There will be no chess on Monday, 9/3. The library will be closed. The final round of the Huntsville City Championship will be held on 9/10.
As a reminder, there are less than 2 weeks to register for the North Alabama Championship. Register today at North Alabama Championship 2018.
Have a great Labor Day Weekend!
The Huntsville Chess Club
After 2 rounds, the field remains very close. Miles Melvin, Luis Morenilla, and Bill Melvin are all tied with 1.5/2.0. 5 of the 7 remaining participants are tied with 1.0/2.0. The strong field has a rating average of over 1800!
Please be sure to spread the word about the North Alabama Championship as we are less than a month from the tournament.
Register now at North Alabama Championship 2018.
The 4 week Huntsville City Championship begins tomorrow. Take advantage of this rare opportunity to play rated games (G/60;d5) with a longer time control close to home! Don’t forget, you can receive a bye for any round but round 4 (multiple byes are ok) on September 3rd.
Register for the City Championship here!
In other news, the Huntsville Chess Club will be hosting a North Alabama Championship on September 15th at the Hampton Inn in Hampton Cove.
Click here to register and for all the details.
To make these tournaments possible, we really need the support from our membership. We hope you’ll take advantage of these great opportunities for local chess!
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This week, we’ll be taking a break from tournaments, but the Huntsville City Championship will start next week on August 13th. We’ll conduct one game per week of G/60;d5 and will be both Quick and Standard rated.
Both USCF and HCC memberships are required. Online registration only. Information above / Register below.
Register or Renew Your USCF Membership Here
The Huntsville Chess Club hosted a double round-robin blitz event this week at the main branch of the Huntsville Library. The tournament showcased the unique time control of G/3;inc 7, which is the same as the Chess in a Cave tournament scheduled for November.
The participants quickly learned that, with a 7 second increment, the games can last much, much longer than 3 minutes. Bullet chess moves are not advised!
After the smoke cleared, Bill and new Huntsville Chess Club Member, Miles Melvin, were tied with 7.5 points out of 10 and declared the winners. Joel Friedman was a close second with 6.
Over the past couple of years, there has been a distinct lack of rated (non-scholastic) tournaments in the Huntsville area. That is something that the Huntsville Chess Club would like to change. Traveling great distances to attend chess tournaments can be fun and a good way to break up the possibility of playing the same few chess players over and over again, but it should not be a requirement.
In an effort to change that, we plan to host a City Championship tournament at some point in the next 30-60 days. The most likely venue will be at the Hampton Inn in Hampton Cove on a Saturday and Sunday. Please pay close attention to the club blogs in the coming weeks as more details will be announced as we gather information.
Over the past year, we’ve focused almost exclusively on hosting Monday Night tournaments with Quick and Blitz rated only time controls. This has been well-received by our membership, who enjoy tournament chess, but may not want to put their standard rating on the line after a long day of work. However, we realize that our membership is also composed of players who don’t necessarily enjoy playing games that make it difficult to notate and learn from after the tournament is completed.
An alternative time control of G/60;d5 has been suggested to spread across multiple weeks (the first attempt would most likely be 4 weeks in a row). This idea has been considered in the past, but abandoned due to the sometimes sporadic nature of chess player attendance. Now that we’ve begun to establish a baseline of consistent attendance with quite a few strong players, we would like to revisit this topic.
It would be unreasonable to expect all attendees to be able to attend every single week (though we’d love it if that’s what happened), so half-point byes would be available for all but the final round with at least 24 hour notice.
Please use the poll below to let us know if you would be interested in attending a tournament like this. If you would, we’ll do our best to give it a trial run ASAP! As always, please post questions or comments below. We’ll do our best to respond in a timely manner.
The Huntsville Chess Club
On Monday 7/30 at 5:30pm, 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/3 i/7 and 80% of the entry fees (minus PayPal processing fees) will be given away as a prize fund.
