A quick reminder tomorrow night is our first USCF Blitz tournament at the club.  This is a new USCF rating category for games between 5 and 10 minutes!  Free for members and we’ll start at 7 PM.

Below is a recap of the scholastic tournament by Chuck Handlon.  Dennis Mays annotated a nice game by George Berg which is posted on the Games page.

Photos of State from Century Coach Chuck Handlon.

Rochester Chess Players Find Some Success at 2013 State Tournament

Rochester area students were challenged in the Minnesota State Chess Association 2013 state scholastic chess tournament held at the Crowne Plaza in St. Paul March 23 & 24.  Over 200 students grades K-12 competed in six rounds of games, some of them over three hours in length.  The tournament was divided into K-9 and 9-12 divisions.  About 30 middle and high school teams were represented.

Several Rochester players had success breaking the “top twenty” of the tournament, all with records of 4-2.  Various tiebreakers were used for the overall place.  In the K-9 division Peter Hansel (Friedell MS) finished 17^th while Richard Huang (Kellogg) was 20^th.  Zhengdao Lin a Willow Creek 8^th grader followed at 23^rd. The best high school finishes were Maor Locker (Century) who was 20^th and Daniel Frieburger (Lourdes) who was 22^nd and named the “top twelfth grader”.

Team scores are based on the best four team players’ scores.  Willow Creek Middle School received the Second Place Middle School trophy.  This was an excellent finish for a team that had never participated in a tournament.  The team was coached by Jim Huerter a paraprofessional in the RPS middle school Newcomers program at Willow Creek.  The team consisted of eight boys and two girls who are English Speakers Other Languages in the program including some who have only recently come to the United States.

Rochester Lourdes High School coached by Dennis Mays achieved 9^th on tiebreakers with 12.5 points.  Century High School coached by Chuck Handlon was 14^th with 9 points.

Individual and team results of this tournament may be found on the Minnesota Chess Castle website  http://www.chesscastle.com/

                                                                  Chuck Handlon

                                                                  Rochester Area Scholastic Chess League