MCA FIDE Tournaments

Nov 6th & Nov 20th!

2010-10-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

We are running events at University of Chicago on Nov 6th (Phi Kappa Blanca II) and Northwestern University (Northwestern U Plus Score) on Nov 20th. Please go to: il-chess.org for details.

1st Saturday G/80 at Touchmove!

2010-05-16T13:15:00.003-07:00

On the First Saturday of every month, Touch move will have a 4-SS, G/80. EF:$10 and 1st round always 10am. Details will always be the same! No prizes, just USCF rated. Refreshments provided. IF A MAJOR EVENT TAKES PLACE LIKE CHICAGO OPEN, ETC. WE WILL TRY TO RESCHEDULE LATER IN MONTH OR CANCEL. Feel free to contact me for details:
Chris Baumgartner, 9985 Linda Ln Apt 2E, Des Plaines, IL 60016 Phone: 847-609-2987 Email: mcafide@yahoo.com

Website is this one and tmchesscenter.com

MCA FIDE FUTURITY XII Sep 10-12, Oct 9-10, 2010

2010-05-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

Holiday Inn Skokie, 5300 Touhy Ave, Skokie, IL
G/90+30Sec, 9-RR (10 players, everyone plays each other once)
FIDE & USCF rated. 1 Game Friday night, Sep 10, 2 each Sat & Sun 10am-3:30pm
EF: $50 to non-FIDE, free to FIDE rateds (unless 1st event, then $50)
Anyone who obtains their FIDE rating at this event gets to play in the next RR free.(Space permitting)
Info: Chris Baumgartner, 9985 Linda Ln Apt 2E, Des Plaines, IL 60016 Phone: 847-609-2987 Email: mcafide@yahoo.com

MCA FIDE FUTURITY XI May 7-9, June 12-13, 2010

2010-05-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

The 11th edition of the FIDE Futurity series kicked off Friday night, May 7th, 2010.

Here's the lineup:

FIDE William Blackman
FIDE Bill Brock
FIDE George Stone
FIDE Dusan Tutush

Fred Cohen
Mark Robledo Jr
Gaddiel Tan
Joe Delay
Mike Penway
Dragomir Vecanski

Pairings:
May
Round 1: 1-10, 2-9, 3-8, 4-7, 5-6
Round 2: 10-6, 7-5, 8-4, 9-3, 1-2
Round 3: 2-10, 3-1, 4-9, 5-8, 6-7
Round 4: 10-7, 8-6, 9-5, 1-4, 2-3
Round 5: 3-10, 4-2, 5-1, 6-9, 7-8

June
Round 6: 10-8, 9-7, 1-6, 2-5, 3-4
Round 7: 4-10, 5-3, 6-2, 7-1, 8-9
Round 8: 10-9, 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5
Round 9: 5-10, 6-4, 7-3, 8-2, 9-1

Results:

Round 1:
Stone-Tutush 1-0, Robledo-Cohen 0-1, Brock-Tan 1/2-1/2,
Penway-Vecanski 0-1, Delay-Blackman 0-1

Round 2:
Tutush-Blackman 0-1, Vecanski-Delay 1-0, Tan-Penway 1-0,
Cohen-Brock 0-1, Stone-Robledo 0-1

Round 3:
Robledo-Tutush 1/2-1/2, Brock-Stone 1-0, Penway-Cohen 1-0,
Delay-Tan 0-1, Blackman-Vecanski 1-0

Round 4:
Tutush-Vecanski 1/2-1/2, Tan-Blackman 1-0, Cohen-Delay 0-1,
Stone-Penway 1-0, Robledo-Brock (delayed until 6/11)

Round 5:
Brock-Tutush 1-0, Penway-Robledo 0-1, Delay-Stone 1/2-1/2,
Blackman-Cohen 1/2-1/2, Vecanski-Tan 0-1

LONDON CHESS CLASSIC Dec 2009

2010-02-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

Quiet Please!

The legend, Victor Korchnoi, pointing.

The event sponsors.

Im delighted to share with my fellow chess enthusiasts, photos of my trip to London, UK. I have established some contacts that allow me to pass savings of 25% OFF for any Chessbase software you want.

