Below are the preliminary results for The Eade Foundation’s Spring Scholastic Chess Classic. Official results will be announced after all of the FairPlay checks are completed. In the meantime, please enjoy watching the official event broadcast hosted by FM James Eade.
This does not show correct tiebreaks or the uncombined sections for prizes.
Sameera Gadiyaram and Surya Pyda are in the K-1 Section and will be awarded accordingly.
Bridget F. Guo, Phuc Huang, and Angel Y Lu are in the 9-12 section and will be awarded accordingly.
Thank you for registering your child for The Eade Foundation’s Spring Scholastic Chess Classic. By participating in this event, your child is helping further The Eade Foundation’s mission of increasing chess excellence and chess literacy around the globe. Please take a moment to learn more about The Eade Foundation by visiting their website: https://eadefoundation.org/about/.
Now a few notes about tomorrow’s event:
1) We combined K-1 & 2-5 into one section and 6-8 & 9-12 into one section. They will still get their prizes as if the sections were uncombined.
2) Remember to sign onto the zoom room to ensure FairPlay
Tonight I showed Werner Springe vs Hans Gebhardt, Munich 1927 to my chess students at Gomes Elementary School in Fremont, California. This game, played by relatively unknown players, is a delightful choice for a chess lesson. In the position below, black has just played pawn to h6 threatening white’s bishop. What is white’s best move?
What is white’s best move? (Werner Springe vs Hans Gebhardt, Munich 1927)
A training game against my student took an interesting turn today. I had the black pieces and after some opening inaccuracies committed by my opponent, I believed I had the game well under control. However, I let down my guard and nearly lost the game in dramatic fashion. What is white’s threat and what is black best move?
Chess Superstar GM Le Quang Liêm played a spectacular finish in route to his Round 7 victory over Dutch Grandmaster Jorden Van Foreest. In this first diagram, Van Foreest (black) has just played 23… Bd6 threatening white’s queen.
Position after 23… Bd6
GM Le Quang Liêm ignores his opponents’ formidable threat and replies with one of his own.
Position after 24. fxe6.
GM Jorden Van Foreest (black) plays 24… f6. What is GM Le Quang Liêm’s game winning move and why does black resign immediately after it was played?
Position after 24… f6. White to move and win (Le Quang Liêm vs Jorden Van Foreest, R7 of the 2022 Oslo Esports Cup).
Announcing a new weekly chess tournament hosted by the Daily Chess Musings Club on Chess.com. Blitz Chess Mondays with Lauren Goodkind will pair your chess moves with Lauren’s coaching skills which is sure to create lots of exciting chess as well as teaching moments.
The Daily Chess Musings online chess club was founded on July 3, 2020 and has steadily grown to over 2100 members. Designed to encourage everyone to play more chess, the Daily Chess Musings chess club offers a free after school chess club, free weekly tournaments, free online chess camps and multiple other opportunities to join a community of chess enthusiasts who enjoy the game and its culture.
Lauren Goodkind is a popular chess teacher and critically acclaimed author who is often seen at chess tournaments in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been featured in dozens of newspaper and magazine articles and now she will be sharing her talents on the Daily Chess Musings chess club every Monday.
Blitz Chess Mondays with Lauren Goodkind are special tournament opportunities for Daily Chess Musings club members every Monday night at 7:00 pm Pacific Time. Participants will get to play five rounds of 5 minute blitz chess on chess.com while Lauren Goodkind broadcasts all the action live on her Chess by Lauren YouTube channel. As an added bonus, all players will be automatically entered into a raffle for a chance at winning cool Daily Chess Musings branded merch and autographed copies of popular chess books by Lauren Goodkind.
Registering is free and easy. Simply join the Daily Chess Musings Chess club on Chess.com and then join our scheduled blitz chess tournament on Monday night before play starts at 7:00 pm Pacific Time.
“A popularly held theory about Paul Morphy is that if he returned to the chess world today and played our best contemporary players, he would come out the loser. Nothing is further from the truth. In a set match, Morphy would beat anybody alive today… Morphy was perhaps the most accurate chess player who ever lived. He had complete sight of the board and never blundered, in spite of the fact that he played quite rapidly, rarely taking more than five minutes to decide a move. Perhaps his only weakness was in closed games like the Dutch Defense. But even then, he was usually victorious because of his resourcefulness.” Bobby Fischer
White to move and mate in 7 (Paul Morphy vs NN, 1856).
GM George Koltanowski, simply known as Kolty to his many friends, was the most passionate chess player I have ever met. He was always sharing his love for chess through his daily San Francisco chess column that ran for over five decades straight. His blindfold simultaneous exhibitions set world records and many new chess fans were created every time Kolty performed his famous blindfold knight’s tour while reciting the audiences’ addresses/phone numbers instead of square names. Koltanowski breathed life into California chess and we are still thriving because of it.
In the position below, Koltanowski uses a pretty move to conclude his game winning combination over Erling Tholfsen from round 9 of the 1928 Chess Olympiad. Can you white’s winning move?
What to move and mate in 4 (Georges Koltanowski vs Erling Tholfsen, R9 of the 1928 Chess Olympiad, The Hague).
