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Presenting the seventh annual....
CHESS JAM 2004 - FUN AND DRAMA International Chess Jam 2004
Youth Chess Playday and Tournaments
Saturday, February 14, 2004
at Ferndale High School
The 7th Annual International Chess Jam 2004 took place Saturday, February 14 at Ferndale High School. 101 students from Canada to Oregon competed -- 31 in the High School section, 70 in the Junior section. In all, 320 tournament games of chess were played and will be rated by the Washington High School Chess Association.
The High School Division was mighty entertaining. The drama began in Round 3 when Lane VanWeerdhuizen of Lynden upset #1 seed Jason Lee of Vancouver in a time-trouble situation. Then Peter June of Sehome chipped in by handing Lane a loss in the following round. This set up an exciting final round scenario with Peter holding a slim 1/2 point lead over a clump of four players, but having to face #1 seed, 1934-rated Jason Lee. Jason, with his final round win, clinched the Chess Jam Grand Champion trophy as no one else in the chase pack could score a win! Lane drew with Kamran Hughes from Stevenson Elementary (Bellevue), and Jordan Hunting, 9th grader from O'Dea in Seattle, couldn't get past Sterling Dietz of Evergreen Christian.
So Jason Lee, 11th grader from Seaquam Secondary School in Vancouver B.C., is the Chess Jam 2004 Grand Champion, scoring 4 wins and 1 loss.
In the Junior Division, Lo-Ching Chow, 8th grader from Vancouver B.C., retains his title as the Chess Jam Junior Champion, scoring 6 wins and 1 draw in the Junior Division. Along the way he faced the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th place finishers. Not bad! Watch out High School division next year!
The crosstable with the updated ratings should be posted on the Chess Jam website within 48 hours. Below find the pre-rated crosstable.
Many thanks go out to the volunteers who helped make this event possible: Co-captain Mr. Peters, Floor judges Mr. Weese, Mr. Witecki & Mr. Walther, site help Mr. Marks, concessions, takedown, car jump-starter and impromptu opening announcer Mr. Jeff (on zero notice!), door prize donation by Mr. Kantack, thank you all! And thank you Sterling Dietz for sharing your big birthday cake with us!
CHESS JAM 2004
HIGH SCHOOL SECTION CHAMPIONS:
1st: Jason Lee, Seaquam HS, Vancouver BC, 11th grade, 4.0 wins
2nd: Lane VanWeerdhuizen, Lynden HS, 9th grade, 3.5
3rd: Sterling Dietz, Evergreen Christian (Bellingham), 7th grade, 3.5
4th: Peter June, Sehome HS, 10th grade, 3.5
5th: Alex Kurtis, Sehome HS, 10th grade, 3.5
6th: Kamran Hughes, Stevenson ES (Bellevue), 5th grade, 3.5
7th: Jordan Hunting, O'Dea HS (Seattle), 9th grade, 3.0
HIGH SCHOOL TEAM CHAMPIONS:
1st: Sehome HS, 16.0 wins
2nd: Ferndale HS, 13.0
3rd: Newport HS (Bellevue), 8.0
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JUNIOR SECTION CHAMPIONS:
1st: Lo-Ching Chow, Seaquam MS, Vancouver BC, 8th grade, 6.5 wins
2nd: Richard Huang, St.George ES, Vancouver BC, 5th grade, 6.0
3rd: Jason Dibble, N. Whatcom Home School, 6th grade, 6.0
4th: Thomas Witecki, Assumption (Bellingham), 5th grade, 5.5
5th: Zach Blankers, Lynden Christian, 8th grade, 5.5
6th: Thomas Chow, Cougar Canyon ES, Vancouver BC, 5th grade, 5.0
7th: Conor VanAchte, Rose Hill JH (Bellevue), 7th grade, 5.0
MIDDLE SCHOOL TEAM CHAMPIONS:
1st: Assumption School (Bellingham), 18.5 points
2nd: N. Whatcom Home School, 17.5
3rd: Lynden MS, 16.5 points
The complete, rated Chess Jam 2004 crosstable
International Chess Jam 2004
You wanted more chess? You got it.
Seven rounds in the Junior Section!
Five Game/45 rounds in the High School Section!
That's why they call it Chess Jam.
Site: Ferndale High School, cafeteria. (Ferndale is five minutes north of Bellingham.)
Format:
---Grades 9-12: 5-Round McMahon Swiss, Game/45 (each player gets 45 min.)
---Grades 4-8: 7-Round Swiss, Game/30 (each player gets 30 min.)
Computer paired. WSRS rated, no membership required.
Players of all abilities welcome!Schedule:
8:30am - Registration opens.
8:45am - Deadline** for on-site entries.
8:50am - Deadline** for 9th-12th grade pre-registrants to check in.
9:00am - Deadline** for 4th-8th grade pre-registrants to check in.
9:10am - 1st Round, High School Section.
9:15am - Players meeting, Junior section.
9:40am or ASAP: 1st Round, Junior section.
**Late entrants or check-ins will get a 1/2 point bye in the first round.
Silent film "Chess Fever" (circa 1925, featuring Capablanca) shown during check-in.
5:50pm - Awards ceremony.Awards: Trophies for overall, medals by grade, team awards TBA.
How To Enter: Entry fee $7 if fee received by Thursday, Feb. 12, $12 thereafter. Send entries to Ferndale High School Chess Club, Attn: Mr. Peters, Box 428, Ferndale WA 98248. Make checks to Ferndale High School. Include full name, school, grade, Email address. Include WSRS ID and rating if known.
8th grade and below: If you want to play in the High School division (tougher competition, slower time control), do say so on your entry.Exception for Canadian players: If mail or email with complete information is received by Feb. 11, $7 rate applies and may be paid the morning of the tourney. Please supply all ratings, thanks.
