Chess Club Update - LOTS OF NEW INFO

LOTS of new information this week, so please read carefully. 1/7 Practice Great practice. For the umpteenth time I had a parent marvel at how much the kids just like playing chess. I'm constantly amazed by that. We talked about opening moves, and the kids were really into it. If you would like your child to learn a bit more about that, they can check out the following link, which is quick, kid-friendly, and really good. It's worth a quick click: http://www.chesskids.com/level2/cl5l3.htm Standings We're trying something new now that we have a few weeks under our belt. First, we're posting standings at every practice, and you can see how your child is doing through yesterday's practice here: http://burroughschess.blogspot.com/2011/01/standings-thru-17.html Early Release Second, we're recognizing the top two kids in the standings from each grade with a little additional responsibility. They'll leave their class a little early (3:25) on Friday to help us setup and check-in other kids. This week that group is: 5 - D, Wyatt 5 - B, Riggs 4 - T, Phi 4 - Gs, Paul 3 - B, Toby 3 - M, Sergei 2 - K, Connor 2 - F, Annika 1 - H, Alex 1 - Walthour, Louis K - C, Hugh K - N, Nickolas Tournament & Registration If your child is enjoying chess, you may want to consider entering our next tournament. Because our 1st tournament was snowed out, our first tournament is January 29th. It is the Frozen Open at Eisenhower Community Center in Hopkins and is a grade level tournament, meaning your child will only play kids in their own grade level. 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. It will run from approximately 9 AM to 4 PM. To pre-register, let me introduce you to the SCA (School Chess Association) web site (http://schoolchess.org/). You'll 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 tournament. 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. VOLUNTEERS I've got rid of a couple of volunteer spots for the older kids tables, since they seem to be playing by themselves very well. But I would really like to have full coverage for some of the younger tables, because I'm getting the sense that some of them could use a little more guidance. So please consider signing up using this form for this next practice. http://www.mysignup.com/practice011411 Thanks everyone. I appreciate your support. Sincerely, John Bonnes Burroughs Chess Club