I arrived at the event on Thursday Dec 10th. Friday Dec 11th was a free-day and I had the opportunity to do some sight-seeing in London-town. I recommend the trip as the subway system is very easy to navigate. I visited the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and the Famous London Chess Centre!

MCA FIDE FUTURITY X, Jan-Feb 2010

2010-02-08T19:25:00.000-08:00

We just finished the 10th edition of this series.

Here is the crosstable:

mcafidefuturityx

The site was the Holiday Inn, Skokie, IL. There was a $100 winner take all prize won by Larry Cohen.

PHI KAPPA BLANCA I, January 30, 2010, University of Chicago

2010-02-01T19:39:00.000-08:00

This was the 3rd edition of the University of Chicago G/60+10Sec increment series. We are committed to continue this time control at this venue. The next edition will be May/June timeframe. Here are some photos of the new playing site. Please take note that you only need to bring your clocks to this series of tournaments as EVERYTHING else is provided!!

Wisconsin Chess Blog

2009-07-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

Please take a look at: www.wisconsinchess.blogspot.com

This is a blog run by two of the main organizers/players in Wisconsin, FM Alex Betaneli and NM Ashish Vaja. They will be publishing information about the local chess scene in Wisconsin, the National Events that they bring to Wisconsin, like the US Junior Championship and US Junior Closed Championship. There are contests, games, and eventually the site will feature material from GMs. It is worth looking into.

3rd & 4th Weekends of September is FIDE Futurity VIII

2009-06-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

We will be holding the 8th edition of the FIDE Futurity series. Due to some scheduling conflicts, we have moved the tournament from Aug 14, 15, 16 & 22, 23 to Sep 18, 19, 20 & 26, 27. The site is Angelo Young's Touch Move Chess Center. Spectators are welcome.

Schedule: Friday, Sep 18 7:30pm, Sat Sep 19 11:00am-5:00pm, Sun Sep 20 11:00am-5:00pm, Sat Sep 26 11:00am-5:00pm, Sun Sep 27 10:00am-4:00pm

Pairings:

Round 1 1:10 2:9 3:8 4:7 5:6
Round 2 10:6 7:5 8:4 9:3 1:2
Round 3 2:10 3:1 4:9 5:8 6:7
Round 4 10:7 8:6 9:5 1:4 2:3
Round 5 3:10 4:2 5:1 6:9 7:8
Round 6 10:8 9:7 1:6 2:5 3:4
Round 7 4:10 5:3 6:2 7:1 8:9
Round 8 10:9 1:8 2:7 3:6 4:5
Round 9 5:10 6:4 7:3 8:2 9:1

Player order was picked at random:

1. Jeff Britt
2. Chris Wood
3. Dan Dugovic
4. Daniel Parmet
5. Tommy Ulrich
6. Christopher Baumgartner
7. William Blackman
8. Dimitrios Kosteris
9. Larry Cohen
10. Brian Villarreal

University of Chicago G/60+10Sec

2009-04-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

April 11th, 2009 saw 43 players compete for $469.00 in cash prizes. (67% of advertised $700 b/60) The tournament was won with a perfect score by Jeremy Kane (2-time Wisconsin State Champion) and Sedrick Prude. William Blackman scored 3.5 and there was a logjam of players with 3 points. This tournament was not FIDE rated because it exceeded the round limit of 3 games per day. It was always intended to be a USCF rated event. I wanted to experiment with an increment with a faster time control. I am told by my contact that we will probably be able to do 3-4 tournaments a year at this very fine venue. I have included a couple of photos to give you a feel for the place.

USCF Crosstable

SuperNationals IV

2009-04-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

There might be some out there in blogland that have asked the question, "why is chess4less, Chris' preferred vendor?" The short version of the story goes like this: I met the US branch of the London Chess Centre at the 2006 US Open in Chicago. Their other holdings include: the website "The week in chess"; "Chess" magazine, published in London; Chessco and Chessbase USA. I helped them pack all their books back in 2006. I stayed in touch and ordered some items on wholesale. One day I was asked if I was interested in helping them run their book store at the supernationals. Does an addict turn down what they are addicted to? No! It was heaven, four full days of Kasparov (I handled crowd control for the 2 signings) Women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, Former Woman's World Champion Susan Polgar, GMs Joel Benjamin, Maurice Ashley, John Fedorowicz, Alex Shabalov, Nick DeFirmian, Yuri Shulman and GM-elect Mesgen Amanov. I think some people were playing chess too.

