell

Senior Open – 18 players - Manitou Springs

Class Championships - 63 players and 20 new unrated are now new CSCA members - Loveland

Colorado Salvation Army online fundraiser with $3,410 donated from CSCA

CSCA endorsed MVL - Denver Bar Association online chess tournament fundraiser totaled $1,570

Reorganized CSCA treasury – Josh Samuel unable to attend but will provide a recap at annual meeting

Paul Covington our board Member President Emeritus just returned for the US Open. He serves as the National US Chess Co-Chairman of senior Chess and is our state delegate. He provided a brief account of his work there and will be covering in more detail  at our upcoming annual membership meeting September 5^th at the Colorado Open.

Congratulations to our Colorado Representatives!

 Final Standings – Tournament of State Champions – 2021 US Open 

Derek Yin  - Rockefeller - Elementary Championship - Placed #27 with 3.0 points

Davin Yin - Barber - Middle School Championship - Placed #23 with 3.0 points

Vedanath Sampath - Denker - High School Championship - Placed #34 with 2.5 points

Iris Lin - Haring - Girls Championship - Placed #21 with 3.0 points

Josh Samuel -  Irwin - Senior Championship - Placed #23 with 3.0 points

--Other noteable chess activities in Colorado--
Summit-Chessmates online scholastic tournament (included other states non-CSCA event) donated $600 to CSCA Scholastics
Denver Chess Club - active weekly online tournaments - TD Alayne Wilinsky gave us a summary
Denver Chess Club - return to normal tournaments
Colorado Springs- weekly online tournaments under the leadership of Paul Anderson
Chess camps
McConnell - Master/Expert tournament series 

Renaissance Festival  - Buck Buchanan

-- US Open 2021 national award nominations -- Chess Journalists Association

Best Online State Magazine - Fred Spell - Best Feature Article - Lior Lapid - Griffin McConnell & Team at 2021 online tournament for people with disabilities

Best Personal Narrative - Curt Carlson - US Open 1974

Best Instructional Article - Todd Bardwick - The Chess Detective Deflection

Colorado had two American Journalists national winners… congratulations!

1^st -- Best Single Article of Local Interest - Richard Buchanan - Tribute to Philippovich Ponomarev

1^st -- Best Chess Twitch Channel - Sara Herman

--Special recognition--
Paul Covington – Co-Chairman US Chess National Senior Committee and State Delegate
Lior Lapid - US Chess Outstanding Team Achievement Award
Fred Spell - editor Colorado Informant - US Best Online State Magazine – two time national recipient

--Scheduled this year--
Hall of Fame induction - September 3rd
Colorado Blitz Championship - September 3rd
Colorado Open - September 4-5 -- Guest of Honor: IM Michael Mulyar
Annual CSCA membership meeting - September 5th

Upcoming year
- required CSCA tournaments
Colorado Open
Colorado Closed

Colorado Scholastic Blitz Championship - February 11, 2022 (not required but popular)
Colorado Scholastic Championships - February 12-13, 2021
Class Championships
Senior Open

Hall of Fame second class induction - September 3rd, 2021

Congratulations to this legendary group!

Much more about each of them coming in the near future.
Michael Mulyar, Brian Wall, Todd Bardwick, John Harris

Denver scholastic chess league – Jesse will be meeting other scholastic chess leaders to access

FIDE Players with Disabilities tournament – on our list to explore next year

US Blind chess bid – on our list to explore

CSCA member questions or comments--

Earle Wilke suggested a slower time control should be used in early rounds at the Colorado Open at least for round two. This will be taken under consideration for next year’s tournament.

William Wolf had questions as to the Denver Chess Club mask policy. As CSCA is not running this club, Alayne gave advice on contacting that club directly.

Brad shared his direction on the mask policy as: we do not ask anyone if they have been vaccinated and we follow the current CDC guidelines at the county location of any CSCA tournament.

Hope to see you all at the Colorado Open and annual membership meeting September 5, 2001.

Congratulations to Sara Herman for winning a national award at the US Open 2021 - Chess Journalists Association for Best Twitch Chess Channel!

Best Twitch Channel by Sara Herman

twitch.tv/zefcatt 

About Sara Herman’s Twitch Channel

-        Sara has been streaming since 2018

-        Sara became a twitch partner without chess.com assistance

-        1000 subs

-        348,000 views 

-        1,423 hours streamed

-        Sara’s Twitch Channel went from 1700 bullet to 2400 on stream in 2 years

Notable Players connected to Sara’s Twitch Channel

-        Danny Rensch played in lichess on Sara’s stream

-        Sara is followed by chess.com, botezlive, anna rudolf, chessbrah, Naroditsky, Eric Rosen, Nieman, Jobava, Hammer and more.

-        Sara defeated Andrea Botez in a match commentated by Levy Rozman 

-        Sara completed a sub battle with Ray Robson 

-        Sara’s channel was mentioned during a recent YouTube video by Hikaru Nakamura

About Sara Herman

-        Sara Herman is Colorado’s #1 rated Female player – USCF 2038

-        Sara placed 2nd in the 2019 U.S. Open – Women’s Tournament of Champions

Colorado had a wonderful talented group of chess writers nominated for the US Open 2021  -- Chess Journalists Association - national awards

Congratulations to this fine group for your outstanding work in 2021!

Best Online State Magazine - Fred Spell

Best Feature Article - Lior Lapid - Griffin McConnell & Team at 2021 online tournament for people with disabilities

Best Personal Narrative - Curt Carlson - US Open 1974

Best Instructional Article - Todd Bardwick - The Chess Detective Deflection

Revised :  We learned we had two national winners... congratulations to our own living chess legend Buck Buchanan and Sara Herman!

---Best Single Article of Local Interest - Richard Buchanan - Tribute to Philippovich Ponomarev

---Best Chess Twitch Channel - Sara Herman

Well done Buck and Sara  ...Congratulations!!

Brad Lundstrom

CSCA President

Final Results 2021 US Open Tournament of State Champions 

Crown Plaza Philadelphia - Cherry Hill     July 31 - August 3     Six rounds

Congratulations to our Colorado Representatives!

Final Standings -

Rockerfeller - Elementary Championship

Derek Yin 

Placed #27 with 3.0 points

Barber - Middle School Championship

Davin Yin

Placed #23 with 3.0 points

Denker - High School Championship

Vedanath Sampath

Placed #34 with 2.5 points

Haring - Girls Championship

Iris Lin

Placed #21 with 3.0 points

Irwin - Senior Championship

Josh Samuel

Placed #23 with 3.0 points

Thank you for representing Colorado and we are very proud of you all!

Brad Lundstrom

CSCA President

The US Tournament of Champions will be held alongside the US Open from July 31 - August 3, 2021 in Cherry Hills, New Jersey.

The events feature state champions from all fifty states

Representing Colorado:

Rockefeller - Elementary: Derek Yin

Middle School - Barber: Davin Yin

Denker - High school: Vednath Sampath

Haring - Girls: Iris Li

Spotlight on Colorado Girls Scholastic Champion - Iris Li

Li is 8 years old, a rising 4th grader in Stargate School. She won the Haring section (K-12 girls) of this year's Colorado Scholastic Championships. She is very excited to represent Colorado in the National Girls' Tournament of Champions this year. Iris started learning chess at the age of 6. She was immediately drawn to the game and spent 1-2 hours a day on chess. Iris has been to several national tournaments. After playing in the World Open in Pennsylvania this month, Iris is qualified to represent the United States for the World Cadet Championships 2022 (U10 Girls section). Her favorite chess player is Yifan Hou. She would like to become a doctor or scientist when she grows up. In addition to chess, Iris enjoys reading, solving math problem, playing piano, violin, basketball, and spending time with her two siblings.

Good Luck to Iris and all our Colorado Players at the US Open!

Also representing Colorado at the US State Delegates assembly is Paul Covington.

Master- Expert Invitational series in Denver

Tournament 3    (August 7th) 

Embassy Suite North            

5 rounds G/25+5   Game times: 9:00 AM, 10:30 AM, 1:30 PM,  3:00 PM and 4:30 PM

NM Richard Shtivelband                                                           

NM Sullivan McConnell

LM Brian Wall                                                                                

CM Daniel Herman

NM Dimitry Kishinevsky

CM Neil Bhavikatti

      Griffin McConnell                                          

 CM Brad Lundstrom  

       Anthony Whitt 

Not sure which ones but a few registered players have dropped out of this one.

Anyone 1900+ that wants to play?  Contact Kevin McConnell or myself.

Thanks,

Brad Lundstrom

970-415-3855

Our Colorado Class Championships held July 24-25 in Loveland were well attended with 63 players.

Included were 20 new-unrated players that joined US Chess and the CSCA!

We did not have a class D section due to lack of players at that rating.

The Master - Expert tournament was won by Daniel Herman with an impressive 4-0 score... congratulations!

Our state and state co-champions from each class are shown with the final results below -- congratulations to all!

An excellent job by our TD Tom Nelson... thank you sir! 

It was wonderful to get back to regular in person tournament chess!

See you at the Colorado Open!

