All,
Unfortunately, the library will be closed for Veterans Day, so there will be no chess club this week. See you next week!
The Huntsville Chess Club
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Weekly News – 20181105 Casual Chess Tonight
Hello All,
We had a busy weekend at the Cathedral Caverns State Park hosting the 2nd annual chess in a cave event. We’ll post pictures and more information soon, but everything went really well and it seemed like the tournament participants and their parents had a lot of fun.
Tonight is typically scheduled as a blitz tournament, but given our workload this weekend, we’re most likely just going to have some casual chess.
If you’d like some variety with our tournament time controls, please let us know by commenting below or by sending us an email. Some other options are G30 d5 spread over 2 weeks or G60 d5 spread out over 4 weeks.
Hope to see you all at the library this evening!
The Huntsville Chess Club
Weekly News – No Chess 10/15, Quick Chess Tournament 10/22
No Chess on 10/15
The Huntsville library will be closed. See you for the Quick chess tournament next week!
Quick Chess Tournament on 10/22
On Monday, October 22nd, we’ll be hosting a 3 round, G20 Quick Chess tournament. 80% of entry fees (minus USCF and PayPal fees returned as prizes). Register below.
Register or Renew Your USCF Membership Here
Chess in a Cave 2018
As a reminder, the Chess in a Cave scholastic and blitz tournaments are right around the corner. Chess coaches, please point your folks to our registration page at –> Chess in a Cave 2018 Scholastic Tournament.
Chess in a Cave Blitz Registration
Register here.
Chess in a Cave Volunteering
If you’re interested in volunteering to help out at our Chess in a Cave event, please email huntsvillechessclub@gmail.com . We’re happy for you to help as much, or as little, as you would like!
Weekly News – No Chess for 2 Weeks at the Library / October Tournament Schedule
No Chess for 2 Weeks
We will not meet on Monday, October 8th (Columbus Day) or Monday, October 15th (Library Closed for a Meeting). The rest of October will be filled with chess playing chances, though!
October 13th, National Chess Day Semi-Local Tournament Opportunities
Please support the Chattanooga Chess Club. They have been very supportive of our organization.
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OCT. 13 Murfreesboro Open 2018
Site: First Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 907 Main St., Murfreesboro, TN 37130. 5SS; Rd. 1, G/25 d5; Rd. 2, G/45 d5; Rds., 3, 4, 5, G/60 d5. Open section: $575 in Prizes based on 30 entries, $150 1st, $75 2nd, Class Prizes X, A, B, C, D, E/below, Unr., each $50, Above 30 players, additional prizes will be added and/or increased. Rounds: 9, 10, 12:30, 3:00, 5:30. Registration: 7:30am – 8:45am. EF: $25 by check if received by 10/10, $30 cash at site. Early entries sent to: Chris Prosser (TD), 733 Long Hunter Ct., Nashville, TN 37217 Bye: One half point bye is available for any Rd. per player if requested before Rd. 1. Info: murfreesborochess@gmail.com, murfreesborochess.weebly.com/
Next Meeting October 22nd (Quick Chess Tournament)
On Monday, October 22nd, we’ll be hosting a 3 round, G20 Quick Chess tournament. 80% of entry fees (minus USCF and PayPal fees returned as prizes). Register below.
Register or Renew Your USCF Membership Here
October 27th – North Alabama Team Scholastic (NATS) Chess Tournament
On October 27th, the MCCL will host a scholastic tournament open to scholastic teams from Madison and elsewhere. If you know of any local scholastic players who don’t already know about this tournament, please pass the word and help support the MCCL. Register here.
October 27th – Huntsville Halloween Classic
Caesar Chess will be in town at UAH. Registration information available here.
November 3rd – 2nd Annual Chess in a Cave (Scholastic Only) and Blitz (open to all ages)
Register for the scholastic tournament here. Register for the blitz tournament here.
Be sure to take advantage of a month full of chess tournaments!
Blitz Tournament Location – Library, not Sunny Street Cafe
Please pardon my copy and paste error with the previous notification!
Weekly News 10-1-18 – Blitz Tournament This Week
On Monday 10/1 at 6pm, we’ll be hosting a 5 round Double-Swiss or Round Robin Blitz tournament at the Huntsville Library. This tournament will only affect your Blitz rating (not your Standard or Quick rating). Sets/Clocks will be provided, but feel free to bring your own if you have a preference.
The time control will be G/5 d/0 and 80% of the entry fees (minus PayPal processing fees) will be given away as a prize fund.
Register below! Must be a current USCF member to compete. HCC members have a reduced entry fee of $5. Non-members will pay $8. Online registration only.
If you would prefer to watch the tournament or just play some casual games, there should be plenty of folks around to do just that. See you there!
