We have found a location for the MS Championships on SUNDAY – they will be held at the ORLOV CHESS ACADEMY in Redmond WA. We thank Elena Donaldson for providing space for us. The address is 2501 152nd Avenue NE, Suite 16M Redmond, WA 98052.
The Round Schedule for the OPEN Section is as follows:
Saturday
- Round 1 – 8am
- Round 2 – 11:30am
- Round 3 – 3pm
Sunday
- Round 4 – 9am
- Round 5 – 12:30am
There are 2 Half Point Byes allowed for the event to accommodate personal schedules. All HPBs must be confirmed Saturday before Round 1 begins with the Head Judge. All players must be in their seats for Round 1 at 8am or are subject to forfeit unless prior arrangements are made with the Tournament Director. Rounds 2-5 will start at the schedules start time. If you are not there, clocks will be started regardless if the player is present.
Round times for U1000 and RESERVE (both 1 day) will be posted at the event and will start at 9am.
Several parents have been asking about the MS Team Match. Last year, this was held at the Spring Fling. Because the Individual Event s being held that day, we will be unable to host both at the same time. We will hold the MS Team Match shortly after Nationals this year in May at a location in the Seattle Area. If your school is interested in participating, please contact me at Rick.Jorgensen@gmail.com. If you do not have enough players in a school to form a team (3 players), you may – with prior approval, combine players from different schools in the same school district. Only 1 team per school is allowed to participate so bring your best team!
As many of you know, the parents last year made a decision not to have the Middle School Championships in Pasco this year with State Elementary. In searching for a good date (and the fact that it’s not large enough to support the cost of it’s own venue), it will be coupled with the Mountlake Terrace Spring Fling on March 3rd in Lynnwood WA.
Rest assured, this will not be just another section in a gym with the Elementary kids (although there will be a ton of kids there). We are separating the event in different building to provide a proper environment for high level play. If you have siblings, they can also attend the Fling that will be at the same site.
As last year, there will be 3 sections, the OPEN, RESERVE and U1000. The Open will be USCF Dual Rated, 2 days, G/90. The RESERVE is a 1 day, rating restricted, usually around 1300, but subject to the entries received in order to provide a competitive environment. The U1000 is 1 day as well and always restricted to players with a rating of less than 1000.
All top level players Grades K-9 are eligible to play. We strive to provide top level competition and provide appropriate awards for Middle School Players. More information on awards will be published during the year.
Late Breaking Announcement: The WCF has revisited it’s position on allowing us to select the Barber representative. We are grateful to them for their support. The MS State Championships will provide the delegate to the WCF based on the highest rated K-8 player of the OPEN section of the MS Championships held this year at the Mountlake Terrace Spring Fling.
Registration will be at www.chess4life.com. If you have any questions, please email me at rick.jorgensen@gmail.com
Just a short post to announce that SARAH MAY won the Middle School Championship with 4.5 points!
In addition, Nicolo Gelb is the WA State Representative to the Barber K-8 Championships!
Mayhul Arora is the Alternate for WA in the event Nicolo is unable to attend.
Congratulations to ALL!
More information will be forth coming
A couple folks have approached me and proposed that we have “Qualifier Events” for Middle School.
Those in favor of the position state that because Elementary State is so successful, qualifiers are a big factor because it adds to the prestige of the event. If you require qualification, it will increase the number of people that will attend.
Those not in favor of qualifiers believe that we have a difficult enough time getting Middle School kids to come to events and that adding qualifiers will just make it more difficult. In addition, they believe that there are many other reasons for the dramatic increase in Elementary Chess (greater availability of after school programs in the Seattle and Tacoma region being a significant reason).
We would like you to contribute to the conversation. Please post your thoughts here. If we do require qualifiers, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to make sure that it is accessible to all and fair.
Here is the 411 on the two Championship events we have this year:
2011 State Middle School TEAM Championship
This is held at Alderwood Middle School on March 5th. Signup is at Chess4Life under the Mountlake Terrace SPRING FLING as a SECTION. To join, sign up HERE as an individual and we will form the team from that list. See the detailed page for the Team Match HERE.
