March 2008 Scholastic Side

  We had a great turnout of 134 players and 17 parents & friends for the Elementary Teams Championship on February 9th at Jordan Creek Elementary in West Des Moines. I was completely overwhelmed by the turnout and just last week mailed the last of the grade prizes I forgot to give out at the tournament. I want to thank everyone who came and especially thank the parents who stayed behind to help clean up and Joe Stull of Creston for his usual superb job directing the tournament floor. I hope you will all support Joe and his daughter, 2008 Iowa Girls Champion Melanie Culpepper as they attempt to raise the funds to for Melanie to represent Iowa at the Susan Polgar Invitation Tournament for Girls in Dallas this August. Congratulations to our K-3 team champions Coolidge Elementary of Cedar Rapids and our K-6 co-champions Saywer Elementary of Ames and Coolidge Elementary of Cedar Rapids.

  Our reigning Junior High School co-champion Garrett Anstreicher, has written a review of the St. Olaf Chess Camp he attended last year. If you are considering a summer chess camp for your child, I think you will find it useful to read. Speaking of writing, I have published a children’s book, ‘The Adventures of Bulldog Beagle’. If you see me at a tournament, please ask to see a copy and if you want to buy one, I’ll be happy to autograph it!

  I will be helping Lee Seebach of the Dysart Chess Club hold an unrated scholastic tournament on March 15th at the Dysart Public Library. The tournament is open to anyone in Grades K-12, has a minimal entry fee, and will be giving out medals and tournament chess sets as prizes. While running the state events are always a lot of fun, I find helping fledgling clubs take off to be very fulfilling. If you know of anyone in the Dysart/Waterloo area who may be interested, would you please let them know. Thanks! Please contact Lee or myself for more details

  The last scholastic tournaments of the 2007-2008 season will be held at Prairie High School in Cedar Rapids on March 29th. I will be holding the Iowa High School Team Championship, the Iowa Junior High Team Championships, a Cedar Rapids Youth Trophy Tournament, and a free IASCA Parents tournament. The team tournaments have 5 player teams representing their school in matches where each player from their school will play their counterpart from the other school. There will be plenty of team and individual prizes. In an effort to boost participation, a USCF membership is not required to have a team compete this year. Also please note, your team can include players from feeder schools. Please contact me at anzis@prodigy.net for more details. The Youth trophy tournament is meant for players whose schools do not have a team or for extra players of a schools team. There will be over 20 trophies for players at all levels of ability. I get asked a lot why I would have a prize for the best score for a player rated under 400 or under 200. Before I became IASCA Scholastic Director, prizes were given out by age and the same players would be winning the prizes all the time. This would lead a lot of children to stop playing tournament chess. Since I have instituted giving prizes out by rating, beginning players are not competing with others of their same age who may have more experience, but are competing with other players at their skill level. With a real chance to win a prize, I feel these players stay with tournaments until they start to show the inevitable improvement that all young players do once things click. The March 29th tournaments promise to be a great event and I hope to see you there.

  I am directing a Rated Beginner Open on April 5th at the Golden Teapot in West Des Moines for IASCA President Tim McEntee. This tournament is not a scholastic event, but is it the Iowa Under 1200 championship and is open to anyone who is rated under 1200 as of the March 2008 USCF supplement. Like the Youth Trophy Tournament, there will be trophies for players of all levels of ability. The tournament has what looks like a large entry fee ($25), but there is a $5 discount for being age 19 and under and a $10 discount for being an IASCA member. If you are not already a member, the IASCA membership is included in the entry fee and in addition Tim McEntee will pay the IASCA membership fee for anyone who has never been an IASCA member. Any youth who is already an IASCA member or has never been an IASCA member would pay the usual $10 entry fee. In addition to helping support Iowa Chess, an IASCA membership comes with 4 issues of our award-winning state chess magazine, En Passant. I hope you will consider joining the IASCA and playing in the tournament.

  Two issues came up at the February tournament that I wanted to explain so you will be able to help your child avoid a problem at a future tournament. In one case, a player’s queen was under attack and he picked it up and moved it to each legal square, always keeping his finger on the piece. Unfortunately, the player knocked over one his opponent’s pieces with the queen while moving it around to each square. The opponent called the tournament director over and it was resolved that the player in question had to take his opponent’s piece with his queen. This led to the loss of the queen and the game. The opponent made a proper claim and the tournament direcor made his decision based on the available information, but there were a lot of bad feelings about the incident. The point to make to your child is that they should not touch a piece until they have decided on their move. Any time a piece is accidentally touched, there is always a possibility of the tournament director being called over and making a decision that your child will not agree with. The best way to avoid this is to minimize touching the piece. If your child touches a piece and then is unsure where to place it, tell her to put it back on its original square, take a deep breath, and think about what she wants to do. The other issue came up when a player in the fourth round won his second game of the tournament. He put a ‘2’ on the result sheet and since his opponent had won a game previously, he put a ‘1’ next to his opponents score. The '2' was written in a very round manner and I interpreted it as a ‘0’ with the opponents score as a ‘1’. The player in question played someone in the last round that only had one win as opposed to someone with 2 wins and won that game (he did mark that score as ‘3’ for him and ‘0’ for the opponent. After the tournament, the coach had discovered the mistake. The opponent had already left so I could not verify the result and had to let the score stand. But even if I had verified the 4th round result, USCF rules state I could not have used his 4th round win to calculate the prizes as he received an easier opponent in the 5th round that he would have if the result had been reported correctly. Please have your child put a ‘1’ next to their score and a ‘0’ next to their opponents score when they win. If there is a tie or drawn game, please have your child put a ‘1/2’ next to each name on the result sheet. There is a lot of pressure on any tournament organizer to get the results entered at the end of a large tournament as quickly and accurately as possible and I personally am looking for ‘1’,’0’, or ‘1/2’ on the result sheets. If it looks like a ‘0’ and the other score has a ‘1’, that is what I will enter. Entering the results accurately will help make a tournament run better for everyone. Thanks!