Note: This tournament will use the same time control as will be used for the Chess in a Cave blitz event in November. Please participate and let us know what you think about it!
Register below! Must be a current USCF member to compete. HCC members have a reduced entry fee of $5. Non-members will pay $8. Pre-registration is required as we are unable to accept payment at the library. The prize fund will be distributed via PayPal, so you must have a PayPal account to participate.
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. Last week, we had 12 play in the tournament and another 6 playing casual games or spectating. See you there!
The impromptu unrated tournament at this week’s meeting, with a free clock to the victor, was a great success. We had 12 participants and nearly 20 chess in total players attend. One of the folks who stopped by was in town from Cleveland! It’s always fun to give out of town chess players a place to keep their skills fresh.
The Quest for the Clock themed event was won by Life Master, Bill Melvin, but not without a fight from a strong pool of players.
Going into Round 4, Joel Friedman was a clear frontrunner with 3 points after (Bill Melvin and Paul Mulqueen had drawn each other in round 3), while Bill and Paul were tied for 2nd with 2.5. After the round, both Bill and Paul emerged victorious, resulting in a two-way tie for first place.
It was determined beforehand that any tie for the clock would result in a playoff. This took place in the form of 2 consecutive, G5;0 delay games where each person would have the opportunity to play both colors. They were tense games that were made even more tense by the gathering of spectators interested in the final outcome that surrounded the players. Bill solidified his results with a win with each color.
The unsung hero of the evening was Chris Hayes, our newest Board Member at Large and Tournament Director in Training. What started out as a plan to train-up on the tournament pairing software with a mini tournament of 4-6 participants ended in a 4 round, fast-paced 12 player tournament with a playoff! She did a great job and we are extremely grateful for her continued support.
Below are the official results (click to view):
Next week’s meeting is planned to be a rated blitz tournament with a unique time control. Stay tuned for the registration announcement that will be sent out this Wednesday (7/25) or Thursday (7/26)!
The Huntsville Chess Club
Good Morning,
Have you considered getting started in competitive chess, but don’t want to sink money in an entry fee or an environment when you aren’t sure what’s going on? Has it been a while since you’ve thrown your hat into the ring and you want to get going again in a no-stress situation?
If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then we’ve got a tournament for you! TONIGHT Monday, 7/23 at 5:30pm, we’ll be holding a quick chess tournament at the Huntsville library G/20; d5. Notation will not be required and there will be no entry fee. All we ask is that you have a little patience while our club collectively trains on the tournament pairing software. It should not hinder the tournament at all. Please note that 5:30pm is our planned start time. Registration will be from 5-5:30.
Since this is a tournament just for fun, we won’t be collecting entry fees, filing a ratings report, or awarding any prize money, but we’ll be giving away A FREE CHESS CLOCK to the victor. Hope to see you there!
The Huntsville Chess Club
The new library location seems to be well received by not only established members, but new members as well. We’ve had a trend of 2-4 new members attending each week. So, if you haven’t attended a meeting in a while and are interested in a game against someone you’ve never played, the Huntsville Chess Club is the place to be. Last week we had 9 people attend! We’ve already received RSVPs from 1700+ level folks who are returning from chess after a long absence or transplanting from other chess communities.
See you each Monday at 5pm on the 2nd floor of the Main Branch of the Huntsville Public Library!
The Huntsville Chess Club
Greetings All,
The Huntsville Chess Club held its annual election of Executive Board members at the residence of Chris and David Hayes on July 6th during its membership appreciation meeting. The following members assumed their elected positions during the meeting:
President – Patrick Dowd
Secretary – Willie Sandifer
Treasurer – David Hayes
Board Member at Large – Ed Mullin
Board Member at Large – Chris Hayes
The Huntsville Chess Club would like to thank both Chris and David for hosting the meeting and for all of the newly elected officers for their volunteer service to the organization!
Hope to see you this afternoon (7/9) at the library for some chess!
The Huntsville Chess Club
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