Brad Lundstrom

CSCA President

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 * Click on a Pairing Number to see the Player's Opponents.
 * Click on a Player's Name for more information about the Player.
Crosstable data is shown in score group/rating order, which is not the same as the tiebreak order used at the event.
Crosstables are not intended to show the distribution of trophies or prize monies.  (See Frequent Questions)
Crosstable data is shown as reported to the USCF by the Tournament Director.  
Please contact the TD to report any crosstable errors.
Note:  The information below the "Total Pts" score shows the highest norm earned in this event.
For more information on norms, see The USCF Title System.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Pair | Player Name                     |Total|Round|Round|Round|Round| 
 Num  | USCF ID / Rtg (Pre->Post)       | Pts |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  | 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    1 | DANIEL HERMAN                   |4.0  |W   6|W   2|W   4|W   5|
   CO | 14345456 / R: 2124   ->2150     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    2 | MARCUS BLANN BLANN              |3.0  |W   5|L   1|W   3|W   4|
   CO | 13701628 / R: 1983   ->2019     |     |B    |B    |W    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    3 | BRAD LUNDSTROM                  |1.5  |D   4|L   5|L   2|W   6|
   CO | 10410347 / R: 2004   ->1989     |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    4 | MIRZA PELJTO                    |1.5  |D   3|W   6|L   1|L   2|
   CO | 12739939 / R: 1908   ->1910     |     |B    |W    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    5 | RHETT LANGSETH                  |1.0  |L   2|W   3|L   6|L   1|
   CO | 13392987 / R: 2132   ->2099     |     |W    |W    |B    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    6 | MR. ANTHONY R WHITT             |1.0  |L   1|L   4|W   5|L   3|
   CO | 12877251 / R: 1919   ->1909     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note:  Performances satisfying the requirements for norms are now being shown for events in the *Total Pts* column.
It may take a week for a recently rated event to have norms computed for it.
Show floating point ratings from this event
To receive an email when an event you played in is rated, update your email preferences here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 * Click on a Pairing Number to see the Player's Opponents.
 * Click on a Player's Name for more information about the Player.
Crosstable data is shown in score group/rating order, which is not the same as the tiebreak order used at the event.
Crosstables are not intended to show the distribution of trophies or prize monies.  (See Frequent Questions)
Crosstable data is shown as reported to the USCF by the Tournament Director.  
Please contact the TD to report any crosstable errors.
Note:  The information below the "Total Pts" score shows the highest norm earned in this event.
For more information on norms, see The USCF Title System.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Pair | Player Name                     |Total|Round|Round|Round|Round| 
 Num  | USCF ID / Rtg (Pre->Post)       | Pts |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  | 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    1 | DUWAYNE LANGSETH                |3.5  |W  10|W   6|D   2|W   4|
   CO | 11197175 / R: 1948   ->1966     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    2 | MR. KEITH JAY OXMAN             |3.5  |X    |W   8|D   1|W   7|
   CO | 12459346 / R: 1904   ->1930     |     |     |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    3 | LAURENCE ROBERT WUTT            |2.5  |L   8|B    |W  10|D   6|
   CO | 12745430 / R: 1916   ->1892     |     |W    |     |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    4 | TIMOTHY MICHAEL MARTINSON       |2.5  |W  11|D   9|W   5|L   1|
   NM | 12928698 / R: 1875   ->1869     |     |B    |W    |B    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    5 | ANDREW STARR                    |2.5  |D   7|W  11|L   4|W   9|
   CO | 15828028 / R: 1826   ->1826     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    6 | DAVIN JUNZHE YIN                |2.5  |B    |L   1|W   8|D   3|
   CO | 15610124 / R: 1804   ->1811     |     |     |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    7 | DOAK HEYSER                     |2.0  |D   5|W  10|D   9|L   2|
   CO | 11106293 / R: 1960   ->1933     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    8 | BENNETT OBRIEN                  |2.0  |W   3|L   2|L   6|W  11|
   CO | 30153124 / R: Unrated->1740P4   |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    9 | SANDEEP MATHEW                  |2.0  |B    |D   4|D   7|L   5|
   CO | 15620507 / R: 1668   ->1678     |     |     |B    |W    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   10 | JOSEPH RASMUSSEN                |1.0  |L   1|L   7|L   3|B    |
   CO | 30235927 / R: Unrated->1017P3   |     |W    |B    |W    |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   11 | MR. CHATTIN SIMPSON             |1.0  |L   4|L   5|B    |L   8|
   CO | 30182738 / R: Unrated-> 802P3   |     |W    |W    |     |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   12 | MATTHEW O'MALLEY                |0.0  |F    |U    |U    |U    |
   SC | 30170970 / R: 1881P5 ->1881P5   |     |     |     |     |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note:  Performances satisfying the requirements for norms are now being shown for events in the *Total Pts* column.
It may take a week for a recently rated event to have norms computed for it.
Show floating point ratings from this event
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 * Click on a Pairing Number to see the Player's Opponents.
 * Click on a Player's Name for more information about the Player.
Crosstable data is shown in score group/rating order, which is not the same as the tiebreak order used at the event.
Crosstables are not intended to show the distribution of trophies or prize monies.  (See Frequent Questions)
Crosstable data is shown as reported to the USCF by the Tournament Director.  
Please contact the TD to report any crosstable errors.
Note:  The information below the "Total Pts" score shows the highest norm earned in this event.
For more information on norms, see The USCF Title System.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Pair | Player Name                     |Total|Round|Round|Round|Round| 
 Num  | USCF ID / Rtg (Pre->Post)       | Pts |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  | 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    1 | MR. JEFFREY ALAN BAFFO          |2.5  |X    |W   8|D   4|U    |
   CO | 10340195 / R: 1758   ->1769     |     |     |W    |W    |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    2 | MR. DANIEL RUVINS               |2.5  |W   9|L   4|W   7|D   5|
   FL | 14470112 / R: 1740   ->1748     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    3 | BARRY L HEPSLEY                 |2.5  |D  10|L   5|B    |W   4|
   CO | 10495857 / R: 1726   ->1724     |     |B    |W    |     |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    4 | PHILLIP BROWN                   |2.5  |W   5|W   2|D   1|L   3|
   CO | 12693448 / R: 1674   ->1708     |     |W    |W    |B    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    5 | ALEX J STIGER                   |2.0  |L   4|W   3|D   8|D   2|
   CO | 13177970 / R: 1752   ->1746     |     |B    |B    |W    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    6 | ANDREW ROERTY                   |2.0  |F    |L   7|W  10|W   8|
   CO | 15280973 / R: 1720   ->1730     |     |     |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    7 | IRIS LI                         |2.0  |L   8|W   6|L   2|B    |
   CO | 16934084 / R: 1638   ->1633     |     |B    |W    |B    |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    8 | KENNETH DOYKOS                  |1.5  |W   7|L   1|D   5|L   6|
   CO | 10358086 / R: 1700   ->1700     |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    9 | LAWRENCE M REIFURTH             |1.0  |L   2|D  10|H    |U    |
   CO | 12341360 / R: 1723   ->1704     |     |B    |W    |     |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   10 | GARY BAGSTAD                    |1.0  |D   3|D   9|L   6|U    |
   CO | 10924031 / R: 1700   ->1700     |     |W    |B    |B    |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note:  Performances satisfying the requirements for norms are now being shown for events in the *Total Pts* column.
It may take a week for a recently rated event to have norms computed for it.
Show floating point ratings from this event
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 * Click on a Pairing Number to see the Player's Opponents.
 * Click on a Player's Name for more information about the Player.
Crosstable data is shown in score group/rating order, which is not the same as the tiebreak order used at the event.
Crosstables are not intended to show the distribution of trophies or prize monies.  (See Frequent Questions)
Crosstable data is shown as reported to the USCF by the Tournament Director.  
Please contact the TD to report any crosstable errors.
Note:  The information below the "Total Pts" score shows the highest norm earned in this event.
For more information on norms, see The USCF Title System.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Pair | Player Name                     |Total|Round|Round|Round|Round| 
 Num  | USCF ID / Rtg (Pre->Post)       | Pts |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  | 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    1 | RYAN MANTEY                     |3.0  |W  14|W   9|W   8|L   2|
   CO | 30237774 / R: Unrated->1575P4   |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    2 | DEAN W BROWN                    |3.0  |D  13|D   7|W  12|W   1|
   CO | 10224098 / R: 1419   ->1485     |     |W    |B    |W    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    3 | DANIEL CHRISTIAN PFEIL          |3.0  |D   7|W  13|D   6|W   8|
   OH | 17117142 / R: 1364P12->1447P16  |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    4 | HARSH MALI                      |2.5  |W   5|L   8|D   9|W  10|
   CO | 16022473 / R: 1435   ->1420     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    5 | DAMIAN YANEZ                    |2.5  |L   4|W  12|W  11|D   7|
   CO | 14892532 / R: 1118   ->1197     |     |B    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    6 | VISANT PRAJAN SANKARANARAYANAN  |2.5  |B    |W  11|D   3|U    |
   CO | 17214134 / R:  845   -> 918     |     |     |W    |B    |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    7 | AIDEN SIROTKINE                 |2.0  |D   3|D   2|D  10|D   5|
   CO | 15244587 / R: 1541   ->1506     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    8 | DANIEL THEODORE SMITH           |2.0  |W  10|W   4|L   1|L   3|
   CO | 16820573 / R: 1506   ->1490     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    9 | ABHIJAY BALAMURUGAN             |2.0  |B    |L   1|D   4|D  11|
   CO | 16913354 / R: 1026   ->1041     |     |     |W    |B    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   10 | DEREK YIN                       |1.5  |L   8|W  14|D   7|L   4|
   CO | 16493370 / R: 1180   ->1222     |     |W    |B    |W    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   11 | CLIFFORD BAILEY                 |1.5  |W  12|L   6|L   5|D   9|
   CO | 30235487 / R: Unrated-> 988P4   |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   12 | RANDY RICHTER                   |1.0  |L  11|L   5|L   2|B    |
   CO | 17158047 / R: 1264P11->1171P14  |     |B    |W    |B    |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   13 | MR. ROBERT CARLSON              |0.5  |D   2|L   3|U    |U    |
   CO | 14678120 / R: 1548   ->1518     |     |B    |W    |     |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   14 | JARED PERLIC                    |0.5  |L   1|L  10|H    |U    |
   CO | 15952858 / R: 1419   ->1372     |     |B    |W    |     |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note:  Performances satisfying the requirements for norms are now being shown for events in the *Total Pts* column.
It may take a week for a recently rated event to have norms computed for it.
Show floating point ratings from this event
To receive an email when an event you played in is rated, update your email preferences here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 * Click on a Pairing Number to see the Player's Opponents.
 * Click on a Player's Name for more information about the Player.
Crosstable data is shown in score group/rating order, which is not the same as the tiebreak order used at the event.
Crosstables are not intended to show the distribution of trophies or prize monies.  (See Frequent Questions)
Crosstable data is shown as reported to the USCF by the Tournament Director.  
Please contact the TD to report any crosstable errors.
Note:  The information below the "Total Pts" score shows the highest norm earned in this event.
For more information on norms, see The USCF Title System.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Pair | Player Name                     |Total|Round|Round|Round|Round| 
 Num  | USCF ID / Rtg (Pre->Post)       | Pts |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  | 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    1 | MR. MATTHEW ROBERT MILLER       |4.0  |W  12|W  14|W   9|W   3|
   CO | 30218424 / R: Unrated->1708P4   |     |B    |W    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    2 | KAT PERLIC                      |3.0  |W   4|W  10|L   3|W   9|
   CO | 30198232 / R: Unrated->1357P4   |     |B    |W    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    3 | JONATHAN REX JENKINS            |3.0  |X    |W   6|W   2|L   1|
   CO | 30086439 / R: Unrated->1317P13  |     |     |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    4 | MR. DYLAN K WITTSTRUCK          |3.0  |L   2|W  16|W  11|W   5|
   CO | 30237799 / R: Unrated->1248P4   |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    5 | NATHAN KEITH MUENNICH           |3.0  |W   8|W   7|W  14|L   4|
   CO | 12645242 / R: 1168P22->1193     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    6 | MR. DUNCAN PATRICK MCDONALD     |2.5  |W  15|L   3|W  10|D   7|
   CO | 30217179 / R: Unrated->1166P4   |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    7 | GEORGE JACOB ROBERTS            |2.5  |W  16|L   5|W  12|D   6|
   CO | 30233895 / R: Unrated->1114P4   |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    8 | MR. QUINN CONNAUGHT GALLAGHER   |2.5  |L   5|W  17|D  13|W  15|
   CO | 30222017 / R: Unrated-> 965P4   |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    9 | MR. KILWICH JARED ANDERSON      |2.0  |W  19|W  11|L   1|L   2|
   CO | 30236990 / R: Unrated->1076P4   |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   10 | MR. THOMAS ROBERT JONES         |2.0  |W  13|L   2|L   6|W  17|
   KY | 30226304 / R: Unrated-> 969P4   |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   11 | SAYDI SHARPETA                  |2.0  |W  17|L   9|L   4|W  16|
   CO | 30198768 / R: Unrated-> 931P4   |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   12 | CHARLES GIESER                  |2.0  |L   1|B    |L   7|W  19|
   CO | 30237781 / R: Unrated-> 868P3   |     |W    |     |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   13 | BENJAMIN CLAYTON HOLT           |2.0  |L  10|W  18|D   8|D  14|
   CO | 30214480 / R: Unrated-> 849P4   |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   14 | DANIEL J YANEZ                  |1.5  |W  18|L   1|L   5|D  13|
   CO | 14892526 / R:  868   -> 866     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   15 | MR. TIMOTHY M. ZIMMERMAN        |1.5  |L   6|D  19|W  18|L   8|
   CO | 30233240 / R: Unrated-> 697P4   |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   16 | SHIRLEY HERMAN                  |1.0  |L   7|L   4|W  19|L  11|
   CO | 14812654 / R:  865   -> 834     |     |B    |W    |B    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   17 | MR. DAN M RUPAREL               |1.0  |L  11|L   8|B    |L  10|
   CO | 30064098 / R:  621P7 -> 605P10  |     |B    |W    |     |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   18 | MS. BECKY  MARIE DARCEY         |1.0  |L  14|L  13|L  15|B    |
   CO | 30198864 / R: Unrated-> 400P3   |     |B    |B    |W    |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   19 | MR. JONAH A. ZIMMERMAN          |0.5  |L   9|D  15|L  16|L  12|
   CO | 30233259 / R: Unrated-> 573P4   |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
   20 | ANDREW J STEPHENSON             |0.0  |F    |U    |U    |U    |
   CO | 12693461 / R: 1135   ->1135     |     |     |     |     |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note:  Performances satisfying the requirements for norms are now being shown for events in the *Total Pts* column.
It may take a week for a recently rated event to have norms computed for it.
Show floating point ratings from this event
To receive an email when an event you played in is rated, update your email preferences here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 * Click on a Pairing Number to see the Player's Opponents.
 * Click on a Player's Name for more information about the Player.
Crosstable data is shown in score group/rating order, which is not the same as the tiebreak order used at the event.
Crosstables are not intended to show the distribution of trophies or prize monies.  (See Frequent Questions)
Crosstable data is shown as reported to the USCF by the Tournament Director.  
Please contact the TD to report any crosstable errors.
Note:  The information below the "Total Pts" score shows the highest norm earned in this event.
For more information on norms, see The USCF Title System.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 Pair | Player Name                     |Total|Round|Round|Round| 
 Num  | USCF ID / Rtg (Pre->Post)       | Pts |  1  |  2  |  3  | 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    1 | BARRY L HEPSLEY                 |1.0  |U    |W   7|U    |
   CO | 10495857 / R: 1724   ->1724     |     |     |W    |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    2 | THOMAS NELSON                   |1.0  |U    |U    |W   8|
   CO | 12854867 / R: 1386   ->1386     |     |     |     |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    3 | JOSEPH RASMUSSEN                |1.0  |U    |U    |W   5|
   CO | 30235927 / R: 1017P3 ->1145P4   |     |     |     |B    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    4 | VISANT PRAJAN SANKARANARAYANAN  |1.0  |W   6|U    |U    |
   CO | 17214134 / R:  918   -> 959     |     |B    |     |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    5 | RANDY RICHTER                   |0.0  |U    |U    |L   3|
   CO | 17158047 / R: 1171P14->1141P15  |     |     |     |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    6 | ABHIJAY BALAMURUGAN             |0.0  |L   4|U    |U    |
   CO | 16913354 / R: 1041   ->1003     |     |W    |     |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    7 | MR. CHATTIN SIMPSON             |0.0  |U    |L   1|U    |
   CO | 30182738 / R:  802P3 -> 802P4   |     |     |B    |     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    8 | MS. BECKY  MARIE DARCEY         |0.0  |U    |U    |L   2|
   CO | 30198864 / R:  400P3 -> 400P4   |     |     |     |W    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Note:  Performances satisfying the requirements for norms are now being shown for events in the *Total Pts* column.
It may take a week for a recently rated event to have norms computed for it.
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Colorado’s #1 rated chess player, International Master Michael Mulyar, USCF (2485) will be our Guest of Honor at the 2021 Colorado Open.

