Longview Chess Club

The new Longview Chess Club meeting time is Fridays, 7PM. It is necessary to change the meetings from Thursdays. I hope that we will continue to grow and perhaps the new night will enable some of our younger players to come and play.

Our first Friday and our next meeting will be December 15th. I hope to see you there.....

NOVEMBER 11, 2007...Saturday

A small field of strong players enjoyed Thursday night. We played some unrated G/15 games and talked about how to promote the Longview Chess Club. We are looking forward to the unrated tournament on December 15th in Shreveport and plan to attend. Anyone interested in going there as a group and sharing a ride, drop me a line.

I would like to do some quick time, G/15 games in a swiss style format and keep the results and start some club rating to help develop interest in Thursday nights. Let me know what you think about this.

We look forward to seeing some competitive games this Thursday. With the swiss system we should get some good matchups and everyone should get a chance to win some games.

Thursday night we were delighted to have Robert Stockman visit us from Shreveport. Robert let us know about the club he runs in Shreveport. They meet Wednesdays, 6:00 PM, at Barnes & Nobles Bookstore (Youree & 70th in Shreveport). They are also having tournaments every other month with the next one December 15, at the Ramada on Industrial Drive. We are hoping to start hosting our tounaments starting in January and alternating with Shreveport. We plan to work with them and have a USCF rated section at the future tournaments starting with the one here in January. I hope to have our January date and location set within the next 48 hrs..

Thursday night we were up to 6 players and we had action on 3 boards. This Thursday looks to be even better as the club grows and players are starting to find us. We will be setting a date for our first Saturday "rated" Swiss. It will be early January. Reply to this blog if you have a prefered date. We will need to get a date set so that we can publish a TLA in "Chess Life".

Game 3 yesterday was terrible. My opponent was 200 points lower than me and I had him beat when I allowed a fork followed by a second blunder that resulted in a horrible defeat for me to put me at 1-2.

Game 4, this morning, was against another high rated (1750) player. Clearly not playing his best at 1-2 he went to 1-3 as a result of a move 10 that blundered away his knight. Good result for me moving me to a respectable position at 2-2 going into the final round.

In my final Game 5, I was black vs 11 year old Victoria Zhang, rated a very respectable 1552. The queens gambit declined put me on the defense and when I finally got on equal footing late in the game a draw was offered and I accepted. The young player had earned it and I was glad to get my 1/2 pt.

Round 2 is over and yours truely is at 1-1. My first game was Friday night and I started my first tournament in years with a victory over the #1 seeded class "B" player, Ellen Xiang (rated 1776). It was a classic "Stonewall Attack". My loss this morning was to Bradley Anderson (rated 1753). After a good start, I let my rook get pinned and lost the exchange. My next round is at 6:30 pm tonight.

There are some very high rated players in the Masters Class. Here is the wall chart from this morning.

After round 2, I got a photo of the young GM Alejandro Ramirez, seen here in the center, enjoying himself between rounds.

As we prepare for the next Thursday evening of chess at the Tyler Street location this question stands alone........

The goal is to play a 3 round robin by seeding the players into groups of 3 or 4. We plan to keep a record of the results each week and re-seed the players according to a club rating system based loosely on the USCF rating system.

Some of the issues revolve around shorter time controls, more games or longer times and the ability to write down the moves.

Go to the blog and RSVP for Thursday and let me know your thoughts on future time controls......... (go to blog)

The second meeting of the Longview Chess Club went great. Rick Petty led the way in an informal, 15 minute per side, round robin. Rick won all 3 of his games. We do it all over again next Thursday, 7:00 PM. Everyone is welcome.

The first meeting of the new Longview Chess Club took place last Thursday evening. The new sets were put to good use as the members got to know each other. Plans were made for next week to start competition consisting of round robins of 3 games with special club ratings and a club ladder, showing the new leaders, kept on the wall.

On another another note, I will be competing in the "2007 U.S. Class Championships" being held October 19-21 in Houston. I hope to see as many of you as possible there. For those that will not be able to come, look here for live updates and pictures.

All 5 new sets, (pieces, boards, clocks and carry bag) arrived today in time for our first meeting. For those that are hungry I will have some "Texas Jambalaya" tomorrow night. Come hungry and ready to play some chess.

The County Executive Committee of the Gregg County Democratic Party voted tonight to allow the Longview Chess Club to hold regular meetings on Thursday nights at the HQ and to use the facilities as needed on Saturday afternoons to hold rated tournaments.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - India's Vishwanathan Anand was crowned world champion of chess Saturday as he won the marathon tournament in Mexico City that brought together eight of the game's best players. (link to story)

Welcome to the new website of the Longview Chess Club. We are having our first official meeting in many years on Thursday, October 4, 2007.

We will be having some USCF rated tournaments in the near future. Look here and at the Chess Life TLA's for details soon.