Noel Skelton Open – A handful of Rochester area players attended the Noel Skelton Open over the Labor Day Weekend.  The highlight for the group was Ben Schimke scoring 4.5/5 and winning clear first in the Bantam division!  Congrats Ben on a strong performance!  Nate Harmsen also participated in the Bantam section scoring 2 points and gaining over 50 rating points.   In the Reserve section Tim Schimke was in a tie for 8th place scoring 3 points out of 5 with only one loss.  Maor Leker Locker scored 2 points in the section with a win over an 1800 player.  Rob Newshutz represented Rochester in the Premier division scoring 2 points including a draw with an expert.  Overall this was a strong performance from the Rochester crowd.

Tuesday – This Tuesday will be a casual night at the club.  Come, hang out, have fun, and play some chess.

Chess Article – I recently wrote an article for chess.com on middlegame planning in the Ruy Lopez that anyone can view for free.  Here’s the link: http://www.chess.com/article/view/middlegame-planning—the-ruy-lopez

We had a total of 10 players tonight for our G/8, d/5 tournament.  Here are the final standings:

Place Name/Team Rate Score

1 Matt (1) 2010 4.0
2 Roy (3) 1665 3.5
&3 Maor (6) 1299 3.5
4 Kevin (4) 1632 3.0
&5 Jacob (5) 1448 3.0
6 Rob (2) 1737 2.5
&7 Mike (8) 1063 2.5
8 Jai (7) 1206 1.0
&9 Caleb (9) 602 1.0
&10 Edwin (10) 546 1.0

I updated the club ladder with the results.  Maor, Jacob and Caleb all gained about 80 rating points.  Nice job guys!

Club Championship: Congratulations to the new 2012 Rochester Chess Club champion, Kevin Gaustad!  Kevin won first place in a field of 7, scoring 2.5 out of a possible 3 points.  Kevin also won the championship in 1996 and has been one of the strongest players at the club year after year.  Here is a list of past champions.  Maor Locker won the RCC youth champion award.  Here is a link to the RCC Closed 2012 crosstable.

We will be posting games from the tournament once we have them ready.

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Last meeting: We had a 3 round swiss tournament last night, G/15 d5. The winner was George Berg scoring 2.5/3. We are starting to use the club ladder now which you can find at the website.

George Berg gained 91 points with his performance and Jacob Pintos starts his rating off at 1448 after 3 games!  Club ladder.

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Next meeting: On Tuesday night we will be having a labor day week blitz tournament.  See event link on the right for details!