Michael will also be recognized for his unanimous induction into our Colorado Chess Hall of Fame 2^nd class on the evening before this year’s Colorado Open. That ceremony will be held at the same tournament site, Embassy Suites North in Denver on September 3^rd at 5:45pm. 

The following morning, prior to round one on September 4^th, Michael will be introduced as our state championship tournament guest of honor and say a few words to our tournament attendees.

Michael has agreed to play in this year’s Colorado Open!

This will be a very special back to normal chess tournament life memory and now we have added great prestige and honor with Michael joining our ranks…

Make plans now as this is a tournament you won’t want to miss!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Michael A. Mulyar (born 1978), is an American chess International Master from Westminster, Colorado, and attended Yale University. Mulyar is a three-time Colorado State Champion (1992, 1993, 1995), and he has represented the U.S. in international competition.^[1] He won the U.S. Open Chess Championship in 1999 and 2007.^[2]

Michael A. Mulyar - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Mulyar

Colorado Class Championships 2021

Direct Link:http://www.coloradochess.com/newtourn.shtml?id=1032#tournamentContent

4 Round Swiss Tournament

July 24 - 25, 2021

Time Control G90: +30s

SiteThe Ranch, Thomas M. McKee 4-H, Youth & Community Building 5280 Arena Circle, Loveland, Colorado 80538

Directions: I-25 to Loveland, East at exit 259, 1/2 mile on County Road 26, left onto Centerra Pkwy/N. Fairgrounds Ave to Arena Circle, turn left, McKee 4-H building is first building on the right

Sections

Players play in their rating class: Master/Expert, A, B, C, D, & E/Unrated State Championship tournament CSCA membership required – available online Class Championship winners earn the right to represent Colorado in our next annual team match versus New Mexico if it is scheduled.

Addition: July 17: Rated players may elect to play one section above their rated group.

Entry Fee $40 online; $50 at the door Checks accepted for pre-registration Josh Samuel c/o CSCA Treasurer

Online registration preferred here. https://caissachess.net/online-registration/index/1044

Prizes 70% of entries as prizes. Unrated players may play in top two sections or play in E section with a $50 prize cap.

Tournament Director: Tom Nelson Players play in their rating class: Master/Expert, A, B, C, D, & E/Unrated State Championship tournament CSCA membership required – available online Class Championship winners earn the right to represent Colorado in our next annual team match versus New Mexico if it is scheduled

Registration 8:30-9:40, arriving after 9:40, you'll have a 1/2 point bye for the first round.

Round Times10 AM & 3 PM Sat & Sun

Entries by mail: Josh Samuel c/o CSCA Treasurer P.O. Box 756 Dillon, CO 80435 Phone 970-415-3855 Brad Lundstrom Emailchesscoach2014@gmail.com

Bye Policy
Zero bye for last round, other byes 1/2 point if requested in writing before start of round 2. 

Current CDC guidelines will be followed at the time of this event in Larimer County

Register Online

The April edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In this Issue:

Lior Lapid wins U.S. Chess Award       Paul Covington CSCA Award Interview with Davin and Derek Yin The 1975 U.S. Open and more!

Download the July Edition

I am happy to announce the Parker Chess club will reopen this Monday July 5. Our new weekly schedule will be each Monday from 6-8pm. These changes are due to availability of rooms and new library hours. A special guest, Sunil Weeramantry, will be visiting the Parker Chess club on Monday July 19 from 6-8pm for meeting and casual play. For those who closely follow chess, Sunil needs no introduction. His accolades in chess are too many to name here. As the Executive Director of the National Scholastic Chess Foundation for over 40 years, he has seen many teams and individuals go on to National titles in chess. A great honor to have him at our club. We will have a very large room reserved for his visit at the Parker library. All are welcome.

Regards,

John Brezina

Parker Chess Club

Lior recently received some exciting news from the United States Chess Federation. He has been selected to receive this year's U.S. Chess Outstanding Team Achievement Award for his work with Team USA in the 2020 FIDE Olympiad for People with Disabilities.

Lior won the US Chess Outstanding Team Achievement award for coaching Team USA to a top ten finish in the first Online FIDE Olympiad for People with Disabilities. Kevin McConnell shared that Lior did this on a strictly volunteer basis and was a critical component of the team performing as well as they did. He also gave multiple free private lessons to any of the Team USA competitors that wanted to take advantage of this extra tutoring!  Sharing this wonderful letter on his national recognition below...

Congratulations Lior and thank you for being an amazing example as a chess coach and person!

Colorado Chess is very proud of you!!

Brad Lundstrom

CSCA President 

Dear Mr. Lapid,

Congratulations from the US Chess Federation (US Chess). You have been selected to receive the 2021 Outstanding Team Achievement Award as coach of the US Team participating in the FIDE Online Olympiad for People with Disabilities. The award is in recognition of your team’s exceptional performance in that event. We would love for you to attend our annual Awards Ceremony on Friday, August 6, 2021 at 4:00 PM in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. We will contact you with the specific room when that information becomes available. We are happy to announce that changing the format of the ceremony from a luncheon to a reception allows anyone to come and watch you receive your award. There is no need to purchase tickets. Please confirm your ability to attend, or the name of your designated representative, and the number of people you expect to accompany you by using this Google form (https://forms.gle/VTRy9ctKk68vaa4b9) or by contacting Jennifer Pearson at governance@uschess.org or (931) 787-3425 by July 19, 2021. If you are unable to attend or arrange for someone to receive your award at the reception, we are happy to mail it to you. Because the Awards Ceremony is held in conjunction with the 122 nd U.S. Open and annual meetings of US Chess, we recommend that you make your travel arrangements as soon as possible. Your many contributions to chess are greatly appreciated. I look forward to seeing you in Cherry Hill and celebrating this well-deserved award.

Sincerely, Carol Meyer Executive Director 

I'm sharing some wonderful communication here that I was copied on today.

Thanks to Ann Davies for this amazing and inspiring story and and Lior Lapid for another insight of his extraordinary adventures in the world of chess!

Brad

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FYI....This article also mentions Lior and the chess competition for folks with disabilities that he was involved with.

Ann

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/19/health/chess-champion-jessica-lauser-wellness/index.html
 

Josh Samuel will be our Colorado Senior Representative at the U.S. Open this year - congratulations and good luck Josh!

A local newspaper story about Josh was great to see earlier this week.

SUMMITDAILY.COM

Dillon local to represent state at national senior chess championship

Fans of the popular Netflix miniseries “The Queen’s Gambit” in recent months have been provided with a portal into the abstract world of the game of chess. It’s a world Josh Samuel of Dillon knows...

It is an interesting coincidence that the top three finishers; Brian, Brad and Josh shared three things, all are age 65, all graduated high school in 1973 and all have been playing rated tournament chess in Colorado well over fifty years. Here's wishing Josh good luck and safe travels!

Paul Covington currently our President Emeritus CSCA Board member has been selected to represent Colorado as our state delegate at this year's US Open.

Paul continues a long process of being back and forth from Colorado to his new home in Oklahoma. Paul has filled this delegate position previously and will serve Colorado chess well again.

The annual Delegates’ Meeting, which is the final Saturday and Sunday of the US Open July 31 - August 1, 2021 in Cherry Hill, NJ.

Thank you Paul and safe travels!

Congratulations to Life Master Brian Wall for his perfect 4-0 score and earning the title of 2021 Colorado Senior Open Champion.

Brad Lundstrom finished with 3.5 for second place and Josh Samuel came in at third on tiebreaks over Sam Bridle with 3 points. 

Our champion earns the right to represent Colorado at the US Open July 31 - August 3, 2021 in Cherry Hill, NJ at the tournament of champions featuring the top senior players from every state in the USA.

