October 12, 2018 · 4:06 pm

2018 Meridian Tournament Results

We had 29 students from Spicewood Elementary participate in the Meridian Scholastic Chess tournament on September 29th, 2018.  The tournament consisted of 5 rounds of games each worth 1 point.  In total, our kids scored a total of 70 out of a possible 145 points.   (48%)   

This year we have a large number of Pawns and Knights skill groups and they showed up at this tournament and really did a great job representing the K-1 and K-3 sections.  

We got FIRST place in the K-1 under 400 section with 5 students getting a total score of 10.5 points.  The team received a tall trophy at the awards ceremony and you can see it in the Spicewood Elementary library this week.  

We got SECOND place in the K-3 New section with 7 students gaining a total score of 10 points.  This team also received a team trophy which is in the library. 

We got THIRD place in the K-3 under 400 section with 3 students gaining a total score of 7.5 points.  This team also received a team trophy which is in the library.

We got SECOND place in the K-5 under 800 section with 4 students gaining a total score of 13.5 points.  This team also received a team trophy which is in the library. 

We also came in NINTH place in the K-12 Any section which includes mostly middle and high school students.  Sean Teoh won 3 out of 5 games against a lot of tough opponents.  

For the individual awards:

We had two students receive trophies for 4 or more points in their sections:  Alexander Ho and Gavin Wang.

We had 8 students receive medals for scoring between 3.0 and 4.0 points in their sections: Sean Teoh, Gavin Gu, Isaac Belyi, Isaac Zhang, Julian Joseph, Joyce Song, Jeremy Yang and Reett Aulakh

Congratulations to all of our students who competed at this year’s Meridian chess tournament.  Each student received $5 chess bucks for their participation.  We had many first time tournament students this year and they all did a great job representing Spicewood Elementary.  

The tournament itself was very nice as it was not as crowded as other tournaments have been in the past.  Plenty of room to mingle with others, areas outside to play, etc.  The tournament coordinators did an excellent job and we look forward to more tournaments later this year and next.  

 

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September 25, 2018 · 8:50 pm

Micro Chess Set

Here is a mesmerizing video of someone making a micro size chess set.  The video shows how they create the board out of wood complete with a drawer and insert to hold the micro chess pieces.   The chess pieces are made of brass metal and created by turning them on a lathe.  They are so tiny!!!

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September 19, 2018 · 4:40 pm

New Bookmark Coming Soon

Each year, we print out bookmarks with Chess related designs for the kids to use.  Here is this year’s first bookmark design.  

We hope to have it printed and passed out to the students in the next few weeks.

 

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· 4:33 pm

Club Meeting – September 21st

Chess club will meet in the gym for the next two weeks.  The library is setup for the annual Bookfair and not available to us.  

We will setup chess boards on the floor as there are no tables/chairs in the gym.  

Parents may want to consider wearing jeans.  Please do not wear shoes with heels as they can scratch the gym floor. 

 

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September 7, 2018 · 4:36 pm

Club Meeting – September 7th

In today’s meeting, James showed the following video to the Pawns group:

Chris reviewed the Ruy Lopez opening and showed the following video to the Knights group:  

Ruy Lopez is the short name of Rodrigo Lopez de Segura who was a Spanish priest who lived between 1530 and 1580.  Ruy Lopez wrote a book in 1561 called Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del Axedrez which was one of the first definitive books about modern chess in Europe. 

The Ruy Lopez Opening (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5) is named after him, as is a variation in the Petroff Defence (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Qe7).

The painting above shows Ruy Lopez being defeated by Leonard di Cutri, an Italian chess master.  After Leonard won against Ruy Lopez in Spain, he asked for his town Cutro to be exonerated of taxes and called Cutro “City of Chess”, where every year this event is remembered in a traditional day in August.

We also handed out some bonus chess homework that reviews how to take Chess notation during a chess game.  We ask that each student play a game of chess this weekend and write down the game in Chess notation on the provided notation sheet.  Students that turn in the notation sheet with a game written down will get a Chess buck at next week’s meeting.  If you did not receive the handout at today’s meeting, you can download and print it at home using this link.

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August 30, 2018 · 4:57 pm

Club Meeting – August 31st

We will be showing this video at tomorrow’s meeting to the Knights, Rooks and Kings:

The Pawns will watch this video:

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August 28, 2018 · 9:05 am

Reading Chess Books Earns Chess Bucks!

We have new 50 cent Chess bucks that students can earn for checking out and reading chess books from our club library. Here is what the new Chess bucks look like:

Our chess club has a nice library of Chess books that are written to help kids improve their game.  Kids can check out these books during Chess club and they have two weeks to read and return them.  For some of the books, we have a quick quiz that the student has to fill out to show what they learned from that book.  

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August 27, 2018 · 5:29 pm

Upcoming Local Chess Tournament At Meridian World School

The 2018 Meridian Chess Tournament takes place on September 29th and is now open for registration (https://www.austinchesstournaments.com/events/869).  Please share this information with your students asap!  Entry fees are at their lowest right now and go up in September.

 

 

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August 22, 2018 · 5:27 pm

Club Registration is Open

Registration for the 2018-2019 school year opened on August 15th.  Please click on the About section above and then click on the Registration link.  That page gives all the details on the registration process and a link to the Registration Form. You can also click here to go directly to that page.

Club registration will end on September 14th.  After this date, we will no longer accept any new students until the second semester begins in January 2019.  

For parents and students that are thinking about joining our club, you can attend our first three club meetings without committing to join.  Come to our meetings and see how you like it.  We ask that you make your final decision to join by our registration deadline of September 14th. 

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August 20, 2018 · 12:05 pm

Spicewood Chess Club at Enchanted Rock

Sean wearing his club tshirt at the top of Enchanted Rock!

Let’s make this a recurring post.  Send us photos of yourself wearing your Chess club tshirt from interesting places and we will post them here for everyone to see.  

Great idea Sean and family!  

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