The only drawback was I had to be on my feet for about 12 hours a day on a concrete floor. It got to be a little painful! I met the famous Ed Labate. If you don't know who Ed was, he was one of THE FIRST people to publish Informant style tournament reports in the 70s and he ran a mega chessclub in California up until the early 90s. He is now terrorizing the Ohio countryside. I saw many old chess friends and made a few new ones. Three of my co-workers flew over from London. I also got to meet the owner of The London Chess center, etc., IM Malcolm Pein. He is a delightful man. He looked at a few games of people who came into the bookstore at no charge! He took the staff out to dinner every night! It was work, but it was enjoyable work. I will post a few pictures a little later. The best ones are the ones my co-workers took of me being silly, not knowing they were taking my photo. The thing I am most proud of is District 103 took 1st place for 2nd & 3rd graders!! I am one of the coaches of their chessclub. Cheers!

Please Complete Your Schedule

2009-03-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Chess Enthusiasts:

One of the down sides to organizing events is when the participants, well, don't participate! I had two guys who didn't play their schedule in the latest installment of the tournaments I am running. I find it hard to believe why they don't understand they should play their entire schedule. 1. They said they would. (but everyone knows a chessplayer's word isn't worth anything, right?) 2. The event looks very strange when it is submitted with a bunch of zeros. Some people might think there is some funny business going on. 3. Most important to me is the other players came to play! I find it VERY RUDE when you make the others players sit there waiting for a game that will never happen. It saddens me when someone gives their word, then they don't follow through.

I have no choice but to ban the follow players from ever participating in Round Robin events I host: Isaac Braswell and Daniel Jones. They are welcome to play in any Swiss events I organize.

If you play in a Round Robin event, play all the games or don't play. It's as simple as that.

MCA FIDE Futurity VII March 20-29

2009-02-21T14:07:00.001-08:00

Hello Everyone,

Florention Inumerable won this event with 7/9. I am sad that not all players completed the schedule so, the tournament did not yield completed FIDE ratings for the participants. When someone drops out of a Round Robin, FIDE rates the tournament as a Swiss. The non-FIDE rated players now have 4 rated games against FIDE opposition and require 5 more FIDE-rated games to get their FIDE rating. Maybe it wasn't a complete lost.

The playing field:
1.Florentino Inumerable FIDE 2174
2.Larry Cohen FIDE 2055
3.Chris Baumgartner FIDE 1875
4.Dimitri Kosteris FIDE 1821
5.Isaac Braswell 2089 USCF
6.David Nordahl 1959 USCF
7.Alex Strunk 1948 USCF
8.Daniel Jones 1898 USCF
9.Jeff Britt 1715 USCF
10.Virgilio Forro 1690 USCF

Land of The Sky XXII Jan 23-25, 2009

2009-01-25T10:57:00.000-08:00

The Front Entrance

IM Tim Taylor (white hair) & IM Emory Tate (back to camera)

What a fireplace!

GM Sergey Kudrin & GM Alex Ivanov

Another View of the Fireplace

If you are looking for a chess adventure, North Carolina is the place for you! I have attended about 11 out of the 22 Land of the Sky tournaments. Wilder Wadford, organizer, always puts on a great show. I saw a few of my fellow Illinois players here: Larry Cohen, Anthony Gasunas and Ken Marshall. There were 2 GMs, Alex Ivanov and Sergey Kudrin. Also, IMs Bryan Smith, Emory Tate, Kirill Kuderinov and Tim Taylor (who has recently written two very interesting books for Everyman). I have included a few photos to give you a feel of the site.

Iron Rooks

2009-01-06T19:37:00.000-08:00

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the Iron Rooks to the chess scene! I have known the founders of this venture for a few years. They will bring their expertise and passion to encouraging new devotees to our role game. I wish them success! Check out their link in the LINKS! section.

Downstate IL Chess Club

2009-01-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

www.colleyschessclub.com

Photos:

October Tournament

Chess bar
More chess bar
One last chess bar photo

MCA FIDE Futurity VI, December 2008

2008-12-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

I have attached a sample of one of the crosstables we used during our December Round Robin. We had 9-RR and at the end, 6 new FIDE players were on the January 2009 FIDE rating list!

