Rochester Chess Blog Moved

As you may know the Rochester Chess Blog is down as well as the MSCA site and Sibley Chess Club site are down. The reason for it because they were all hosted on the same server which experienced a major crash. The administrator for said server is working feverishly to get it back online and to set a backup in case this happens again.

The new address for the Rochester Chess Blog is:

• http://rochesterchess.blogspot.com/

When my site returns I will look into forwarding rochester.fiorechess.org to the new address.

3rd Annual Okoboji Scholastic

3rd Annual Okoboji Winter Games
Scholastic Tournament
Arrowwood Resort and Conference Center
1405 Highway 71 S
Okoboji, IA 51355
See Map
January 24, 2009

5 Rounds Swiss Sys; Unrated Game/25; Rds: 10:00a, 11:10a, 1:30p, Rounds 4 & 5 to 15 minutes after the previous round ends.

Entry Fee: $7 if received by January 14, 2009; $10 onsite registration fee. Registration: 9:00a-9:45a.

Trophies: 1st place trophy for each section - Primary (K-3), Elementary (4-5), Middle School (6-8) and High School (9-12). 2nd and 3rd place medals to also be awarded in each section. Top female is to be awarded a trophy and second best female to be awarded a medal. All players are to play in their own division or up; only one section trophy to be awarded per individual. Sections may be combined or grades shuffled to accommodate turnout numbers. Female players may win top female and section trophies. Other gifts and/or prizes may be awarded.

Make Checks payable and mail to Jodene Kruse at 934 6th St, Sibley, IA 51249, or email jodene77©yahoo.com.

Click Flyer for flyer/registration form (click on blue arrow to view/download).

3rd Annual Okoboji Open

USCF online TLA now available for the 3rd Annual Okoboji Open.

Look for the March and April issues of Chess Life for the print TLA. Below is a copy of the proof for those issues.

Apr. 24-26 or 25-26, 3rd Annual Okoboji Open GM Alex Yermolinsky to Play and Hold Lecture & Simul 5SS, G/2, Arrowwood Resort & Conference Center, 1405 Highway 71 S, Okoboji, IA 51355. An Iowa Qualifying Points Event. EF: $40 by 4/24 or $50 at site. Sr/Jr's $25 by 4/24 or $35 at site. GMs and IMs Free Entry. Memb. Req'd: $15 (Jr/Sr $10). OSA. USCF reqd. $$b/50 Full Entries: Sr/Jr entry count as half. $300-200-100-50. U1900 $175-100-50, U1600 $150-75-50, U1300 $75-50, U1000/Unr $75-50. Trophies to 1st, top female, top Sr. and top Jr. ½ pt bye any round if req. before rd. 2. Rds: 3-Day Option 4/24 6:00, 4/25 9:00-4:30, 4/26 9:00-2:30; 2-Day Option 4/25 9:00-1:00-4:30, 4/26 9:00-2:30. Reg: 4/24 5:00-5:45 and 4/25 9:00-9:45. Satellite locations may be available for 1st rd, see website for details. HR: $89 by April 10. 1-800-727-4561, mention Chess group. ENT: Jodene Kruse, 934 6th St, Sibley, IA 51249. INFO: jodene77@yahoo.com. www.fiorechess.org. NS NC W. WCL JGP.

To view/download flyer go to Okoboji Open Flyer.

A new site to check out

A recent visitor suggested trading weblinks. Please check out his site, Chessblog for chessfuns..., which looks good.

(Also, hope all of you are doing well and have time to enjoy some chess. I haven't had as much time to play as I'd like to, but I'm doing chess league again this year.)

Thursday Chess

Thursday chess had a pretty good turnout this week. This is my first post. I havent figured out how to put the games up here that you can output with fritz (like the uschess.org page does). Best I can do is upload an image. So I uploaded an image from Michael Heinisch vs me from yesterday. This wasnt the exact position, but it was something like this.

I thought I had the game won (he seemed to think so too judging by his gestures), but he capitalized on a miscalculation I made. Looking at it now with a cool head, I'm not sure I should have resigned when I did, but thats chess.

Both Jeff Chandler and I had skipped first part of the tournament and played just the last game. Jeff played Reed Russel. I didnt get to see the game. Wish I had though. I bet there was some nice fireworks.

Roger Hale played Michael Melander. Michael is somewhat new to the club. Roger somehow beat him with a R & P vs Michaels 2 Qs. I should probably have posted an image of that here.

I was watching Josh Franz play Vince Berg. For a while, Josh had quite a time advantage, but Vince Managed to even it out. The position looked even as well. I thought maybe Vince might have been slightly better, but what do I know. It didnt matter though, because Josh busted a nice piece-winning tactic.

Vince Wisniewski played Norm Myrin. Norm had the white pieces, if I recall correctly. It seemed Norm had the advantage (looking at the post mortem analysis) but made a tactical error.

The last 3 games finished between 11:30 and midnight. I left around midnight. Norm, Vince W, Jeff, and Reed were still there going over Norm and Vinces game.

Was a good night!!

World Chess Live

I was informed by Larry who plays at the Chess Castle that the USCF has an online chess playing service. If you have not looked at it yet, here is a link to World Chess Live.

Is anyone in the Minnesota chess community interested in running this blog?

Hello everyone!

I see that there is still some traffic to this site, but I have not had the time to update this blog.

If anyone is interested in running and updating this blog, please email me at the address listed on my profile.

Thank you and good chess to you all!

Joe