Both Brian and Brad declined the invitation so Josh Samuel accepted and will be our Colorado Senior Representative this year - congratulations and good luck Josh!

Our tournament was held at the Arts Center in Manitou Springs and was well directed by Buck Buchanan and Shirley Herman. Thank you to both!

Eighteen players attended this tournament and all were very happy to be playing over the board chess again!

Look for the tournament story, photos and games in our upcoming July issue of the Colorado Informant.

Hope to see you at the Class Championships in Loveland on July 24-25th!

Congratulations to Paul Covington who recently was appointed to be Chairman of the Senior Committee for US Chess.

As one of the top leaders in our CSCA history, Paul continues to serve and make us proud.

Congratulations to our esteemed colleague for earning a national chess position!

Our CSCA Board is accepting applications for our Colorado Delegate if you'd like to represent Colorado during the US Open national US Chess meetings. 

We currently have Paul Covington, our CSCA past president and President Emeritus a non-voting CSCA Board member. He is in a long process of being back and forth from Colorado to his new home in Oklahoma but has filled this position before and would be happy to do it again this year,

Although he is a great choice since he is ultimately leaving Colorado, we are opening it up to any other CSCA members that are planning on attending the US Open this summer.

If you are playing and a delegate it makes for a full day of delegate meetings then your US Open tournament game will be played in the evening.

If you are interested email, by June 15, 2021 to be considered.

Brad Lundstrom;  chesscoach2014@gmail.com

Jesse Cohen: jessecohen@gmail.com

WHAT IS A DELEGATE? This is an introduction. It does not include complete details. For complete information please see Article 5 (pages 5-8) of the US Chess Bylaws. Where do delegates come from and where do they go? Delegates are named by state chapters to represent their state by voting in-person at the annual Delegates’ Meeting, which is traditionally the final Saturday and Sunday of US Open week. The US Open is usually the last week of July or the first week of August. The event is rotated around the country at different venues from year to year. See our National Events Page for where the next one will be held: https://new.uschess.org/national-events-calendar/. How many delegates is each state allowed? Much like our US House of Representatives, each state is allotted a specific number of delegates based on how many US Chess members reside in that state. Each state is also asked to name an equal number of alternates so that if a delegate can’t attend, the alternate will take the delegate’s place. To see how many delegates your state is allotted, visit the Current Delegates List. The number of delegates allotted is listed after the state abbreviation. Who can be a delegate? In simple terms, you can name anyone who is a US Chess member in good standing (dues paid and no suspensions) from your state or a neighboring state. The person doesn’t need to be a rated chess player—or a chess player at all. Parents of young chess players who are US Chess members themselves can be delegates. There is no age restriction for delegates. People employed by US Chess cannot be delegates. What do delegates do? At the meeting, delegates vote on motions that affect the running of US Chess. Delegates also write the motions, whether ahead of time or at the Delegates’ Meeting. Delegate motions can be about any change a delegate, or the state they represent, would like to see in the way US Chess runs, including ethical conduct, rules, membership, etc. There is no limit to the number of motions a delegate can make. Do they have any real power? The body of delegates makes decisions regarding US Chess as an organization. According to Article V, Section 1, of the US Chess Bylaws, “Among other things, it shall have the authority to amend the Bylaws and the USCF Official Rules of Chess, approve the annual budget, approve the sale of real estate owned by the USCF, approve any borrowing secured by real estate owned by the USCF, establish, amend or revoke one or more trusts for the management of Life Member assets and appoint or remove one or more Trustees for the purpose of administering said trusts, and supervise the ethics compliance process of US Chess.” Motions can also be referred to a US Chess committee, or the Executive Board, for further evaluation.

Colorado Chess Hall of Fame – Class of 2021

This will be the second induction class to the Colorado Chess Hall of Fame.

The ceremony will be held on Friday, September 3^rd at 5:45pm at the Embassy Suites North site of the 2021 Colorado Open scheduled later that weekend.

If you would like to make a nomination:

• Send supporting information such as games, articles, photos, stories, etc. to help the committee with their selection process.
• Send your nominations to Randy Canney and Brad Lundstrom

Email  

(rcanney@hotmail.com)

chesscoach2014@gmail.com

The cutoff for nominations this year is June 30^th.

Colorado State Chess Association

Board Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, April 14th

CSCA Board Members included:

President -  Brad Lundstom - Present

Vice-President – Jessie Cohen -Present

Secretary - Alexander Freeman - Present

Treasurer - Josh Samuel - Present

Junior Representative - Andrew Roerty - Present

Member at Large - Gracie Salazar Mukayess - Absent

Member at Large - Alayne Wilinsky – Absent

Scholastic Director - Tom Nelson - Present

President Emeritus - Paul Covington

Other visitor included:

Shirley Herman

Meeting was held on Zoom and began with President Brad Lundsrom calling the meeting to order.

The purpose for this meeting was to get everyone together again and be on the same page as our last meeting was two months ago on February 15th.

Tom Nelson talked about the Colorado Scholastic Championships and our qualifiers for the Tournament of Champions to be held alongside the US Open from July 31 - August 3, 2021.

The events feature state champions for all fifty states representing Colorado.

Ours include:

Rockefeller - Elementary: Derek Yin

Middle School - Barber: Davin Yin

Denker - High school: Vednath Sampath

Haring - Girls: Iris Li

A motion for a stipend to these four scholastic players, who represent Colorado, with $700 each was also approved.

A motion to buy five chess clocks to not exceed $300 was approved by the CSCA Board of Directors. 

Jessie Cohen discussed the results of The 2021 Colorado Scholastic Online Championship.

This event donated $600 to the Colorado Scholastics.

Josh Samuel discussed a new ledger accounting system, reviewed the budget and fundraising donations.

Brad Lundsrom updated us on a probable upcoming Senior Open in June, possible Class Championships in July, the end of summer Colorado Open and our getting the 2022 Colorado State Scholastic site secured. We discussed beginning our upcoming plans for girls chess and Ann Davies' grant. Our next CSCA Board meeting will probably be scheduled for June.

A motion to end the meeting was seconded and agreed upon.

Alexander Freeman - CSCA Secretary

The April edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In this Issue:

CSCA News Colorado Scholastic Online Championship The 1974 US Open The Chess Detective Tactics Time!   and more!

Download the April Edition

DCC Nearly Normal Tournament ** Saturday, June 19th, 2021

Register Online Now!

Notes: Please read carefully

** At the registration table, all players must submit proof of having received a complete COVID vaccination at least 2 weeks prior to the date of the tournament (6/5/2021)

Players are also required to sign a liability waiver at the registration table.  The waiver can be reviewed by clicking on this link:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h7qXaNMB6_vcWHY-KTh6OMhx3c6DF8Xp/view.    

Date: Saturday, June 19, 2021 

Time Control: Game in 55 minutes + 5 second delay

Site: Embassy Suites Hotel on 7525 East Hampden Ave, Denver CO - 303-696-6644

Embassy Suites policy is that all players and guests must wear a mask while in the hotel. This policy may be relaxed by June, but the DCC will nevertheless  require wearing a mask in the playing room. 

Sections: Open - U1900 - U1500 (depending on entries, sections may be combined)

Entry Fees: DCC members $20 - All others $25 

Prizes:  Based on entries. 

Registration: Restricted to 50 players. Online Only - No at the door registrations will be allowed

USCF membership required

Round Times: 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM -  3:00 PM

Bye Policy: Half-point bye - Rounds 1 and 2. Zero point bye - Round 3

DCC will not make sets and clocks available.  So bring your own set

Tournament Director:  Earle Wikle

Questions: Meint Olthof - 720-390-6984

meintolthof@gmail.com

Slideshow fun from our tournament March 20, 2021.

Copy and paste to your browser.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2429314582/permalink/10159221031524583/

Here is the link to the television news story that aired on channel 31 on March 20th at 9:30pm.

-- copy and paste this link on your browser,,,

 https://kdvr.com/video/colorado-teenager-finishes-4th-in-state-chess-championship-just-weeks-after-brain-surgery/6457075/

SwissSys Standings. USCF Qualifiers: Barber Qualifier 

SwissSys Standings. USCF Qualifiers: Denker Qualifier 

SwissSys Standings. USCF Qualifiers: Haring Qualifier

SwissSys Standings. USCF Qualifiers: Rockefeller Qualifier 

SwissSys Standings. USCF Qualifiers: Extra Games

Members of the Board and all the CSCA members,

I have resigned as President of the CSCA. I felt led to move closer to
my family, so Nell, Shawn (our son) and I are moving to Oklahoma. Nell
and I have purchased a really nice home in Claremore, OK just 14 miles
from my brother and his family.

I will really miss the friendships developed over the last 13 years of
playing chess in Colorado. Reuniting with chessplayers my path has
crossed before my family moved to Colorado; Dean Brown, and Brad
Lundstrom. It has been nice serving on the Board with both of them. I am
proud that the Board selected Brad to replace me. We have known each
other since back in 1987. He is highly qualified and I know he will do a
great job for Colorado chess. I trust you will give him your full
support as he leads Colorado chess during these difficult times.

Playing and serving the Colorado chess community has been one of the
highlights of my life. It is amazing how quickly the years have rolled
by. I will try to write a summary of my chess experiences in Colorado
for the Colorado Chess Informant.

My sincerest thank you to Colorado chess for all the wonderful memories!
Paul Covington

Brad Lundstrom / President

Hello Colorado Chess Players,

After the recent surprising news of Paul Covington’s resignation as our CSCA President, as Vice President I was nominated, I accepted and the CSCA board voted me in as President. Following a man like Paul is a tall task! As a three-time President, Paul built tremendous connections, shared his experience and worked passionately to serve Colorado Chess. With appreciation and much respect, we thank you Paul!

As my first action, I appointed Paul to stay on the board as President Emeritus or as an advisor to attend meetings as a non-voting member. I have also reached out to Richard “Buck” Buchanan, a former many times CSCA President, officer, and senior tournament director, and will be seeking his ongoing wise counsel.

I have been a CSCA member since tenth grade when I played in the Denver Open summer of 1971. Back then, smoking was allowed, rooms were smoky, and the air conditioning broke down during 95 degree temps. I have always appreciated our non-smoking rule and air conditioning since then! My friend, the late James Hamblin, won the event by upsetting Colorado Hall of Famer and now IM John Watson. I went to that tournament with my mentor Tom Wayman and we stayed at Curt Carlson’s. Curt later became a two time Colorado Champion. Now fifty years later, the three of us still stay in contact. Chess has many wonderful rewards beyond our successes on the board with forever memories and lifelong friendships 

For me, chess is an important part of life! I have loved and stayed active in chess tournaments my whole life during college, through raising three children and an almost forty-year corporate career as a district manager at Safeway Stores Inc. I have been a part of Zachary Bekkedahl’s Chessmates team for the past nine years and have helped direct over seventy scholastic tournaments. I also manage a chess program at the Greeley Senior Center, two scholastic private clubs and provide group and private lessons. My efforts in CSCA duties, as with all our board members, are as a volunteer.