USCF LINK

FIDE LINK

Just click above and you will see a larger image. For a list of the newest FIDE rated players, look to the right column under FINALIZED FIDE RATED PLAYERS. Congratulations to you all!

Do you want to participate in a Round Robin Tournament with 9 Rounds? You will know who you are going to play in each round and what color you will have against them BEFORE the tournament begins! I have fallen in love with the Round Robin format over the much more random Swiss format (ironic since my heritage is Swiss!!)

Send me an email at: mcafide@yahoo.com Good chess to all!

MCA FIDE FUTURITY V, Sep 27-28, 2008

2008-09-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

It is an interesting phenomenom when you attract more FIDE players than non-FIDE players in an event. We had 12 FIDE players and 9 non-FIDE. There were 5 players that had the opportunity of playing the 3 FIDE they needed to make there norm. In the end, 4 players achieved the result they needed. They were: Michal Glosizek, Joe Delay, Trevor Magness and Daniel Parmet. (He is banned from all future events because he beat me. Just kidding Daniel!) Trevor had already achieved his FIDE rating in another event, but had not been published when this event took place. IM Emory Tate won the event. Thanks go out to Joliet Junior College and Dennis Doyle for allowing us to use their site.

USCF LINK

FIDE LINK

Serving The Chess Community

2008-09-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

I took a trip to the 4th addition of the Okie Chess Festival. I found out that my IA (International Arbiter) Frank Berry (right) and I (Chris Baumgartner, left) both had served in the 82nd Airborne Division. Hoorah!

okie chess festival link

MCA FIDE Futurity IV August 16-17, 2008

2008-08-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I apologize for not updating this site sooner. I tried to give results during the tournament, but Blogger was experiencing technical difficulites. I was experiencing technical difficulties with the Monroi devices. I finally got ahold of the people that designed it. They told me the current set up I have was running old software and I have to download the new version. I guess that didn't occur to me. Live and learn. We will test everything out before September and we will broadcast! (I should have tested it for this tournament, sorry about that)

Ivan Wijetunge stopped by and took a picture of the outside of the club. Ivan's site: http://www.gettingto2000.blogspot.com/.

I started out the tournament badly. Anthony Parker is a tough player and the Monrois were acting up. I went down quickly and badly. (Can anyone say fish?) I got serious after that. Florentino Inumerable finalized his FIDE rating. Anthony Parker scored his 1st FIDE Rating Norm! Congratulations to both of those guys! I really appreciated how we started out with the idea of 8 players and it grew into 12! This was mostly due to the efforts of IM Angelo Young. I am happy to support his chess club. I hope it stays open for many years to come.

USCF Crosstable

Here is the playing field:
Jeff Dixon USCF 1820
Florentino Inumerable USCF 2034
Mehmed Covic USCF 1800
Anthony Parker USCF 2052
Daniel Parmet USCF 1767
Yaodi Hu USCF 1568
Jeff Britt USCF 1792
Greg Shapiro USCF 1637

FIDE Players:
Sam Devenport 1929
Angelo Young 2367 International Master
Larry Cohen 2055
Chris Baumgartner 1792

GAMES:

Young-Dixon Round 5
Parmet-Cohen Round 5

FIDE Round Robin June 7-8, 2008 (MCA FIDE Futurity III)

2008-06-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

Format: 6-player round robin, 3 games Saturday, 2 Sunday
Time Control: G/90 + 30 Sec increment
Players: 4 FIDE, 2 Non-FIDE per section

1.FIDE 2239 Aleksander Stamnov
2.FIDE 2381 Angelo Young (Replacing Robert Loncarevic)
3.FIDE 2022 Larry Cohen
4.FIDE 1785 Chris Baumgartner
5.USCF 1859 William Blackman
6.USCF 1811 Jon Bonwell

Pairings:
1. 1-6, 2-5, 3-4
2. 6-4, 5-3, 1-2
3. 2-6, 3-1, 4-5
4. 6-5, 1-4, 2-3
5. 3-6, 4-2, 5-1

Tournament Crosstable FIDE

Results:

