{"id":3606,"date":"2015-05-18T18:29:54","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T02:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=3606"},"modified":"2015-05-18T18:33:19","modified_gmt":"2015-05-19T02:33:19","slug":"the-fewer-the-merrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=3606","title":{"rendered":"The Fewer the Merrier?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote this post on Saturday but had a problem with my website that kept me from posting it until now.<\/p>\n

This year’s Aptos Library Chess Club tournament was a smashing success in every way but one. We didn’t have as big a turnout as we did in 2014 (31 players) or in 2013 (37 players). We only had 15 this year. I take the blame for that, because I was not as organized as I usually am. I always make flyers for the kids to take home, but this year I didn’t. I usually start talking about the tournament two months in advance and taking signups at least a month in advance; this year I only started taking signups two weeks in advance.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the tournament was actually more enjoyable for me as a tournament director because I wasn’t so busy and I actually had time to appreciate how much the kids were enjoying the tournament. There were also some very good, competitive games, and I had a chance to watch them most of the way instead of just catching a glimpse or two of them.<\/p>\n

However, this doesn’t mean I want to chase players away! As far as I’m concerned it would be ideal if the tournament had 20-30 players every year.<\/p>\n

Anyway, let’s get to the list of winners.<\/p>\n

Ages 9 and under:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Rinoa Oliver<\/li>\n
  2. Aaron Chan<\/li>\n
  3. (tie) Caleb Fernandes and David Kashnow<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Aaron has been coming to these tournaments since he was 6 and I don’t think he has ever lost a game before. So it was a big surprise to me when Rinoa Oliver, a girl whom I had not met before, beat him in the third round. Gjon Feinstein, who coaches both of them, said that they were about even in strength. This time Aaron had a knight pinned against his queen but somehow forgot it and moved the knight. So Rinoa won a queen for a bishop. Still, in scholastic chess that doesn’t mean the game is over. I was impressed by the way that she activated her extra queen and turned down a chance to win more material in order to set up a mating net.<\/p>\n

    Caleb and David are both chess club regulars, playing in their first tournament, so I was thrilled to see them do so well.<\/p>\n

    Ages 10 and up:<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Ben Walker-Edwards<\/li>\n
    2. Alex Stender<\/li>\n
    3. Cameron Morgan<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Two years ago<\/a> I wrote, “Ben Walker-Edwards got a little bit of a raw deal because he had a 2-0 score going into the last round but had to play Linnea, a game he had absolutely no chance of winning.” Well, this year he got his redemption. Linnea [Nelson] has gone on to college, and there was no one left who could stop him from going 3-0.<\/p>\n

      Alex (second place) used to be a chess club regular, stopped coming for a while, but then started coming again about a month ago. This tournament really showed a lot of progress for him. I was especially impressed with his round two win against TJ Lavelle. He lost a rook to a knight fork in the opening. But after losing the material, he didn’t just drift aimlessly and lose more. He realized he had to make threats, he formulated a concrete plan of attack and he carried it through. Eventually he got a classic checkmate with his pawn on h3 and queen on g2 (TJ’s king on g1). Bravo! For TJ it was a rough day. I’m sure he would finish in the top three 9 times out of 10 if we ran the tournament again, but this was day 10 out of 10.<\/p>\n

      Finally, I want to thank the library for making the tournament possible (a free<\/em> tournament, who has ever heard of such a thing?) and I want to thank the Friends of the Aptos Library for providing a bountiful spread of healthy refreshments. I was very surprised to see many kids eating the vegetables and apples and oranges instead of the cookies!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I wrote this post on Saturday but had a problem with my website that kept me from posting it until now. This year’s Aptos Library Chess Club tournament was a smashing success in every way but one. We didn’t have as big a turnout as we did in 2014 (31 players) or in 2013 (37 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,1363,25,12],"tags":[2558,3225,40,3224,3222,3226,3223,3221],"class_list":["post-3606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess-clubs","category-current-news","category-people","category-tournaments","tag-aaron-chan","tag-alex-stender","tag-aptos-library","tag-ben-walker-edwards","tag-caleb-fernandes","tag-cameron-morgan","tag-david-kashnow","tag-rinoa-oliver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3608,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3606\/revisions\/3608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}