Internet chess is booming, with Chess.com reporting over 35 million members on their site alone; and all around Colorado many players are playing tournaments online through both the Denver Chess Club (https://lichess.org/team/denver-chess-club) and the Colorado Springs Chess Club (https://www.chess.com/club/colorado-springs-chess-club). We are thankful for online chess because of the current restrictions we face together, and we will continue to explore online chess options. Last June I led a CSCA challenge to all Colorado chess players to an online fundraiser tournament. Over 120 players and special guests including GM Alex Fishbein, IM Keaton Kierra, GM Timur Gareyev (who played blindfolded!) joined some of our top masters and many generous friends of chess to raise $3,400! All proceeds were donated to the Salvation Army food pantry on behalf of the CSCA.

Since last March over-the-board chess tournaments in Colorado have been almost non-existent with a notable exception of our recent Colorado Closed. We have an excellent returning Scholastic Director in Tom Nelson and he brings a wealth of experience and talent to us! Unfortunately, we will not be doing a regular Colorado Scholastics tournament this year, and with the issues of online cheating and the stringent USCF rules, will not be running an online CSCA Scholastic tournament either. However, since this annual scholastic tournament qualifies Colorado’s elementary, middle school, high school and girls’ champions to join our Senior Champion at the US Open (to be held in New Jersey in late July to early August), we have decided to make an exception and invite the top ten rated players (that do apply) for each section: Elementary, Middle School, High School, and Girls. We will follow all the CDC guidelines in conducting this smaller over-the-board Scholastic tournament on March 20th. There also will be a non-CSCA Colorado Online Scholastic Tournament on March 13th open to our scholastic players and neighboring states that will be a fun event! Regarding the 4th FIDE World Chess Championship for Players with Disabilities, that Kevin McConnell and Paul Covington opened the door to Denver this spring, we have just learned this has also been canceled for this year.

We are scheduled and hopeful for the Colorado Open, as always to be held over Labor Day weekend at the Embassy Suites at the Denver Tech Center, to be our return to over-the-board events. I understand active and well-run chess tournaments are the most important thing to most of our CSCA members. Once we get tournaments back into place, there’s a long list of additional ideas to build the CSCA, but first things first. 

A few other important items to highlight: We are extremely fortunate to have as our editor, Fred Spell, a nationally awarded online Chess State Magazine editor. Also, thanks primarily to Ann Davies, CSCA received a US Chess grant of $5,700 to promote scholastic girls’ chess in Denver. We look forward to CSCA board member, Gracie Salazar, leading our efforts in this area.

I love chess as an art, sport and science. But even more, it's brought many wonderful, brilliant people into my life, opened many doors and I am ready to give back. As a fifty-year tournament player, and following a wonderful but challenging corporate business career, I will do my best to provide leadership and pull a large number of wise and passionate chess leaders together. I am appreciative of anyone that serves chess. Because I well understand we all are imperfect, I count integrity and good intentions first.

I stand for unity, teamwork, and good will for all chess players.

I am excited about the CSCA team that I will be serving with and we cannot wait to get chess tournaments and activities going again. I will always be open to communicating with CSCA members and any chess player. Thank you for the honor of serving and I will give you my best!

Jesse Cohen / Vice President

National Master Jesse Cohen is stepping into the role of Vice President. I'm happy to join alongside Brad Lundstrom and the many other fine members serving. I have always wanted to see Colorado flourish for chess. I'm excited to serve. 

Alexander Freeman / Secretary

I am 28 years old and I have been involved with Colorado Chess for more than 12 years. I have many other hobbies other than chess like music, poker and always doing the unexpected. I am looking forward to working with the rest of the CSCA board to make this a great year for Colorado Chess.

Joshua Samuel / Treasurer

I am 65 years old and have been involved with the local chess community since 1973. Playing on the University of Colorado Chess team as team captain 1973 through 1976. Over the years I have consistently played in local and National chess tournaments. I share the goals with our chess community in bringing a National chess event to the state within the next few years. My commitment to the local chess community will extend to my involvement on the CSCA board. I look forward to my position as Treasurer and the challenges that I will face.

Gracie Salazar / Member at Large

Gracie was born and raised in Denver Colorado. She began coaching chess to elementary students in 2016 and continuously added more students throughout the years while working for PALS Chess Academy. She helped start the Colorado Women’s Chess & Wine Club. Still in its infancy, the turnout has been great and Gracie looks forward to seeing this continue to grow with aspirations of getting women and young ladies more involved in the chess community. When not playing chess, Gracie teaches Barre classes at the Bar Method in Cherry Creek North. She is also a member of The Denver Astronomical Society, has a collection of telescopes and enjoys stargazing. She is a devoted mother and wife and absolutely loves life. 

Alayne Wilinsky / Member at Large

Alayne is a software Product Manager by trade who also enjoys playing guitar and drums, as well as Muay Thai kickboxing when she is not playing chess. She is an active Denver Chess Club board member who manages their online Lichess.com presence since Covid-19. 

Andrew Roerty / Junior Representative

I am a sophomore currently attending Liberty Common High School. I hope to study engineering in college. I began playing chess at around the age of 7, and began playing in my first tournaments when I was about 9. I reached a peak USCF rating of 1726, and my current rating is 1720. My greatest achievement so far would be placing 4th in the K-8 Scholastic Championship in 2018. I have aspirations to achieve a rating of 2000 or higher at some point in my chess career. I hope to help grow chess in Colorado as the Junior Representative.

Tom Nelson / Scholastics Director

I've been involved with scholastic chess since my youngest son was in the 5th grade. Shortly after he started playing in tournaments I became a Tournament Director. A few years later I volunteered to be the CSCA Scholastic Coordinator and stayed in the role for 10 years. When the USCF hosted the National Elementary tournament in Denver I was invited to help them with their National Scholastic tournaments as their volunteer coordinator. I helped put together approximately 27 tournaments ranging from 500-5,000+ players. During this time I also acquired Senior TD status and FIDE Arbiter status.

To all Colorado Scholastic Players,

 

Below is all the tournament information.

Note this is an over the board tournament.

We will follow all the Denver County CDC guidelines currently at stage yellow.

As in all other school activities, everyone plays at their own risk.

 

We will accept the top ten rated players for each section that contact us that you do want to play by end of day March 8, 2021.

 

If you do want to be considered and commit you will play, send us the following information:

 

Player's name

Parent/guardian name

Phone number

Current email address

Grade

US Chess Regular rating

 

Be sure to include all this information for your application to be accepted.

 

Email

Tom Nelsons, Scholastic Director

tmbdnelson@comcast.net

 

cc email 

Brad Lundstrom, CSCA President

chesscoach2014@gmail.com

 

——————————————————————————----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Name: US Chess National Invitational Scholastic Qualifiers

Date: March 20, 2021

Time Control: Game in 60 minutes + 5 second delay

City: Denver

Location: Embassy Suites at 7525 E Hampden Ave, Denver, CO 80231

Sections              

High School: Denker - Grades 9-12

Middle School: Barber - Grades 6-8

Elementary: Rockefeller - Grades K-5

All Girls: Haring - Grades K-12

 

This is an invitation only tournament. Up to 10 players per Section. Invitations will be sent out via the CSCA.

 

Entry Fee: $20

Prizes: Trophies 1st - 3rd Place

Registration: Due on or before March 15, 2021

Round Times: 9:00 AM, 12 Noon, 2:30 PM and 5:30 PM

 Bye Policy

Zero-point byes may be requested for any round prior to the start of or during the tournament.

 

Tom Nelson

303-880-4332

 

CSCA Board Meeting

Wednesday, February 17th at 7pm

Zoom link

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84784922549?pwd=bzE1QmtoMUpVQm9vbm56TzFicW9hUT09

Our agenda will include a new plan for a CSCA Scholastic Tournament from Tom Nelson.

Also a possible unrated non-CSCA online Scholastic Tournament from Jesse Cohen and CSCA updates from Brad Lundstrom, Gracie Salazar and Josh Samuels.

Hope to see you then.

Brad Lundstrom

This is sad for CSCA as hosting this event would have been a hugh step for us. 

Maybe it will happen someday. 

pc

This is a zoom meeting. Thank you to Jesse Cohen for hosting this meeting. 

Click on the link below to go to the meeting on February 3, 2021 at 8:00 PM. 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86436734625?pwd=NUJVMnVZVzR3UVpNdzF3eGV3NVJTdz09

Our Agenda will include a discussion on getting Over the Board chess going again, what the immediate Board actions should be, and assorted Board actions. 

Hope to see you then.

Paul Covington

Chess.com did this story and video of Griffin McConnell's struggles to overcome obsticles to play championship chess. We are so proud of Griffin! He has shown us obsticles should not stop our quest to achieve our goals. I hope his story inspires everyone. Enjoy! 

https://www.chess.com/news/view/griffins-gambit-chess-documentary

Paul Covington

The January edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

Griffin McConnell and Team USA My favorite game from the Olympiad 2020 Colorado Closed Report The 1981 Boulder Open (& more) The Chess Detective Tactics Time! and more!

Download the January Edition

The following is what has been proposed to the CSCA Board for comments and ideas. This is open to all members to comment on.  Stay Safe, Paul Covington

Greetings,
We have not had many email exchanges. My apologies for not making that happen.

After sending out emails for input about the Scholastic Championship and not receiving a lot of feedback, the decision had to be made. The best possibility is to have an over the board event at the Arapahoe County Fair Grounds. The event is belayed to give the governor time to open up the state. I asked for late April to mid May but so far the latest date available is March  26, 27, and 28, 2021. It is possible to have a later date, but that is not likely. If this falls through, we need to set some plans and advertise what we will do so our Scholastic members and their parents know what to expect.
Here are some ideas:

• Over the board, in person. Best
• Four player play-off. Not the most attractive option.
• Board would name the "Champion" based on rating. Least desirable.

The CSCA is responsible to provide representatives for the Tournament of State Champions in five areas.
Four are scholastic: Denker (Grades 9-12), Barber (Grades 6-8), Rockefeller (Grades K-5) and the Haring All Girls (K-12).
The fifth is the Senior (over 50) Champion.

These events are held each year during the first four days of the US Open Chess Championships (Pandemic permitting).. Players participating in these Invitational Events may then play in the US Open Chess Championship six day schedule or four day schedule for half price entry fee. They also receive a two year free membership to the Internet Chess Club online network. The scholastic representatives also receive a stipend ($600 to $800 dollars) to help defray some of the expenses to represent Colorado.

Other tasks for the CSCA are: Colorado Open Championship, scheduled September 3, 4 and 5 in Denver; Senior Championship not yet scheduled -- Colorado Springs this year; Class Championship, not scheduled -- Loveland, Greeley, or Ft Collins based on affordability. The Class and Senior flip each year to give each category of players equal opportunity to play. The have added several other tournaments over the years: blitz, quick, bughouse, and Girls Scholastic championships. I hope to have a couple of fun events at the Open this year: Colorado Chess Hall of Fame induction ceremony and a 960 Fischer tournament on Friday night.

All of these events depend on having the freedom to meet over the board late Spring to mid Fall.

We also have a major event still scheduled to be in Denver over the July 4th holiday, the World Championship for Displayed Scholastic players. We will need to pitch in by volunteering to help where we can. Kevin McConnell will lead this effort and I hope our board members will get involved as much as possible.

I have shared a plateful and hope you will quickly share your ideas on how to accomplish these things.
Thank you for serving,
Paul Covington

-- 
Working to make Colorado Chess the Best!

Wishing everyone a special day today. 

We have started scheduling in-person events in hopes that our state opens up so we can play chess again. 