Round 1: Stamnov-Bonwell 1-0, Young-Blackman 1-0, Cohen-Baumgartner 1-0

Round 2: Bonwell-Baumgartner 0-1, Blackman-Cohen 0-1, Stamnov-Young 0-1

Round 3: Young-Bonwell 1-0, Cohen-Stamnov 0-1, Baumgartner-Blackman 0-1

Round 4: Bonwell-Blackman 1/2-1/2, Stamnov-Baumgartner 1/2-1/2, Young-Cohen 1/2-1/2

Round 5: Cohen-Bonwell 1-0, Baumgartner-Young 1/2-1/2, Blackman-Stamnov 0-1

William Blackman achieved his 1st FIDE rating norm! (by beating CB)

GAMES:

Cohen-Baumgartner Round 1

Blackman-Cohen Round 2

Bonwell-Baumgartner Round 2

MCA FIDE Futurity II May 3-4, 2008, Oglesby, IL

2008-05-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

A couple different views of the playing hall

The man who took clear 1st place, FM Alex Stamnov!

Tournament_Crosstable USCF

Tournament Crosstable FIDE

It was a great weekend of chess! It was my privilege to host 32 players, 8 holding FIDE ratings (Amanov from Turkmenistan, Young from Phillipines, Stamnov from Macedonia, Smith from Indianapolis, Dahl from Minneapolis, Cohen, Baumgartner, Brock). I want to thank all the players who attended and a few people who contributed to the event taking place. Colley Kitson lent us the use of his DGT board, Ron Suarez helped me obtain the site and Chris Merli directed.

Matthew Dahl received a free entry for traveling the furthest distance. Thank you to his dad for driving about 7 hours! Door prizes were handed out each round. Gwayne Lambert won the best game prize for his careful control of his game (with the black pieces!) against IM Amanov. 4 players achieved their FIDE rating norm: Barclay, Lambert, Bonwell & Goliszek. Santos got 3 FIDE rated players, but only achieved 1/2 point against them. You will do it next time!

Thank you to Sevan Muradian of North American Chess Association for bringing 12 Monroi devices. The top 6 boards were transmitted on the internet for Rounds 1-3. Sevan had a personal issue and couldn't be at the tournament on Sunday. We had internet access in the skittles room and a projector, so the players were treated to games from the Monroi site. We will transmit future tournaments on the Monroi site. The main playing hall had a projector as well which we used to transmit the DGT board from board 1. It was nice to see a few faces from the past like Bill Smythe and Bill Brock. It was nice of Bill Smythe's wife to get bottled water for the last round. I had supplied bottled water for the previous rounds, but ran out. I forgot my cooler, so I didn't serve soft drinks. I will at the next event at Joliet Junior college! Chessdad, Chessmom and chessdude were in attendance. Overall, I had a blast! I hope everyone at the event did too!

PRIZE WINNERS:

1st FM Aleksandar Stamnov 5.0 $500.00

2nd-3rd IM Angelo Young, IM Mesgen Amanov, Eric Rosen 4.0 $106.00 each

1st-2nd U2000 William Brock, Kevin Cao, John Easter, Dean Arond, Mehmed Covic 3.0 $44.80 each

1st-2nd U1800 Gwayne Lambert (Best Game $50), Thomas Rampley 3.0 $112.00 each

1st-2nd U1600 & U1400/Unr Daniel Parmet, Michal Goliszek, Carl Dolson, Kevin Davenport, Daymion Phillips 2.0 $51.20 each

Biggest upset prize went to Carl Dolson USCF 1364 for his win over Al Davenport USCF 1894

GAMES:

Davenport-Young Round 1

Arond-Smith Round 1

Amanov-Lambert Round 3

1st MCA/Southwest Chess Club FIDE Futurity March 8-9, 2008, Hales Corners, WI

2008-03-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

IM Mesgen Amanov, left, trying to stay awake.

Perhaps the reason Dave Sagunsky, front left, had a great tournament is his amazing ability to imitate FM Alex Stamnov, left rear.Dean Arond, right, achieved a FIDE rating norm!