Weekly News – 9-24-18
For those of you who were unable to take part in our City Championship, you missed a lot of fun! It was a great opportunity for all participants to take part in some rated chess close to home and for some to prepare for the North Alabama Championship that closely followed. The field was very strong, but that didn’t discourage a couple of players from participating in their first rated tournament. Newcomer Gabriel Noland finished up with a provisional rating of 1952!
As part of the weekly news, we wanted to include a couple of games from the last round of the Huntsville City Championship from the 1st and 2nd place Miles and Bill Melvin and their opponents. We’ll have casual chess at the library again this week. Hope to see you all there!
The first game is that of Logan Richey vs. Miles Melvin. Logan is an up and coming scholastic player, who suffered his first loss to Miles in the last round and still gained nearly 100 rating points!
Miles mentioned that his plan throughout the tournament was to lose material and then battle back to victory. This game was not a good example of that. With the exception of just a few missed opportunities by his opponent, The future HCC Champ took control of the game and never let go.
Bill Melvin took 2nd place in the tournament and ended with a solid finish as well. Seeking out imbalances right out of the gate, it was clear that he would not be satisfied with a drawn game.
His opponent, Luis Morenilla, has been a strong player in the Huntsville community for years. During a game quite a few months back, where Luis soundly stomped me into oblivion, I mentioned that I was hoping to get to 1800 someday in the not too distant future. Luis seemed to recognize what a struggle that could end up being for me and responded that he was trying to do the same, himself. Well, he definitely won the race to 1800 with the completion of this tournament – and then some, ending up at 1815. Congrats Luis, you’re still underrated!
NAC 2018 Results – Casual Chess This Week
The Huntsville Chess Club hosted the first annual North Alabama Championship on Saturday, September 15th. Thanks goes out to all the participants who played, traveling from as far away as Birmingham for the event.
The top 3 finishers in the Open section were Huntsville City Champ Miles Melvin, Charles Meidinger, and the North Alabama Champion of 2018 is Bill Melvin with a perfect score in the tournament.
In the Reserve section, the Madison City Chess league was well represented with 2 of the top 3 finishers. 3rd place was Jenson Wilhelm, 2nd went to Nick Ciulla making his return to competitive chess after a 10 year hiatus, gaining 120 rating points in the process! The Reserve Champ with 3.5 out of 4 was Victor Lundy.
View official USCF results here:USCF Crosstable
Great job and congratulations to all our winners.
This week, we’ll be returning to casual chess and there will no doubt be some great games from the tournament to analyze, so we hope you all will join us!
Huntsville City Championship Results
Round 4
The final round was filled with suspense! In clear first with 2.5/3 was Luis Morenilla. Close behind were Bill and Miles Melvin and David Hayes with 2.0/3.
David lost his game by time forfeit in a winning position against talented newcomer, Gabriel Noland. That left the top 2 boards to decide the outcome of the Championship. If Luis won, he’d be crowned the clear tournament winner. A draw, or a win for Bill would require tiebreaks to determine the final outcome between as many as 4 players.
First to finish was Miles Melvin who managed to fend off Logan Richey on board 2. All eyes then fell upon board 1, where Bill (Black) and Luis battled it out into an opposite color endgame with a very advanced passed pawn for the Black pieces. After 54 moves, Bill emerged the winner. After the tiebreaks, Miles Melvin was declared the 2018 Huntsville City Chess Champion!
View complete results at 2018 Huntsville City Championship Crosstable.
Congrats to Miles for his victory and thanks to all our tournament participants. This tournament spanned a 5 week period and required commitment by all who participated. It was a great opportunity for rated play and we look forward to holding more events like these in the future.
A special thanks goes out to Chris Hayes, who dutifully created the pairings, informed us of the results over the past month, and had the ratings published within an hour of the tournament’s completion. Without the dedication of our generous volunteers, our club would not succeed.
North Alabama Championship
Time is running out to register for the NAC 2018 that will take place this Saturday, September 15th. As a convenience, the registration form has also been included below. Click here for additional details, if necessary.
Weekly News 9-10-18 Final Round of the Huntsville City Championship
This Monday, 9-10-18 will mark the final round of the Huntsville City Championship. Luis Morenilla leads the field with 2.5 with a 4-way tie for 2nd. It promises to be a suspenseful evening.
As a reminder, casual play will always be an option for those not participating in the tournament or spectating.
Saturday 9-15 will be the North Alabama Championship tournament in Hampton Cove. Registration will close on Friday, Have you signed up yet for this online registration only event? Please take advantage of one of the few opportunities for standard rated play in our backyard. Sign up now!
We hope to see you at all of our club events!
The Huntsville Chess Club