The 2022 Super States wraps up with the K-12 (High School) sections of the 47th annual CalChess State Scholastic Chess Championships. Hats off to Bay Area Chess for organizing this series of tournaments in a safe and fun manner.
A young fan of this blog enjoyed the last Sam Loyd puzzle I shared (see: Betcha Can’t Solve This #Chess Puzzle 63) but asked if I had a “slightly easier problem by Samuel Loyd.” So, as was requested, this evening I am sharing another Sam Loyd mate in 3 that is much easier to solve while still possessing that Sam Loyd magic.
There’s not a lot of crossover between groups of chess and boxing aficionados despite the two activities sharing many similarities. For example, watching white’s queen movement at the end of this game brings to mind the famous Muhammad Ali quote, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Also, perhaps the best way to describe Bay Area legend Francisco Anchondo chess style might be referring to him as a knockout artist. See the game below and previous installments of Francisco Friday and I am sure you’ll see why.
Held annually, The Eade Foundation’s Spring Scholastic Chess Classic is a must in the calendar of scholastic chess players. Join us on Sunday, May 8th for a five round USCF online rated Swiss tournament while hearing from FM James Eade, President of The Eade Foundation, on the importance of chess literacy, promoting chess excellence and how we all have a role to play in the global chess community. The top 20 players in each section will win unique awards including plaques and medals. The entry fee for The Eade Foundation’s Spring Scholastic Chess Classic is only $20 but, since this is a US Chess online rated event, all participants must be current members of the United States Chess Federation.
I felt as though I was following in the footsteps of Dr. Hans Anton Westesson Lindehn by playing the Danish Gambit at Rook-odds. However, Lindehn played without his queen’s rook while I did without my king’s. Additionally, instead of playing at the Café de la Régence, I was playing at Peet’s Coffee. Still it makes sense on so many levels to enjoy a Danish delight while sipping coffee.
[Event “Rook-odds”]
[Site “Peet’s Coffee”]
[Date “2022.04.17”]
[White “Chris Torres”]
[Black “Student “]
[Result “1-0”]
[FEN “rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBN1 w Qkq -“]
German chess puzzle composer Herbert Ahues (1922-2015) specialized in the art of the mate in two. He composed more than 4000 chess problems and was awarded the title of Grand Master of Chess Composition by FIDE in 1989. Below is one of his final masterpieces first published in the year of his passing.
White to move and mate in 2 (Herbert Siegfried Oskar Ahues, 2015).
Organizing a successful IM or GM norm chess tournament is no easy feat. During the planning and lead up there are lots of things that organizers need to pay attention to and keep track of. Whether it’s sending invitations to foreign titled chess players, meeting all of FIDE’s technical requirements, calculating the requisite scores for players to achieve norms, hiring a FIDE Arbiter, acquiring a suitable site, and arranging travel accommodations for players who commit to participating, running a FIDE norm invitational is an expensive and complex undertaking.
In fact, the cost and complexities of such events are simply too much for almost all but a select few chess organizations in the United States. That’s where Mission 360, a nonprofit founded by friends Kevin Pan and Eric Li comes into play. These two teenage trailblazers took on the difficult task and transcended every challenge. Together with support from Bay Area Chess, these truly historic tournaments raised the bar for FIDE rated events in California. In fact, after the last trilogy of round robin invitational tournaments, an incredible six norms were achieved by the players including two players who are now International Master Elects!
So, on the heals of such success, I am thrilled to announce more FIDE rated events put on by this powerhouse collaborative team are already scheduled. A FIDE Hybrid Event is on the calendar for May 7th and 8th as well as another GM/IM Invitational Norm Tournament scheduled for May 14th through 20th and another FIDE Hybrid will occur on June 4th and 5th. For more information or to register to play in these exciting events, please visit https://www.mission360foru.org
Don’t Miss Out on these Exciting FIDE Events from Mission 360 and Bay Area Chess!
Even if you are not quite strong enough to participate in these events, you can still share in the action with Daily Chess Musings. So make sure to bookmark DailyChessMusings.com, subscribe to our YouTube Channel, and follow us on Twitch so you don’t miss any of our live coverage or round recaps.
Francisco Anchondo has spent decades building his reputation as one of the East Bay’s most dangerous chess players. Oftentimes, Francisco is at the chessboard for one reason, and that is to deliver checkmate. Sit beside him long enough and you will learn the art of checkmating.
We will never have be able to witness the greatest chess players from different historic eras playing matches against each other but that doesn’t stop me from musing about such matchups. Just imagine Paul Morphy launching an all out attack against the great defender Tigran Petrosian. I like to believe that, at least for one game, Morphy’s ruthless attack would be counterbalanced by Petrosian’s exact defenses and a perfect equilibrium would be reached. The game would be a draw similar in style to what we witnessed during the fierce battle played between the young FIDE Master Austin Mei and the legendary Grandmaster Leonid Yudasin in the Second Mission 360 Bay Area GM/IM Invitational Norm Tournament. We will never see Morphy – Petrosian but Mei – Yudasin was certainly a clash of styles for the ages.
[Event “Second Mission 360 Bay Area GM/IM Invitational Norm Tournament”]