It is now history. It was a success overall. We had 2 IMs, 1 FM, a sizeable amount of players and one participant achieved his first FIDE rating norm. The downside was that the event lost about $300. So, let me do a little fund raising. If you like international competition in the Midwest, please send anything you can. Even $5.00 would help. What I promise you is I will put the money back into a few ideas I've been kicking around. First, the Monroi device. I would like to transmit the events on the internet, but the investment for the equipment is sizeable. I also would like to provide chess sets, so the players don't have to bring them. Providing appearance fees helps attract IMs and GMs. Lastly, I would like to give away T-shirts to those players that achieve their FIDE ratings. Thank you for tolerating the fund drive, but I can't continue to spend my own money for long, but as a community we can build something special.

This event was not about Chris Baumgartner, either. This event would not have been possible without the support of many people. I wish to thank the staff of the Southwest Chess Club. They shared their wonderful space and they gave their time and energy. Tom Fogec was the spearhead of their team. If I held the checkbook, Tom held the rulebook. Allen Becker was our computer guru. Robin Grochowski came to my aid on the blog forums and served as Assistant TD. His son, Andrew and David Sagunsky helped to set up and break down the event. These guys are awesome and I couldn't have asked for a better team. Jim Coons provided the DGT demonstration board! I think everyone enjoyed that. Ivan Wijetunge posted the event on his site beforehand and provided information to the internet beast during the event. (Sorry I couldn't do it, but I'm not the best multitasker-I had to watch all the details. And a player didn't have an opponent in the first round, so I wanted him to have a game. It is only right, I hate to pay money to sit around at a chess tournament; chessplayers come to play!) And we can not forget the players themselves! Ashish Vaja stopped by and donated $100 to first prize bringing it up to $400! Thank you to the two IMs who said they wanted to support FIDE chess in the midwest. Special thanks goes out to Sevan Muradian and International Arbiter Frank Berry who supplied invaluable technical information and support!!! Some people get it and some talk trash.

Tournament_Crosstable USCF

Tournament Crosstable FIDE

PRIZE WINNERS:

Angelo Young
Mesgen Amanov 4.5 1st-2nd $325 each

Gopal Menon
Souvik Roychoudhury

Robert Bruch 4.0 3rd place+1st &2nd U2000 $133.33 each

Jon Bonwell
Deon Horton
David Sagunsky 3.0 1st & 2nd U1800 $83.33

Ryan Richardson
Alex Yerukhimov
Steve Richardson 2.0 1st & 2nd U1600 $75 each

Walter White 2.0 U1400 $75

Joe Hall-Reppen Biggest Upset $50 Monico-Barros_Hall-Reppen

GAMES:

Roychoudhury_Horton/Becker_Bonwell/Ferguson_Arond

Stamnov_Sagunsky/Young_Stamnov_last_round

Coons_Verukhimov/Wijetunge_Young/Stamnov_Thieme

Romich_Inumerable/Niemi_Ferguson/Amanov_Hoffman

Menon_Mukherjee

AMANOV-HOFFMAN has been chosen as the winner of the BEST GAME prize!

Can't We All Just Get Along?

2008-02-22T17:11:00.000-08:00

I have added, as a service to the chess community, a spot at the right side of this page. It contains information about chess activities in The Midwest. If you ever have any information about an event, even if it isn't FIDE related, email me at mcafide@yahoo.com and I will post it.

Partnerships

2008-02-20T15:12:00.000-08:00

I have gotten on my soap box more than once talking about the importance of cooperation within the chess community. I am happy to say that a number of partnerships have been established to help serve this venture. Please use the link to Chess4Less. I had the pleasure of meeting Greg Yanez at the 2006 US Open in Chicago. The London Chess Center owns this business. They also put out "Chess" magazine and they run the site, "The week in chess." Recently they acquired Chessbase USA. They offer an excellent value for every dollar you spend and they work very hard to get you what you want.

I established a partnership with google to display chess ads on this site. Please click on these links for great offers. Every click pays us. I pledge to funnel this money back into FIDE tournaments.

Lastly, I am negotiating with Monroi to have their devices for use at my FIDE tournaments and to have them available for purchase.

I would also like to thank Maret Thorpe who supplied some graphic work gratis. She was very kind to support this venture. Here is her link if you need any graphic work done:
http://www.maret-thorpe.com/

It is possible for sponsorship in chess. We need to show that we offer a value to the vendors who would partner with us. Thank you for your support.

