9th “Get Smart! Play Chess!” Open

9th “Get Smart! Play Chess!” Open
Saturday, December 3, 2011

A 4 Round Swiss USCF Rated Tournament (Game/30)

Event Site: Science Spectrum 2579 S. Loop 289, Lubbock, TX
Contact Info: 806-742-7742 E-mail: Spice@ttu.edu

Description of Tournament: An open tournament for all players. USCF membership required.
Registration: On-site registration and check in 8:30am-10:00am. All players must check in by
10:15am. Late arrival will receive a ½ point bye for the first round. Chess boards and sets
provided, bring clock.

Round schedule: 10:30am - 12:00pm - 1:30pm and 3:00pm.

Entry Fee: $20 by 11/23, after or onsite $25. K-12 or TTU students $5 off.
Entry fee includes access to the museum OR one free IMAX movie.
Prizes: 1st $125 2nd $75 3rd $25Top U-2000 $50 Top U-1600 $50. All prizes are based on 20 paid entries.

Please send Entry Blank and Entry Fee to Susan Polgar Foundation at 6923 Indiana Ave. #154 Lubbock, TX 79413.

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12-03-11 Open Entry Form: Please PRINT all information and make check to Susan Polgar Foundation.

Name: _____________________________Phone: (_____)______________
Address: _________________ City/State:________________ Zip:________
Email:________________________________________DOB:___________
USCF ID# and expiration date:___________USCF Rating (if any) ___________
Sibling Team_____Parent/Child Team________ Student/Coach Team________
Amount paid________ Check#_______ Cash_______ Bye request R1 R2 R3 R4

9th “Get Smart! Play Chess!” Winter Scholastic Chess Championship

9th “Get Smart! Play Chess!” Winter Scholastic Chess Championship
Saturday, December 3, 2011

A 4 Round Swiss System Tournament (Game/30)
Event Site: Science Spectrum, 2579 S. Loop 289 Lubbock, TX
Contact Info: 806-742-7742 E-mail: Spice@ttu.edu

Description of Event: Individual and Team Scholastic Championship with rated and unrated sections.

Games are played in six sections: Primary (K-2), Elementary (K-5), Middle School (K-8), High School (K-12) (no USCF membership required) and two Rated “Championship” sections K-5 and K-12. There is a total of 30 minutes maximum per player per game.

On-site registration and check in 8:30am-10:00am. All players must check in by 10:15am. Later arrival will receive a ½ point bye for the first round.

Round schedule: 10:30am -11:45am-1:15pm and 2:30pm. UIL Invitational Puzzle-Solving at 9:30am.

Entry Fees: $10 received by 11/23; $15 received by 12/2, or on site $20. No USCF membership required except in the Rated “Championship” sections. Membership can be obtained at www.uschess.org or onsite on 12/3 until 10am. The advance entry for the UIL Puzzle Solving is $5, onsite $10.

Entry fee includes access to the museum OR one free IMAX movie. (For accompanying person there is an optional discounted entry ($4.50) to the museum or to the IMAX theatre. The discounted combined ticket is $7.)

Prizes: Trophies for top 3 finishers in each section. Trophies to top 3 school teams in each section.

Special valuable chess prizes to the top overall finisher in each section sponsored by the Susan Polgar Foundation! Team prizes are based on the top 3 individual scores from the same school within the same section. Also special trophy for top Sibling, top Parent/Child and top Coach/Student teams. Prize giving ceremony will be held shortly after the end of the last game which is around 3:45pm.

Chess boards and sets will be provided. Bring a chess clock if you have one.

Please register and send Entry Blank and Fees to TTU-SPICE send to: SPICE Box 45080 Lubbock, TX 79409-5080. Additional information on www.spice.ttu.edu

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Entry Form 12-3-11: Please PRINT all information and make check/money order to TTU-SPICE.

Name: _______________________ Phone: (_____) __________School_____________
Address: __________________________ City/State: _____________ Zip:__________
Email: __________________________ DOB: _____________Section______________
USCF Rating (if any) _____USCF ID#:_______ Amount Enclosed (No cash, please) $______
Sibling Team____Parent/Child Team___ Student/Coach Team___ Bye request R1 R2 R3 R4

SPICE in Texas gets U.S. out of chess backwater

SANDS: SPICE in Texas gets U.S. out of chess backwater
By David R. Sands
The Washington Times
Tuesday, November 1, 2011

We can claim the Super Bowl, the World Series and three of golf’s four “majors,” and we have played host to eight Olympics. But when it comes to staging big-time chess events, the U.S. is something of a backwater.

The 1995 Kasparov-Anand match at New York's World Trade Center was the first world championship played on American soil in 88 years. The most storied U.S. tournaments - Cambridge Springs 1904, New York 1924, New York 1927, Santa Monica 1966 - occurred decades ago. On the topographical chess atlas of the world, obscure burgs such as Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands; Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia; and Linares, Spain, tower over New York and Los Angeles.

So for patriotic reasons if nothing else, it’s nice to report on the fifth annual SPICE Cup, staged last month in Lubbock, Texas, by Texas Tech University and the Susan Polgar Foundation. The strongest of the three round-robin invitationals there had an average rating of 2656 and docked in as a Category 17 event.