Best Wishes,

Paul  

Lior Lapid is wearing many hats these days. We are proud of him and Griffin McConnell:

https://new.uschess.org/news/team-usa-shocks-world-first-ever-online-fide-chess-olympiad-people-disabilities

Paul Covington

FIDE Newsletter #020
 

Welcome to the FIDE newsletter Welcome to the FIDE Newsletter #20. This issue is released a bit later than usual because of the 91st FIDE Congress, which was held entirely online and produced a large amount of information. The newsletter covers some of the most important topics, while a few others that demand more space will be reported on the FIDE website during the coming days.  Content: 91st FIDE Congress Moscow 2022, Budapest 2024 FIDE in good financial shape Trainers Commission, by the numbers FIDE Honorary Titles Isle of Man joins FIDE Brief news from National Federations "The power of chess in education" Anniversaries 91st FIDE Congress Since its foundation 96 years ago, FIDE has celebrated 91 Congresses. This annual meeting, where the most important matters are discussed and voted on, has been held almost without interruption for nearly a century. Only five editions had to be canceled, due to force majeure. Just a few years ago, a global pandemic would have surely meant the cancelation of the FIDE congress. But in 2020, with broadband internet connection available almost everywhere in the world, we have managed to hold this event entirely online. The meetings were held via Zoom, and those of general interest were also broadcast via Youtube. This wouldn’t have been possible without the cooperation, will, and patience, of all our member federations, delegates, and commission members. Most of us have already mastered the use of Zoom and other video-conference solutions during 2020, but for many others without technological savvy, the experience posed a little challenge. An additional difficulty was that, with our members being spread across the whole planet in different time zones, we all had to make a little effort, and while some of our members had to get up really early in the morning, for many others the meetings concluded well past midnight. We want to thank all participants for their patience, and in particular, to all those who had to make an extra effort to adapt to this new format. We would also like to thank our IT department, headed by Vladimir Kukaev and Gennady Rakhvalov, who provided explicit tutorials and provided assistance to the delegates during the whole process. We will recap here some of the most important decisions and topics discussed during this week at the General Assembly, the Zonal Council, and the Commissions' meetings. Inevitably, some reports and materials won’t fit here, and more materials will be published in the upcoming days on the FIDE website. Meantime, you can go through this publication which includes the agenda of the General Assembly with links to all the annexes and relevant documents. Or, if you don't want to miss a thing, you can even watch the whole meeting on Youtube!  Moscow 2022, Budapest 2024 One of the main concerns of our member federations and the chess community in general, was the uncertainty related to the two next Olympiads: Moscow 2021, and Minsk 2022. Besides, hosting the chess Olympiad comes with the associated responsibility of organizing the World Cup as well, which under the current situation is an additional complication. The FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich explained the situation and the decision made as follows: “Given that the Republic of Belarus and its government have decided that they cannot hold the Olympiad, we have tried to find a solution, another host for the 2022 Olympiad and the World Cups.But we couldn't find an alternative. If you add to the picture the pandemic, we have been left with no other choice than to have just one Olympiad during this period. We have received a kind proposal from the Russian government to host the two World Cups simultaneously next year, 2021, and to have the Olympiad in Russia 2022.” The FIDE president clarified that, as long as the circumstances allow it, Khanty-Mansiysk will still host the FIDE Olympiad for players with Disabilities and the FIDE Congress in Khanty during the summer next year. The news was hardly a surprise, given the difficult circumstances. No one was happy to hear that we all will have to wait until 2022 to enjoy a chess Olympiad, but the slight disappointment quickly dissipated when the representatives of the Hungarian Chess Federation presented their project for Budapest 2024. The tournament is scheduled to run from September 10 to 23 at the renovated Hungexpo Exhibition and Conference Centre, with a total budget of 16,6 million euros. Political authorities, chess legends, and prominent members of the Hungarian Olympic movement and the sports administration have expressed their unconditional support to the event. You can download a complete presentation for Budapest 2024 here:   FIDE in good financial shape An important report at every General Assembly is the one by the FIDE Treasurer, which is normally offered right after the President’s opening speech. Zhu Chen shared the news that FIDE has now opened a Swiss bank account, which means that the organization is now ready to accept credit card payments, something crucial in order to organize activities like seminars, et cetera. The Treasurer informed that Ernst & Young concluded their audit for the year 2019 in which they examined every transaction, and "they were fully satisfied with FIDE’s internal control procedures". The delegates voted in favor of appointing Ernst & Young again for the 2020 audit. Chen informed the delegates that FIDE's cash balance is currently just below 3 million euros, and she expects it to be a bit over 4 million euros by the end of the year thanks to some advance payments that are expected in the next weeks related to next year's World Championship match and the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss. "We are in a very small group of International Federations that have managed to deal with the crisis on our own, without applying for support from IOC or public funds. We must be proud of this achievement", she added. The Treasurer also spent some time analyzing how the pandemic has impacted FIDE's budget, compared to what was originally approved in February. The budget took a serious blow, but FIDE's good situation allowed for even further reductions in several fees: in particular, the ones applied to titles and transfers. These new reductions are added to the ones already established in previous budgets, following the strategic plan announced by Arkady Dvorkovich during his electoral campaign.  As for the budget for 2021, FIDE has prepared a very conservative estimate, but the budget will probably be reviewed, and it will depend greatly on the income generated by the World Championship match. FIDE’s Director-General Emil Sutovsky briefed the attendants about the most recent developments on the match and the candidates, and he said that he expects the match to generate a profit for FIDE of at least 1,5 million euros. The report of the FIDE Treasurer, the budget for 2021, the new Financial Regulations, the appointment of Ernst & Young, and the report of the Verification Commission were all approved without objections. Trainers Commission, by the numbers Leading up to the Trainers Commission Meeting held as part of the Online FIDE Congress, its secretary Peter Long shared a presentation that reported on the work done by this commission. In 2019, TRG organized a total of 38 seminars, which totaled 902 participants – using 42 different lecturers. Besides offering rotation which is a practice that the new FIDE management has established, this also tapped on the expertise of a large number of trainers. Of these seminars, 13 took place in Asia, 11 in Europe, 8 in Africa, and 1 in the Americas, while 5 of them were held online. This experience proved to be very useful for what was to come! In 2020 there was a shift to having seminars by region and language, so while TRG organized just 23, many were in cooperation with the continental chess bodies and even held together with other commissions, and so have become more available to many usually unable to attend when organized by country. Of these, 16 are already completed, and 7 will be held during the next few days. In total, there have been 605 participants and 37 different lecturers to date, 11 in English, 3 in Russian, 3 in Arabic, 2 in Spanish, 1 in German, and 1 in Portuguese. 2021 will see a complete shift to a teaching curriculum where the subjects have moved beyond just teaching to play chess, to include areas such as psychological and training issues and the use of technology, and critically needed by trainers today, and lecturers will be focused on sharing their own methods and the best practices. In total, 1,573 titles were awarded during this two-year period (note that very often the titles are awarded sometime after the seminar has concluded). Regarding academies, there are currently 42 FIDE Endorsed Academies, of which 14 are in Asia, 13 in Europe, 9 in Africa, and 6 in the Americas. At the end of 2019, there were 30 so 2020 added 12 more. Here is a list:   1 Asean Chess Academy Singapore Club 2 German Chess Academy Germany National 3 American Chess University USA Scholastics 4 Russian Chess Academy Russia National 5 Grivas Chess International Academy Greece Elite 6 Asian Chess Federation Academy UAE Regional 7 Chess Academy of Ptolemais ‘Skakistakos’ Greece Scholastics 8 Marshall Chess Academy USA Club 9 Susan Polgar Institute of Chess Excellence USA Elite 10 Bahrain Chess Academy Bahrein Scholastics 11 Belarus FIDE Chess Academy Belarus National 12 Mongolian International Chess Academy Mongolia Scholastics 13 Kwazulu Natal Chess Academy South Africa Scholastics 14 Stefanova Chess International Academy Bulgaria Elite 15 Tbilisi International Chess Academy Georgia National 16 Academia Brazileira de Xadrez Brazil Regional 17 Culture Echecs France Scholastics 18 Sabah Chess Academy Malaysia Scholastics 19 Dubai Chess Academy UAE Club 20 Schachzwerge Magdeburg e.V.  Germany Club 21 Academia Internacional "Martha Fierro" Ecuador Scholastics 22 Asia Chess Academy Jordan Regional 23 Young Chess Masters Zimbabwe Scholastics 24 Mastermind FIDE Chess Academy of Pakistan Pakistan Scholastics 25 Wadi Degla Adly Chess Academy Egypt Scholastics 26 Project Chess Zambia Zambia Scholastics 27 Myanmar Chess Academy Myanmar National 28 Let's Learn Together Cyprus Scholastics 29 iChess Academy South Korea Scholastics 30 Bouhjar Chess Academy Tunisia Club 31 World of Chess - Kazakhstan - Anton Flilipov Kazakhstan Scholastics 32 Jussupow Schachschule Germany Scholastics 33 Chess Queen Academy Georgia Scholastics 34 Philippine Academy for Chess Excellence Philippines Regional 35 FIDE International Academy Bulchess Bulgaria National 36 OMSE Chess Academy Algeria Scholastics 37 Vugar Gashimov Chess Academy Azerbaijan Scholastics 38 Mechanics Institute USA Regional 39 Elite Brain Academy Mongolia Club 40 GoforChess Academy South Africa Scholastics 41 Francistown School of Chess Botswana Scholastics More information: https://trg.fide.com   Boris Spassky in 1972, before his match Fischer. PHOTO: Yu Somov / Novosti Press FIDE honorary titles During the General Assembly, the tenth World Chess Champion Boris Vasilievich Spassky was awarded the title of “FIDE Honorary Member”. Born in Leningrad, the great Spassky very early caught the attention of Mikhail Botvinnik when he managed to defeat him in a simul exhibition at just 10 years old. He played a total of three world championship matches: he lost to Tigran Petrosian in 1966, defeating him in a second attempt in1969 to become World Champion. Then he famously lost the crown to Bobby Fischer, in the match in Reykjavík that became a global sensation. Spassky is the oldest living former world champion, and also one of the most charismatic ones because of his sportsmanship and geniality. The founder and driving force behind the Gibraltar Chess Festival, Brian Callaghan, was also awarded an honorary title, "FIDE Life Member", as a recognition for his important and continued contribution to chess. Thousands of players took part in Gibraltar events he organizes since 2003, with a special emphasis on promoting women chess players. Even though the Gibraltar Chess Open 2021 had to be canceled, Brian managed to keep the tradition alive by hosting the fourth and final leg of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix, from January 17-29. FIDE Life Member Brian Callaghan. PHOTO: David Llada Isle of Man joins FIDE The General Assembly approved the admission of the Isle of Man Chess Association as an affiliated organization. This is in recognition of the Isle’s continued contribution to chess, including what promises to be one of the world’s major chess events next year, the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss. The vote saw 107 votes in favor and just 4 against, with a further 4 abstentions. The status of “Affiliated Organization” is slightly below that of full “Member Organization”, which according to Article 9.4 of the FIDE Charter, would demand a territory to be recognized by the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee. Howard Dobson, the Chairman of the Isle of Man Chess Association, said: “In 2019, our chess friends and colleagues at IOM International Chess Limited successfully organized the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss Tournament as part of the FIDE World Championship Cycle. Furthermore, they recently won the bid to host the 2021 Grand Swiss and the Women’s Grand Swiss. In light of this, plus Isle of Man’s history of hosting high class international Swiss events extending back to the early 1990s, we believe that it is important that FIDE should acknowledge Isle of Man’s status in the chess world”. The Russian Superfinals are being played at the legendary Central Chess Club at Gogolevsky Boulevard. PHOTO: Eteri Kublashvili Brief news from National Federations RUSSIA The Russian Championship Superfinals began this weekend in Moscow, and is one of the strongest editions in recent times. With no other top-tournaments in sight, all the top players gathered in Moscow for this 12-player round-robin event, including Nepomniachtchi, Karjakin, Svidler and Artemeev. Sergey Karjakin seemed to be particularly happy to be back at the chess board, since he hadn’t played a classical game since December 2019. His return couldn’t have been more sucessful, and after 4 rounds he shares the leadership with Nepomniachtchi, both with two victories and two draws. 19-year-old Polina Shuvalova is bulldozing in the women’s section, with a perfect score after four rounds. The total prize fund is 10 million rubles (around 112,000€). More information: www.ruchess.ru SERBIA The Serbian Chess Championship 2020 kicked off yesterday, as a round-robin tournament with 10 players. GM Ivan Ivanisevic (2608) and GM Aleksandar Indjic (2604) are the top seeds. In the women’s section, played under the same format, WGM Jovana Rapport (2308) and Teodora Injac (2290) are the two highest-rated participants. More information: www.serbiachess.net UKRAINE More “over the board” chess: the Ukrainian Women's Championship is a 9-round Swiss tournament taking place from 6-14 December 2020 in Kherson. In the absence of both Muzychuk sisters and Anna Ushenina, the main favorites are Iulija Osmak (2438) and Nataliya Buksa (2413). More information: www.ukrchess.org.ua LITHUANIA Karolis JukÅ¡ta and KamilÄ— BaginskaitÄ— claimed the 2020 Lithuanian Championship titles. In the open section, 10 players competed for the title in a round-robin tournament, which was won by JukÅ¡ta with a whole point margin. It is worth mentioning that 17-year old JukÅ¡ta became the second-youngest winner of the Lithuanian championship. The record still belongs to GM Viktorija ÄŒmilyte-Nielsen, who triumphed in the Lithuanian Chess Championship for the first time in 2000, when she was 16 years, 7 months, and 28 days old. In the women's section, a five-round Swiss tournament brought together 12  female players. KamilÄ— BaginskaitÄ—, who returned to Lithuania after living in the US, won her second women’s title after a 28 year break. More information: www.chessfed.lt TOGO Yakini Tchouka is the new Togo Chess Champion, after scoring 5½ points in a six-round Swiss tournament with 22 players. He only conceded a draw in the last round, which was enough to secure the victory. The highest-rated participant and four-time national champion of Togo Adama Mawulikplimi lost a critical game against the winner in Round 5 and failed to defend his title, but ended up in a respectable joint second place with 4.5 points. More information: www.ftde.org MOZAMBIQUE Milton Botao has been elected the new President of the Mozambique Chess Federation, after several years as Vice-President. At 37 years old, Milton is now the youngest president of a national chess federation in the African continent. Parabèns, Milton! Milton Botao, new President of Mozambique Chess Federation. PHOTO: Mekalab "The power of chess in education" Judi