An Excellent Question

2008-02-01T15:37:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my first post that I welcomed constructive feedback. I have been asked by numerous USCF players why they would want a FIDE rating. This is an excellent question! It deserves an answer. Here is my response on one of the comment pages:

Why should you get a FIDE rating? I agree with the sentiment, why get out of bed in the morning? Why climb a mountain? Because it is what you want to do. The FIDE rating must be EARNED. When you play USCF you can lose every game and get a rating. This is NOT so with FIDE. You are forced to perform. You must earn it. There was a time it was very difficult to earn even a rating. The minimum rating was 2000. FIDE finally realized there was a vast market untapped and so they relaxed the requirements, but there are still requirements nontheless. The FIDE rating is recognized at ANY ORGANIZED TOURNAMENT ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. You have an opportunity to "start over" if you would like. Are you 1500 USCF? Maybe if you work hard, you can start off at a higher point with FIDE. Maybe you will start at 1800. How many times in life do you get a do over? The tournaments are held to a higher standard, the rules are more strict. The forfeit for the cell phone ringing came from FIDE and was adopted by USCF. I hope that gives you a few reasons to want a FIDE rating. But no one can give you desire.

And another poster added that the time control is different. FIDE was smart to adopt the Fischer add time option. You get 30 seconds with every move. Gone will be the days a higher rated can't outplay you in the position, but tries to "clock" you. This difference will have a dramatic effect in game quality. If you play 60 moves, you are basically playing G/120 (minutes) Thanks for the feedback!

A Big Thank You!

2007-12-19T15:23:00.000-08:00

There are members of our chess community that make me ashamed. They complain, argue, and find any fault they can. These people use bad language and generally have bad attitudes. They contribute little to chess.

BUT...

There are people like EVANSTON chess who just contacted me. I believe that for every nay sayer out there, there are 5 other people who want to make our past time better and more respectable. I appreciate you! It is a lot of hard work to be an organizer. I organized events in Chicago for 5 years in the mid-90's. I have run about 6o+ tournaments of various sizes. I got burned out for many reasons. I returned to organizing because I saw a need where I could provide a service. I can not tell you how many people make me feel that this is the right decision! I thank each and every one of you!

Let us remember we decide our fate. We will make chess respectable by our actions and words. We need to take ourselves seriously for the general population to take our organizations seriously. I see a lot of fighting off of the chess board. KEEP THE FIGHTING ON THE BOARD!! You don't have to like your fellow chessplayer, but you should learn to respect them and find a way to work together. Because the present situation keeps us in an amateur mentality. Chess does great things. I have been to more places, and met more people I would never have met without the beautiful activity that is chess. I love chess and I salute everyone else who loves chess too!! When you love something, you show your love! We need to work together. Please, our future depends on it. Thanks again for the encouraging words, Evanston chess, you don't know how your kind words helped lift my spirits!

Thank you to Arlen Walker with Wisconsin Chess Association for posting our first tournament on WisChess website!

Thank you to John Flores in Minnesota for posting us on their site!

Requirements to Obtain a FIDE Rating

2007-12-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, so you might want to know the details to actually achieve a FIDE rating.
You have to play 9 rated FIDE players.
The 9 games are divided into 3 groupings of 3 games. None of the games you play will count until you achieve AT LEAST 1 point in your first grouping of 3 games. Then in the next grouping of 3 games you need to score 1/2 point. In the third and final set of 3 games you need only score 1/2 point again. For example, I played 2 FIDE rated tournaments. The first tournament I did not get 3 FIDE rated players. No rating norm. The second tournament I got 4 FIDE rated opponents, but only scored 1/2 /4. No rating norm. In my third FIDE tournament I FINALLY scored 1 1/2/5 FIDE rated games. I now have 5 FIDE rated games because I scored the norm. Now I need 4 more FIDE rated games. With the next set of 3 games I play, I need only to score 1/2 point. THEN, I get a FIDE rating! Here's another way you could achieve your FIDE rating. You play in an event with 9 FIDE rated players. You score 2/9. The requirements are 1 point, then 1/2 and then one last 1/2 or 2 total. In that one tournament, you achieved the requirements you need. Sounds confusing? It can be. If you want more details, go to the FIDE website where it all becomes as clear as milk. Good Hunting!