A decent tournament, finally

Today was Memorial Day in the U.S., a holiday that is often considered the informal beginning of summer. The Memorial Day weekend is an ideal time for three-day chess tournaments, which range in size from huge (the Lina Grumette Memorial Day Classic in Los Angeles) to...

Various updates

Today Alexey Root, in her blog on the MonRoi website, addressed the question I asked in my last post: should I should be satisfied with offering a non-rated tournament for the kids in my library chess club, or should I should try to get them into rated chess? I...

How to feel good about chess…

… Organize a tournament! As I’ve mentioned before, I run a chess club for kids at the Aptos Public Library (new link coming soon). Every year in May, as kind of a culmination to the school year, I run a very informal, unrated tournament. Usually I split it...