The information is on US Chess website: https://new.uschess.org/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=412
 

Colorado State Chess Association Salutes Our Veterans who served to preserve our great country. 

Thank you to everyone who put their lives on the line for the United States AND to those families and loved ones who supported them!!! 

Long may our flage wave and proclaim our freedom! 

pc

This Annoucement is just in: Go to the web site listed to see the details. (pc)

https://new.uschess.org/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=300

Just a informational note:
Southern Cal Chess Association Chess Championship is coming soon.
I have talked with their President Sean Manross, based on percentages he will award a first and second prize to Colorado players who enter. This is an opportunity for some quality games without risking regular ratings. Details follow.
 

Southern California Online State Championship (2020) - Checklist/Rules

Checklist

1. Fill out the Official USCF Form to link chess.com username with USCF ID: https://www.chess.com/article/view/us-chess-online?#Registration

2. Fill out the SCCF Online Tournament Registration Form: https://forms.gle/oSXTDARQQQjKfDmi6

3. Join the chess.com group for Southern California Chess Federation (SCCF) - USCF Events: https://www.chess.com/club/southern-california-chess-federation-uscf-events

4. Pay $100 Entry Fee: http://www.scchess.com/ 

5. Between 9-10AM on Saturday November 7, enter the lobby for the tournament. This will be visible on chess.com/live once you have joined the chess.com group or through the direct link to the lobby. Make sure to be on time!

Direct Link to Lobby (Opens 9AM): https://www.chess.com/live#t=1692217 

Format: 6-Round (Swiss) - USCF Online Rated (Rapid/Quick) on chess.com

Time Control: 15|5 (G/15+5) - 15 Minutes + 5 Second Increment

Time: 10AM-2PM (Lobby Opens Starting 9AM)

Prize Eligibility: For prize eligibility, rating will be determined by USCF Standard Rating (or USCF Quick Rating if higher than Standard). If higher, FIDE Standard Rating will supersede both if applicable. You must use your primary chess.com account that is officially linked to your USCF ID. Any players who are found to be using secondary accounts and/or accounts not linked with USCF ID will be barred from prizes and possibly removed from the tournament. Pairings will be determined by chess.com rapid rating and automated by chess.com.

Additional Rules:

All players will be required to be on Zoom with active cameras and sharing their screens for the duration of the tournament while playing against opponents. Microphones should be muted and virtual backgrounds should be disabled. No background applications should be running aside from the Browser and Zoom. Players should have their faces be clearly visible during the duration of gameplay. The Chief TD may request players to see their immediate vicinity or turn on microphones to confirm fair play. Receiving outside assistance of any kind whether through another human or through technological means is strictly not allowed, and failure to abide by these guidelines may be met by disciplinary action by USCF and chess.com in addition to forfeiture from the tournament and barring from prizes.

The link to the Zoom Call will be e-mailed by 9AM the day of the tournament. Plan to be there at least 20-Minutes early to make sure you are properly set-up on Zoom and have joined the tournament on chess.com. Players must abide by fair play guidelines from chess.com. We reserve the right to remove players who fail to follow the rules detailed in this section or otherwise bar them from prizes. You must have access to stable Internet and players are responsible for dropped connections. Disconnects longer than a minute will result in forfeiture.

Titles Awarded:

1. 2020 Champion of Southern California
2. 2020 Vice-Champion of Southern California
3. 2020 Women’s Champion of Southern California
4. 2020 Senior’s Champion of Southern California
5. 2020 Disabled Champion of Southern California**

Chief Organizer/TD: Abhishek Kylasa

Chief Assistant Organizer/TD: Sean J. Manross

Enjoy,

Paul Covington

Rating Colorado Closed 2020 delayed due to login issues at US Chess, should get this fixed in the next couple of days. (pc)

Thought I would put some interesting "stats" online. 

These are not official -- just estamated by SwissSys software. 

Ratings. Colorado Closed 2020: Colorado Closed 2020
Name    Old    Perf.    New    Change
Andresen, Gunnar    2290    2362    2296    +6
Herman, Daniel    2138    2232    2151    +13
Langseth, Rhett    2138    2312    2170    +32
Lapid, Lior    2302    1959    2268    -34
McConnell, Sullivan    2224    2375    2243    +19
Wall, Brian    2209    2058    2193    -16
Some interesting gains and losses ....  

Results after 5 rounds.
Name    Score
Gunnar Andresen    3.5
Sullivan McConnell    3.5
Rhett Langseth    3
Daniel Herman    2.5
Brian Wall    1.5
Lior Lapid    1
 

Enjoy,

Paul

Rd 5 is underway. You can watch in progress on https://view.livechesscloud.com#0194ca68-7d41-4c6a-9a9e-78500d94e7e7 ; select the round in the upper right, and the game.... 

Live commentary is being hosted by Chris Peterson and Earle Wikle are the main commentators tonight. After the event--likely tomorrow, I'll post the summary and take down all the round be round posting. 

Brian vs Lior
Gummer vs Rhett
Sullivan vs Daniel 

I will also post a financial report on this event. 

Hope you have enjoyed the commentary and these hard fought games. 

Paul

Round 2

Gunnar 1 Lior 0

Daniel 1 Brian 0

Sullvan 1 Rhett 0

Round 3 is under way. 

In Lior vs Rhett we have a software glitch -- the game is still in progress, so the 1-0 result is a holdover score from last round. 

The games and commentary are both ongoing. 

pc

Round 2

Gunnar 1 Lior 0

Daniel 1 Brian 0

Sullvan 1 Rhett 0

Round 3 is under way. 

In Lior vs Rhett we have a software glitch -- the game is still in progress, so the 1-0 result is a holdover score from last round. 

The games and commentary are both ongoing. 

pc

Link to the games https://view.livechesscloud.com#0194ca68-7d41-4c6a-9a9e-78500d94e7e7

Round 1

Sullivan 1 Lior 0

Rhett 1 Daniel 0

Brian 0 Gunnar 1

Round 2 starts at 10 AM. 

Paul 

CSCA Members and all chessplayers,

Normally, in September at the Colorado Open, we elect our leaders for the next year. The Board members have assigned tasks according to our Bylaws. 

This has been anything but normal. We have had to cancel our chess events, avoid crowds, and in general, forsake over the board chess. This meant at we did not hold elections in September. We tried an online election but that was shutdown after a complaint AND no one in the meeting was willing to serve. The complaint was valid, as our Bylaws do not offer that option. So, following the Bylaws, we elected board, had four members who had committed to serve for one year, did a great job but now wanted to return to being a regular chessplayer. So one at a time that was done. As one resigned, one was replaced until all but one has been replaced. 

I welcomed the new board today and we will conduct an online meeting soon. It is our goal to return chess to normal (well, as normal as can be done) as soon as possible. While we can not make reservations yet, are are penciled in at several locations in 2021. I will use this website to keep everyone informed a to what is happening with the CSCA. 

Board for 2020-21 
Paul Covington, President
Brad Lundstrom, Vice President
Alexander Freeman, Secretary
Sam Bridle, Treasurer
Member at Large, open
Member at Large, Gracie Salazar

Appointee are:
Fred Spell, Colorado Chess Informant (Fred was recognized by Chess Journalists of America for his outstanding work on the CCI.)
Dean Clow, Webmaster
Todd Bardwick, Historian
Tom Nelson, Scholastic Director
Sam Bridle, Denver Chess League coordinator

We still need a lady to be the coordinator for AAUW Girls Title 1 chess program (Denver area) and women coaches to teach chess in Title 1 schools (these teacher positions are paid positions). Anyone interested? 

I hope 2020-21 will be a great year for Colorado chess.

Best,
Paul Covington

Welcome to the Colorado Closed 2020. 

We are attempting to restart the Chess year we missed as are allowed by our state government. 

We are limited to 20 people at the event so we are providing an online way to allow everyone to view the games in progress. This may be limited by the hotel's internet service. If hotel bandwidth permits we also have arranged for commentators to talk about and give their thoughts on the games. 

The schedule is Friday at 6:00 PM, then Saturday and Sunday at 10 AM  and 5 PM. (Round 5 on Sunday may start earlier if the players agree).  

