Tournament announcement

Clackamas K-12 Open

Date: Saturday, October 20, 2012 

Location: Clackamas High School

Category: OR-OSCF Champ. Qualifiers
Description

This tournament is open to all K-12 players of all skill levels and it is Clackamas High School Chess Club's first event. It will have multiple grade based sections which will reward individual performance as well as team performance. 

• All K-12 players of all levels are welcome to play.
• This tournament is NWSRS rated. No annual membership fee or prior tournament playing experience required. 
• Participation in this tournament counts towards the OSCF State Championship tournament attendance requirements.
• All sections are NWSRS rated. Latest NWSRS ratings will be used for pairings. Participants without ratings will be assigned a rating for pairing purposes of 100 times their grade (i.e. 6th grade x 100 = 600).
• Ties will be broken by SwissSys pairing system (Tie break order- Cumulative, Opponent’s cumulative, Solkoff, Performance of Opposition).
• Bring chess clocks, notation paper & pen/pencil. (Boards and sets provided.)
• Parents/coaches bring additional chess sets, book, etc... to keep everyone busy between rounds.
• 100% Pre-Registered Event. No on-site registrations accepted. Online registration through www.oscf.org
• Entry deadline is 11:59 pm, Tuesday, 10/16/12. Cost is $25. A family discount is offered. The cost for two siblings is $40 and three siblings is $50. Late registration is offered on Thursday 10/18/12. The cost is $40. There is no family discount if you register late. No extensions will be given after that time.

TO REGISTER, send an e-mail to Ed Addis at chessalot@aol.com. The Subject line should be titled CHS Chess and include the player(s) name, school, grade, and your phone number in the message. You may also call (503) 658-7809 with the information. 

HALF POINT BYE: Playing soccer in the morning or afternoon or simply cannot make it to every round, but you still want to play? Participants can request a Half Point Bye(s) for any round for any reason. All requests must be sent by e-mail to Ed Addis at chessalot@aol.com by Thursday October 18, 2012.

PAYMENT: Please send your check or money order payable to (Please note player name, grade, and school attending):
Clackamas HS – Chess Club
14486 SE 122nd Ave
Clackamas, OR 97015

All entries on or after 10/12/12 must pay on site by cash or check.

SECTIONS: All sections will play 5 rounds using the Swiss pairing system. We will avoid pairing team members against each other as much as possible (i.e, after 3 rounds the 3-0 score group has 4 individuals and 3 are from the same school). Tournament organizers reserve the right to add or combine sections depending on the number of registrations. 

HIGH SCHOOL SECTION: Students in grades 9th - 12th. Notation required.

MIDDLE SCHOOL SECTION: Students in grades 6th - 8th. Notation highly recommended.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SECTION: Students in grades 3rd - 5th. Notation recommended

PRIMARY SCHOOL SECTION: Students in grades K - 2nd. Notation would be great, but is not expected.

TIME CONTROL: For all sections is Game in 30 minutes with 5 second delay. Games started without clocks may have chess clocks placed on them when 40 minutes has elapsed from the start of the round with 10 minutes remaining for each contestant.

SCHEDULE:

8:15 - 8:45 am ---- CHECK IN
9 AM------------------ 1st Round
10:15 AM------------ 2nd Round
11:30 AM------------- 3rd Round
12:30 PM--------------LUNCH
1:30 PM -------------- 4th Round
2:45 PM--------------- 5th Round
4:15 PM----------------AWARDS

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS: For those finishing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place and all individuals with a Plus Score (3 points or higher) in each section. Additionally, there will be many door prizes donatated by local businesses.

TEAM AWARDS: Six Trophies will be awarded to top 2 teams representing a High School, Middle School, and Elementary/Primary School. The number of entries from any one school is not limited, but only the top four individual scores will be used to determine the team's total.

Contact: Ed Addis
Email: chessalot@aol.com
Phone: (503) 658-7809

Location Details

Clackamas High School
14486 SE 122nd Ave
Clackamas OR 97015 US

September 18th 2012 - first meeting for this year

Hello everyone,

Our first meeting this scholastic year will be Tuesday, September 18th 2012 at 16.15 at Happy Valley Elementary/Middle School Library.

Everyone is welcomed!

Summer chess

After our last club meeting in the Happy Valley Elementary library on June 12, 2012 everyone who wants to play chess over summer can go at Holgate Public Library on Saturday.

7905 S.E. Holgate Blvd.

Portland, OR 97206

 

 

http://events.multcolib.org/eventinstance/chess-library-48

every Saturday between 1:00pm - 5:30pm

Congratulations!

Five kids - five trophies at Oregon State Scholastic Tournament.

- Stefan - Champion Elem Intermediate Section
- Eddie - Champion Elem Prep Section
- Crisy - tie for 3rd place Primary Intermediate Section
- Andrea - tie for 4th place Elem Elite Section
- Connor - Blitz Champion Elem Advanced Section

Oregon State Championship - Happy Valley Elementary invited players

I would like to congratulate (in no specific order) our players who qualify to 2012 Oregon State Scholastic Chess Chamionship:

Jacob S and Jacob D, Stefan, Andrea, Conner, Chrisy!

