|
|
Presenting the eleventh annual....
Come PLAY at the eleventh annual Chess Jam, a tournament and playday for chessplayers of all abilities, from beginner to expert. International Chess Jam 2008
Youth Chess Playday and Tournaments
Saturday, February 2, 2008
at Ferndale High School
State Qualifier Tournament! Washington players 6th grade and below with winning scores qualify to participate in the Washington State Elementary Chess Championships, being held this year on April 26, 2008 in Redmond, Washington.
Site: Ferndale High School. (Ferndale is five minutes north of Bellingham.) Cafeteria for check-in, hang out and K-6 sections. Library for 7-12 section.
Format:
---Grades 7-12: 5-Round McMahon Swiss, Game/45 (each player gets 45 min.)
---Grades K-1, 2-3, 4-6: 5-Round Swiss, Game/30 (each player gets 30 min.)
Computer paired. NWSRS rated, no membership required.Schedule:
8:30am - Registration opens. Note: All pre-registrants must check in. Players who check in late will be receiving a half-point bye in round one.
8:50am - Deadline for 7th-12th grade players to check in.
9:15am - Deadline for K-6th grade players to check in.
9:15am - 1st Round, 7th-12th grade section, in Library.
9:20am - Players meeting, K-6 players, in Cafeteria.
9:45am - 1st Round, K-1, 2-3, 4-6 sections.
. . . . . . . . See FAQ below for rounds schedule
4:40pm - Awards ceremony for K-1, 2-3, 4-6th grade sections.
5:45pm - Awards ceremony for 7-12th grade section.Can't play in all rounds due to other commitments? You can still play in Chess Jam! See the FAQ below.
Awards: Awards to top ten in upper sections (five in K-1 section), team trophies in upper three sections. Every K-1 player who completes all five rounds will receive a medal. Tiebreaks by computer.
How To Enter:
Players must register in advance. Entry fee is $10 and must be received by Wednesday, January 30. Send entries to:
. . . . . Ferndale High School Chess Club
. . . . . Attn: Mr. Pringle
. . . . . PO Box 428
. . . . . Ferndale WA 98248
Make checks to Ferndale High School. Include full name, school, grade, phone, Email address.Canadian players: If email with complete entry information (please supply your ratings, thanks) is received by Wednesday, January 30, entry fee (US currency) may be paid the morning of the tourney at check-in.
6th grade and below: If you want to play in the 7th-12th grade division (tougher competition, slower time control), do say so on your entry.
The Famous Chess Jam T-Shirt: Players can have a custom Chess Jam 2008 T-shirt waiting for them on Game Day. Order yours by writing YES! T-SHIRT ME! on your entry, and indicate size preferred (indicate youth or adult size, then XS,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 -- extras will not be available on Game Day.
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, kaech@verizon.net.
Last Year's Results -- 185 Players!
The 11th Annual International CHESS JAM 2008 - ENTRY FORM sample Name_________________________________________ Grade_________ Address______________________________________________________ School_______________________________________________________ Phone___________ Email______________________________________ T-Shirt? ___ If yes, indicate Size, Color: __________________
Directions: Take I-5 Exit 262. Go west about 1 mile to downtown Ferndale. Turn right on 3rd, then next left onto Vista. In less than 1/4 mile when right lane forms, take it. At the roundabout you'll see FHS to your right. (5830 Golden Eagle Dr.)
Chess Jam 2008 FAQ
I can't play in all five rounds because I have to be somewhere else for awhile that day.
Can I still play?
Yes, you can still play in Chess Jam! Indicate on your entry which rounds you will be missing. You'll get a free 1/2 point bye for each of the first two rounds you need to miss.So what's the schedule for each round?
Schedule for K-1, 2-3 and 4-6th grade sections:
Rd 1 9:45, Rd 2 11:15, then a lunch break, Rd 3 12:45, Rd 4 2:00, Rd 5 3:15.
Schedule for 7th-12th grade section: Rd 1 9:15, Rd 2 10:55, Rd 3 12:35, Rd 4 2:15, Rd 5 4:00.Will concessions be available?
Yes, and this year it's operated by the Moutain View, Custer, Skyline and North Bellingham Elementary Chess Club Boosters. So bring pizza money! And if we're lucky (still unconfirmed) The Chess House will arrive with chess clocks, boards, books, software and more for perusal and purchase.
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!)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?
At Chess Jam scorekeeping is required in the 7th-12th grade section . 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?
We'll use clocks in the 7-12 section, and in the lower sections on the upper boards only, and if your game goes really long. 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 (K-6 section) or 45 minutes (7-12 section), 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 and goes really long, we may 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.The High School section uses McMahon Swiss pairings. What's that?
The 7th-12th graders generally have ratings that are more established than in the elementary sections. 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 this tourney 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. Two years ago it was held in Lynden and saw 1,135 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." A list of qualifying players can be found at the WHSCA website.
Parents, check out the Parents FAQ on the NW Wa. Elementary School Chess page
|
Send comments/questions/suggestions for this site to Randy Kaech Northwest Washington Scholastic Chess Copyright (c) 2003 |