Full article here.

Re-drafting sports fans. NSU vs. ODU in chess? Yes!

NSU vs. ODU in chess? Yes!
October 29, 2011

As part of the run-up to the March 2nd & 3rd Virginia Queens All-Girl State Championship, Old Dominion University made a bid to host and formed a university chess club with Chess Author, Dr. Ray Cheng.

The club took off, but the university had no space available for our event weekend so Norfolk State University took up the torch and is carrying it all the way.

NSU will host the Queens Championship with GM Susan Polgar who will play a simul and blindfolded exhibition (for more on that see www.NICEchess.net).

I just got the word that as of this week NSU has officially re-formed its chess club with Dr. Yuri Barnakov. The first note I got from Yuri casually mentioned was, “I believe ODU now has a chess team and we could play them.” Uh-huh. Anybody besides me catch a whiff of brimstone on the air? This is going to get interesting since ODU’s new football team has eclipsed the NSU team in the papers for coverage. Somebody, somewhere is going to figure out that a battle of wits among universities could actually mean something more than how fast you run or how hard you physically hit.

I read somewhere that parents send their kids to college to get an education, improve critical thinking, visualization and memory function so they can excel and provide for their families and communities. Showing you have great minds on your campus could just catch on.

Here at ODU, football has taken over the hearts of local fans (I live within shouting distance of Foreman Field deep in the heart of blue and silver territory and whoop with the best of ‘em), but I believe chess is about to take over their minds.

Ok, maybe most sports fans don’t know anything about chess, but they know about sports and how to be fans. Let’s start there.

So the next step (shhhh come closer to the screen because this is a chess secret that has been too well kept) is to get them informed and amped about their schools’ new sport – chess. Nobody outside the chess community knows chess is a sport. This goes for the sports section reporters as well as the potential fans.

I think we need blitz games. Clocks slamming. Skittles areas where (and I am just guessing the origins here, you can have beer with skittles and watch with interest).

Yes chess is serious, but when Fischer played the whole world gathered in pubs and byways to follow the thrilling action. If fans can follow the rules of football, rugby and even Australian football (my personal favorite) then chess is not an impossible challenge.

I want to make our current chess stars into public superstars again. Never again should a championship chess team take a backseat to a losing football team on campus. If our culture wants to worship winners then it’s time to worship the real gladiators, the ones who are not getting brain damage from hitting the turf too often. In the process maybe other teams will improve their strategic thinking as they follow our players.

GAMING the GAME: What would be really awesome and cross-sports-cultural would be if some bright young game designer would make a program for chess with characters representing each piece and hook it to an electronic playing board. Each move would play out like a battle to which new fans can relate.

That way we could have big screens in the skittles areas, or on campus for a local feed into the student centers where fans could see their intellectual gladiators hack and slash and fight in real time in their school colors and virtual uniforms.

Spectators would all have to learn to play chess in order to follow and once they understand what they are seeing the level of respect and championing goes up.

Seriously, if Wii can turn you into a tiger cub how difficult could this be to create?

Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing the first clash of intellectual titans on traditional boards from NSU and ODU. The ODU team has been volunteering with my students at Lamberts Point and have found a place in my heart for that, but i am going over to NSU to meet their team and I can’t play favorites. This is going to be interesting.

I will begin posting individual player profiles here for each team. maybe I’ll find a cartoonist to gameize them for their profile pics? Hmmm. Stay tuned for details on matches and other competitions.

–Lisa Suhay

http://nicechess.wordpress.com

Le Quang Liem Wins SPICE Cup

Le Quang Liem Wins SPICE Cup
By Zachary Haskin
October 26, 2011

Texas Tech University and the Susan Polgar Foundation hosted the 5th Annual SPICE Cup from October 15-25. This year’s festival had three Invitational sections, a FIDE Open, a Scholastic Championship, and an Invitational Blitz, with some exciting matches. The A group was a 6 player double round robin event with an average rating of 2656 FIDE, making the Category 17 tournament the highest rated International Invitational round robin in United States history. With no draw offers before move 30 and the increasingly popular scoring system of three points for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss, spectators were guaranteed to see some fighting chess. Fourteen of the 30 games in the A group ended with decisive results, and no competitor was able to escape the tournament without a loss.

The top grandmasters came from all over the world to compete. Le Quang Liem of Vietnam and Leinier Dominguez of Cuba came in as the first and second seeds respectively, both with FIDE ratings above 2700. Both are well known and respected players. Liem has twice won the very strong Aeroflot Open (in 2010 and 2011), while Dominguez reached the quarterfinals in the 2004 FIDE World Chess Championships and has been a member of the 2700+ club for quite some time. Sebastien Feller of France and Georg Meier of Germany (who is a freshman at Texas Tech) boast mid to high 2600 ratings that put them in the top 100 in the world, and they both play on their respective Olympic teams. Well-known American talents Yury Shulman and Ray Robson, who need no introduction to our readers, rounded out the field.

Full article here.