Congratulation!

No club meeting on 3/27/2012

If you want to play some chess, make an account on http://www.chess.com/ (is free) or solve this exercises:

10 Big Brain Benefits of Playing Chess

10 Big Brain Benefits of Playing Chess

March 25th, 2012 by Staff Writers

Source: http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/

Not for nothing is chess known as "the game of kings." No doubt the rulers of empires and kingdoms saw in the game fitting practice for the strategizing and forecasting they themselves were required to do when dealing with other monarchs and challengers. As we learn more about the brain, some are beginning to push for chess to be reintroduced as a tool in the public's education. With benefits like these, they have a strong case.

It can raise your IQ
Chess has always had an image problem, being seen as a game for brainiacs and people with already high IQs. So there has been a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation: do smart people gravitate towards chess, or does playing chess make them smart? At least one study has shown that moving those knights and rooks around can in fact raise a person's intelligence quotient. A study of 4,000 Venezuelan students produced significant rises in the IQ scores of both boys and girls after 4 months of chess instruction.

It helps prevent Alzheimer's
Because the brain works like a muscle, it needs exercise like any bicep or quad to be healthy and ward off injury. A recent study featured in The New England Journal of Medicine found that people over 75 who engage in brain-stretching activities like chess are less likely to develop dementia than their non-board-game-playing peers. Just like an un-exercised muscle loses strength, Dr. Robert Freidland, the study's author, found that unused brain tissue leads to a loss of brain power. So that's all the more reason to play chess before you turn 75.

It exercises both sides of the brain
In a German study, researchers showed chess experts and novices simple geometric shapes and chess positions and measured the subjects' reactions in identifying them. They expected to find the experts' left brains being much more active, but they did not expect the right hemisphere of the brain to do so as well. Their reaction times to the simple shapes were the same, but the experts were using both sides of their brains to more quickly respond to the chess position questions.

It increases your creativity
Since the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for creativity, it should come as no surprise that activating the right side of your brain helps develop your creative side. Specifically, chess greatly increases originality. One four-year study had students from grades 7 to 9 play chess, use computers, or do other activities once a week for 32 weeks to see which activity fostered the most growth in creative thinking. The chess group scored higher in all measures of creativity, with originality being their biggest area of gain.

It improves your memory
Chess players know — as an anecdote — that playing chess improves your memory. Being a good player means remembering how your opponent has operated in the past and recalling moves that have helped you win before. But there's hard evidence also. In a two-year study in 1985, young students who were given regular opportunities to play chess improved their grades in all subjects, and their teachers noticed better memory and better organizational skills in the kids. A similar study of Pennsylvania sixth-graders found similar results. Students who had never before played chess improved their memories and verbal skills after playing.

It increases problem-solving skills
A chess match is like one big puzzle that needs solving, and solving on the fly, because your opponent is constantly changing the parameters. Nearly 450 fifth-grade students were split into three groups in a 1992 study in New Brunswick. Group A was the control group and went through the traditional math curriculum. Group B supplemented the math with chess instruction after first grade, and Group C began the chess in first grade. On a standardized test, Group C's grades went up to 81.2% from 62% and outpaced Group A by 21.46%.

It improves reading skills
In an oft-cited 1991 study, Dr. Stuart Margulies studied the reading performance of 53 elementary school students who participated in a chess program and evaluated them compared to non-chess-playing students in the district and around the country. He found definitive results that playing chess caused increased performance in reading. In a district where the average students tested below the national average, kids from the district who played the game tested above it.

It improves concentration
Chess masters might come off like scattered nutty professors, but the truth is their antics during games are usually the result of intense concentration that the game demands and improves in its players. Looking away or thinking about something else for even a moment can result in the loss of a match, as an opponent is not required to tell you how he moved if you didn't pay attention. Numerous studies of students in the U.S., Russia, China, and elsewhere have proven time and again that young people's ability to focus is sharpened with chess.

It grows dendrites
Dendrites are the tree-like branches that conduct signals from other neural cells into the neurons they are attached to. Think of them like antennas picking up signals from other brain cells. The more antennas you have and the bigger they are, the more signals you'll pick up. Learning a new skill like chess-playing causes dendrites to grow. But that growth doesn't stop once you've learned the game; interaction with people in challenging activities also fuels dendrite growth, and chess is a perfect example.

It teaches planning and foresight
Having teenagers play chess might just save their lives. It goes like this: one of the last parts of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for planning, judgment, and self-control. So adolescents are scientifically immature until this part develops. Strategy games like chess can promote prefrontal cortex development and help them make better decisions in all areas of life, perhaps keeping them from making a stupid, risky choice of the kind associated with being a teenager.