The link: https://view.livechesscloud.com#1ae43b0b-848d-4170-8e1e-cd7cd653f987  

Earle Wikle will be operating the broadcast from the hotel. We have tried to work out all the procedures for this to work so you can watch. Enjoy! 

Paul Covington
719-310-7542 

This is an unusual time. Most of you are having to adapt to online instruction with your students and that is tough. 
We are trying to launch the Denver Chess League for online play. That is a new way of doing chess for all of us. 

That said, I hope every chess coach will ask if there students are interested in having a school chess team and playing other schools. This is a pilot effort but as it is successful it will grow. Online play eliminates travel and related expenses opening up chess play to all schools statewide. The results of this is developing a system to teach youngsters competative chess and the experience of playing on a chess team.

Lots of leg work, but I believe this will be important for Colorado Chess. Contact me if you are willing to be involved. Paul Covington CSCA@CovingtonComputers.com  

This is the Pairing for the Colorado Chess 2020

Round 1

Sullivan vs Lior
Rhett vs Daniel

Brian vs Gunnar

Round 2

Gunnar vs Lior

Daniel vs Brian

Sullivan vs Rhett

Round 3

Lior vs Rhett

Brian vs Sullivan

Daniel vs Gunnar

Round 4

Lior vs Daniel

Rhett vs Brian

Gunnar vs Sullivan

Round 5

Brian vs Lior

Gunnar vs Rhett

Sullivan vs Daniel

The October edition of the Colorado Informant is now available!

In This Issue:

My Love Affair with the Royal Game My Games with Don Sutherland Players who desrve to be better known Polugayevsky - Balashov, Leningrad, 1977 The Chess Detective Tactics Time! and more!

Download the October Edition

Trying to keep everyone updated, so Colorado Closed is still on. 

Colorado Open is postponed again. The Hotel is restricted to 50 people per gathering. 

I will try again for December-January-Feburary. 

Thanks for your support for Colorado Chess.

Paul Covington
 

Buck has canceled this event.

Refunds will be given.

pc

I trust everyone is staying safe and enjoying the cooler weather... 

Tentatively planning to hold the

-- Closed on Oct 30, 31, & 1 Nov, 2020

-- Colorado Open: Nov 13, 14, & 15, 2020

Government allowing.

We will follow health guidelines at these events.

Provide your feedback/thoughts to CSCA@CovingtonComputers.com

This is a tenative schedule for making up the Closed and the Open events. Still working on the Class event.

Online meeting September 13 included Annual reports, shared comments, and no election--we just had a quorum but did not have members willing to serve on the board.

The election will need to be combined with a tournament.

I have been working on two makeup tournaments.

Closed: targeting Oct 30, 31 & Nov 1

Open: Nov 13, 14 & 15

This is all up to the Governor's lockdown rules.

If we can have the Open -- we will have the election on Nov 15th (Sunday) after round 4 (the morning round).

Still working on the Class makeup dates. Hope this helps! (Paul)

Members' Annual Meetings Sunday, Sep 13, 2020. 6 PM for open discussion/listening session, 7 PM for Business meeting and Elections

These are the reports I have received so far: 

President’s Report 2019-2020

                                                                                                                                        September 10, 2020

Annual Reports are summaries of the year. This year was one for the record books and was sharply cut in half, before pandemic and after pandemic. CSCA had many accomplishments this year.

First and most important, I thank our Board for a wonderful year. We came together in our first board meeting determined to make this a great year for Colorado Chess. All board members gave of their time, talent, and treasure (yes, this board has been marked by their giving in all three areas). Our brainstorming session produced many ideas, then we began the process of planning how to accomplish those ideas. We worked together sharing and being transparent and accountable to each other. This has been the best board I have served on!

Together, we faced many challenges, established goals, worked to fulfill our 501(c)3 charter, kept our eyes on the goals and shared many accomplishments. The pandemic cut short our chess year yet we still had a busy year. The minutes of our meetings are listed on the ColoradoChess.com website.

Accomplishments

Ann Davies attended Grant Writing classes and wrote several grants, one was approved! This was a first for the CSCA. Some write hundred of grant requests before getting an approval, so this is a tribute to Ann and to Kevin for his support aiding Ann. The American Association of University Women has granted us $5,700 dollars to teach chess classes to girls in Title 1 Elementary schools in the Denver area. This program has been delayed until Spring of 2021. This grant was made possible because Ann taught these classes as a volunteer before applying for a grant. This paves the way for future instructors to be paid. The grant also will provide chess sets for the students. These sets and boards have already been purchased.

Kevin McConnell worked to bring the FIDE World Championship for Disabled Youth to Denver. Sadly, this has been postponed to July 2021 but is still on track. This is a major get for our chess. Teams from all over the world are scheduled to play. I have been assured this is an amazing show of pageantry. It will be a lot of work, but puts Denver on the map for future events.

One major goal was to reunite the Scholastic program as an integral part of the CSCA. This led to bringing the checking accounts together under the elected CSCA Treasurer. The appointed Director of Scholastic chess still has check writing responsibilities but now has a backup should an emergency occur. This protects the CSCA. This also led to an expanded scholastic event planned by Lior Lapid (this years Director) and Kevin. Mike Klein of ChessKids brought a booth to our event and there were food trucks, t-shirt shop, a parents’ chess tournament, a hand and brain chess event, a blitz championship, and a great Awards Ceremony. Every volunteer was honored by applause and meal stipends. I presented a special thank you plaque to Todd Bardwick for his many years of service to both CSCA and Scholastic chess. Lior led the presentation of trophies to the children. This was one of the best CSCA events I have attended.

 CSCA did host the 2019 Class Championship and the 2020 Senior Championship, both at the Ranch in Loveland, before our tournaments were postponed due to the pandemic. It is our goal to host the Closed, Class, and Open this Fall or Spring if we are allowed.

While the Senior event was the last Championship event we were allowed to hold, it was not the end of our year. We still had to work through the difficulties as the results of the pandemic. One of these was Kevin’s decision to resign to dedicate all of his time to protecting his family. He worked tirelessly checking out playing sites, presenting plans and ideas to improve Colorado chess and we owe him a debt of gratitude for his amazing efforts. Thank you, Kevin!

Brad Lundstrom was selected by the Board to complete the year as VP in early April. In a brainstorming session, Brad presented the idea to hold a fundraiser event to support Colorado families needing food. We selected the Salvation Army to administer this program. Brad’s vision and hard work resulted in an online tournament (he’ll tell you more about this) that raised over three thousand dollars for families. WOW!!! Everyone on the Board was amazed by the generosity of our Colorado chess family! Congratulations to Brad for the vision, Alayne Wilinsky for directing the event, and to all who contributed!

Awards

This year Colorado chess has been honored by our volunteers receiving recognition for their efforts. While all volunteers deserve recognition from CSCA members and we do thank each volunteer, we are highlighting these.

Fred Spell: His work producing the Colorado Chess Informant has won numerous awards as the best online State Magazine/Newsletter. However; this year the Chess Journalists of America recognized Fred’s work on the CCI was awarded the Cramer Award: Best State Magazine - Online! Fred’s win beating Northwest Chess is a major accomplishment for Fred and Colorado chess. Congratulations Fred!

John Brezina: is a behind the camera kind of guy but he was the lead in a report featuring his photos of the U.S. Chess Championship. The report from St. Louis earned a Cramer Award for the Best Personal Narrative. John report included colorful stories by Brian Wall and JC McNeil’s comments. This is the first time CSCA submitted John’s work for an award. We are happy he won! Thanks John for all of your work over the years. Sorry it has taken us so long to honor your efforts.

Paul Covington: earned the US Chess Federation Award for Meritorious Service to US Chess. This award was for his work with the Clubs Committee rewriting the Guide to a Successful Chess Club as part of the Committee’s work and his service to chess over the years in Colorado, South Dakota, and Florida. It was special to be honored for my work. Thank you Colorado Chess for allowing me to serve you.

CSCA has received numerous donations this year. Thanks to all who donated to the online tournament fundraiser! All of the Board members made significant contributions this year. We have two other fundraisers this year: Shirley Herman raised over five hundred dollars and George Mikhailavich raised $360 dollars. Both have earmarks: one for inviting titled players to Denver Open; the other to host a scholastic tournament in Colorado Springs. The CSCA is honored to have such dedicated support.

Other thoughts:

CSCA has established relationships with other non-profits to establish our reputation and rating as a nonprofit organization. Facebook required some of these affiliations before they could pay us the fundraiser’s funds. These include Network for Good, Smile.Amazon.com, PayPal account, GuideStar by Candid, Charity Navigator and some others.

Looking forward: We have some challenges ahead of us. Pulling together the events we missed this year, preparing the 2021 Scholastic Championship, the upcoming FIDE World Championship for Disabled Youth, and our regular tournaments. The Board will need your support to achieve these goals. How can you support? Please pay your membership dues early. We are in good financial shape now and want to remain that way.

In Summary: This has been a busy year, filled with challenges, but this Board has worked hard to meet these challenges. Now, to the other reports. It has been an honor to serve with each of you.
 

From Brad Lundstrom - VP

After our elected VP Kevin  McConnell resigned from the CSCA board last April, Paul Covington contacted me on behalf of the board and asked me if I would be willing to serve out Kevin’s term. I accepted the invitation and upon attending the first few board meetings saw that due to the pandemic we were on shutdown mode and canceling everything up to and then later including our Colorado Open. 

Seeing the success the Denver Chess Club was having with Alayne Wilinsky directing online tournaments through Lichess was encouraging. My idea was for the CSCA to do an outreach to all Colorado Chess players and do a fundraising online tournament to benefit families suffering from the economic aftermath of the Covid-19 shutdown. Alayne directed and many volunteered as we put together a Saturday, June 20th event. I was able to enlist Grandmasters Alex Fishbein, Timur Gareyev and IM Keaton Kiewra to join us and we had one open section with all donations going to the Salvation Army food pantry. With 121 players and Colorado chess friends we raised $3,410.  Never before has Colorado Chess done an event like this to benefit society outside the chess world. I contacted many newspapers, TV, radio and magazines to share our story but did not make progress. However I learned a lot and it may yet serve us well in future public relation efforts. The director of the United States Chess Federation Carol Meyer did recognize our efforts and sent her thanks to all Colorado chess players. 

Going forward I am willing to continue to serve as VP if you want me. Our primary goal is to hope and pray these pandemic times pass and we get chess back to normal. In everything we do safety is our top priority. In the meantime lots of communication, zoom meetings and  online chess will be our norm. I understand cheating on online chess is a huge concern and we will continue to follow USCF advice.

In the meantime I am running two scholastic clubs, directing local seniors tournaments, provide private lessons and am working with Zach Bekkedahl of Chessmates to add some multi- school chess classes ... everything online.

When we are able to restore regular chess activity in Colorado, I’d like to help get us back to all our regular tournaments and in facilitating that effort.

Beyond that I am interested in serving Colorado Chess and have many exciting ideas that I will not go into now. One step at a time. 

Paul Covington has done a remarkable job as our CSCA President and the current board; Lior, Ann, Dean, Gracie, Griffin and Sullivan have been simply outstanding. Many thanks to Kevin McConnell  who worked so hard and accomplished so much during his time this year as well. Looking forward to doing our best for Colorado chess this next year under any circumstances we face.