2nd Chess Tournament - 2/20, Capitol Hill

INFORMATION
Our second tournament will be the only tournament which is a grade level tournament, meaning your child will only play kids in their own grade level. In most other tournaments, kids often play across a few grade levels. It is held at Capitol Hill school in St. Paul, near (appropriately) Capitol Hill.

Here's the basic info from the SCA (School Chess Association) web site (http://schoolchess.org/):
"THE NEXT TOURNAMENT WILL BE AT CAPITOL HILL IN ST PAUL ON FEBRUARY 20TH
SCA STATEWIDE GRADE LEVEL will be held at Capitol Hill in St Paul on February 20th. This tournament is a grade Level where Players compete within their own grade level in grades K-8. In addition there is one 9th grade - 12th grade section. Team awards for Grade Levels based upon top three players in each grade section from each school.

This tournament will be on-line registration, if you register on-line and pay by using paypal you do not need to be at the tournament site until 9:00am. New players may download a registration form and send a check to the address listed and need not arrive until 9:00am. If you do not pay or register on-line you must be at the tournament site between 8:00 and 8:30am. All players who enter the line after 8:30 may miss the 1st round."

This is a pretty popular tournament. There are usually five games for each child, and there can be over a hundred kids in each grade from all over Minnesota. At the high-end, the kids can be really, really good, but there are plenty of relative beginners too.

REGISTRATION
To pre-register, you start at (http://schoolchess.org/registration/player_status.php), and will probably choose "I'm a new player - never played in an SCA tournament" which takes you to (http://schoolchess.org/registration/new_player_01.php) . Calling it 'online' registration is stretching it a bit for new players, since you need to mail a form into the address listed, but the process is pretty painless. Basically you need to:

1. Print out a form from the page
2. Include a check for $18. This includes registering for SCA and for the tournament.
3. Mail it to them at the address listed.

The mail must be postmarked by the Tuesday before the tournament (the 16th of February) to make sure they get it in time. If you can't mail it by then, you just bring the form and payment directly to the tournament and they'll process you there.

Once you register, you'll get a card with a number on it and you can use that to truly register (and pay) online for future tournaments, which I think is just $16.

I hope you can all make it to the tournanment. If you're like me, you'll be amazed at how large it is and the excitement and interest of all the kids. I hope to see you there.