2011 State Individual Championships
This is held at the Tacoma Convention Center on April 30th. The OPEN is a 2 day event. To join, please sign up at HERE at nwchess.org. This is a non-qualifying event and open to all players Grade 5-9. See the detailed page for the Individual Championship HERE.
Happy New Year in 2011!
The very best place to find out what events are available is by going to www.ratingsnw.com. This has the most up to date information on the events in the local area. The good news is that there are many more events to choose from than in past years.
Here are a couple that we are aware of in the Seattle Area:
Chess4life has a “State Qualifier” every month in Bellevue – They have opened the grade level to K – 9 . A great place for competition!
Chessmates has a “Winterfest” (January) and a Spring Event (March) that has a 5-8 section for you to attend.
Heritage Christian has an event in January that hosts a 7-12 section.
Byrant has a Grade Level through the 8th grade in February.
Mountlake Terrace Spring Fling is a large event with several sections for 7-12 players – including the MS Team Match (3 players on a team).
Middle School State Championships at the end of April (no qualification required).
Bellingham has a TON of events hosted by Randy Kaech.
In Tacoma, the South Sound Coaches are building several events in the area and welcome 7-12 players!
In addition to these Saturday events, there are also a number of “Friday Night Quads” in Lynnwood and Bellevue that are organized by rating – not grade. A GREAT way to improve your play!
If you have any questions, just email me at rick.jorgensen@gmail.com. I’m happy to direct you to a place that fits your needs.
The 2010 Washington State Mini-Teams Championship is coming soon on Saturday, November 20, at Interlake High School in Bellevue. Make your teams now and come join us!
Any High School, Middle School or Junior High School in Washington state is eligible to enter as many 3-player teams as desired. Note that 5th graders attending a middle school are welcome too. Extra players or singles are welcome and teams will be composed from the extra players.
Click here for the event announcement and further details. All registration is by email in advance, and must be received by 8:00 pm on Thursday, November 18th.
The date and location are SET! We will be sharing the Middle School Team Championship with the Mountlake Terrace Spring Fling in Lynnwood, Washington on March 5th, 2011.
There will be a Team Match for Varsity Players and a Swiss Style individual JV Section so everyone has an opportunity to play. Check out www.ratingsnw.com and click on Calendar to find specific information on the event.
In February, we will be holding the Middle School Team Championships (specific date and location to be announced later).
I’m not a big fan of teams from the same school playing each other. This is done in at the High School level and there are a bunch of issues that come up as a result. I believe that TEAM competitions are when you bring your best team to play – just like HS football. It is a privilege for kids to play on the “Varsity Team”. The whole idea is to pick the best SCHOOL in the state – not the best Team in the Best School.
The problem is that there are not enough kids in Middle School to have a “JV Team competition” – even if we reduce the number of players on a team to three (which is the number of players on a team in Middle School). Our objective is to increase the number of teams from different schools to increase the “depth” of chess in the state.
I’m proposing this year the following:
- There is only ONE VARSITY TEAM PER SCHOOL. These kids will go head-to-head as a team. The school itself must pick its “Best Team”.
- All other players will play in a “JV Section” that will be a 4 round Swiss event.
- If there 4 or more teams for JV (4 schools have 6 players or more), we will hold a Team JV event. There can be multiple teams in JV. Schools can choose to play in the JV Swiss or the JV Team Match. If this occurs, we will STILL have the 4 round Swiss event to allow “singles” to come and play.
I do realize that this seems to put a couple of the top schools at a disadvantage. They have a large number of great players that deserve to play in Varsity and will frequently take the top couple of places. I can only liken this to other High School Sports where some schools (like Meadowdale in our area) have a ton of fantastic tennis players and it is really hard to get on the varsity team but if you go to Lynnwood High (where my son goes), it is easier for him to get on varsity. Modeling our event after other HS Sports seems like a reasonable thing.
As always, please comment on this proposal. This is a community effort and your participation is vital!
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February 19, 2012 1:17 pm | 
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