The Famous Chess Jam T-Shirt: Advance registrants can have a custom Chess Jam 2004 T-shirt waiting for them on Game Day. Order yours by writing YES! T-SHIRT ME! on your entry, and indicate adult size preferred (S, M, L, XL) and color preferred (Deep Green, Deep Blue [Navy], Deep Red [Bergundy], or Black). Lettering and artwork is White. If your color is unavailable, default color is Deep Green. Do not send in T-shirt monies in advance -- the $12 T-shirt fee will be collected on-site. Do order in advance though -- don't count on extras being available on Game Day! They sell out each year!
Bring: Boards and sets for skittles area, pen/cils, lunch money or sack lunch. Clock, if you have one.
Director: Randy Kaech, 360-384-2792.
Last Year's Results! 107 players!
Josh Sinanan, Jason Lee, Lo-Ching Chow are Grand Champions!
Directions: Take I-5 Exit 263. Turn SW onto Portal Way. At stop sign turn right on Somerset, at stop sign turn left on 2nd, then turn right onto Washington, and at stop sign turn right on Vista. Proceed one block on Vista and you'll see F.H.S. on the right.
Chess Jam 2004 FAQ
I'm in 3rd grade, and it says the Junior section is for 4th through 8th grades. Can I play? Please?
Students below 4th grade may play in the Junior section if they don't mind tough competition and can write down their moves. (Learn here!)I don't even know how to play chess. Is it hard?
Easy to learn, hard to master. Learn, and then come play with us! Have a friend show you! Or read (then print out) the rules here. Only three things you need to know to play: 1.The starting position. 2.How the six different pieces move. 3.How the game ends. (Get the King!)Seven rounds? When do we eat lunch?
True, most Saturday tourneys have five rounds, with a break for lunch. At Chess Jam we have a short break around lunch time, but we've found that with seven rounds, it usually turns out that one of your games ends quickly while someone elses goes the full distance (one hour). That would be a good time to eat! Concessions will be available, but you may want to bring a healthy sack lunch.I'm not a good chessplayer. Should I play in Chess Jam?
Sure! Come jam with the rest of us patzers. We're all learning, and you don't have to be a Grandmaster to have fun at chess. Besides, the Swiss pairings system will match you with opponents of equal ability (after a few rounds). And just think of how much better you'll be after a day of chess jamming.Do I have to write down the moves?
Yes, scorekeeping is required at Chess Jam. To learn how, have a teacher or friend show you, or go here. Hey, it's good for you! One of the best ways to improve is to review your games after a tournament. (Besides being able to show your friends the awesome move you made that clinched the game.) Also, learning chess notation opens you to the whole wide world of chess literature. So, bring a pen or pencil, scoresheets will be provided.If I haven't taken my hands off of the chess piece yet, can I change my mind?
In a rated tournament like this one, if you even touch a chess piece, you must move it! And if you touch an opponent's piece, you must capture it! So sit on your hands until you know what you want to do. If a piece needs to be centered or adjusted, you may do so by first saying "I adjust".Will we use chess clocks? How do they work?
Yes, we'll use clocks, although we may not have enough for all boards. Chess clocks are a great invention. They keep slow players from slowing and losing players from stalling. Here's how it works: After your move, you hit the button nearest you on the chess clock. Your timer stops, and your opponent's timer begins. In this tournament each player gets either 30 minutes (Junior division) or 45 minutes (H.S. division), thus ensuring that no game goes over 60 minutes (or 90 minutes). If a player uses up all his time, it's a loss just like checkmate. If a game starts without a clock, we'll put a clock on the game, with the time equally elapsed, as one becomes available.How do school team awards work?
The team scoring used will be similar to cross-country meet scoring. In each section the best four results from a single school will be tallied and compared with other schools. Efforts are made not to pair players from the same school. Eligibility rules are those used by WHSCA for State events at the MS and HS level, and at Elem. level we use the eligibility rules used at Elem. State.Will concessions be available?
Hot dogs, pop and a few munchies will be available, and The Chess House will have chess clocks, boards, books, software and more for perusal and purchase.The High School section uses McMahon Swiss pairings. What's that?
The High School section is smaller, has less rounds, and the ratings are more established than in the Junior section. So we're using McMahon Swiss pairings, which allows players of similar strength to play each other sooner, and avoids first round mismatches (i.e. having to play someone 600 points higher/lower than yourself). It's the same as a regular Swiss tourney, except players in the top half of the field begin the tourney with a point. With McMahon, top half players play each other starting in the first round rather than the second, as do lower half players. It's as if the tourney began with one round already played. (Don't worry - you still get to play five games!)Is the Junior division an Elementary State Qualifier tournament? Tell me about State.
The largest chess tournament in the state every year is not the Washington Open, the Seafair Open or the State High School Team Championships, it's the State Elementary Championships. Last year it was held in Kennewick and saw over 700 players compete. And consider this: to attend, players had to first qualify by posting a winning record in a qualifying tournament.To qualify for Elementary State, a Washington student "in grades 1-6 must score at least 3/5 in a WSRS-rated Scholastic Chess Tournament in Washington State with at least 32 players per section, and three or more schools participating. Players in Grade K need to score 2/5 in a divison which includes K-2 players." So, for 6th graders and below, the Junior section will act as a qualifier for Elementary State, though it'll be harder than most as it includes 7th and 8th graders.
This school year's Washington State Elementary Chess Championships will be held April 24, 2004 in Bellevue, Washington. (For more info visit the official web site.)
Parents, check out the Parents FAQ on the NW Wa. Elementary School Chess page
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Send comments/questions/suggestions for this site to Randy Kaech Northwest Washington Scholastic Chess Copyright (c) 2003 |