The first scholastic tournament of the year is this Saturday at Meridian School. There are 22 Spicewood students registered in this tournament. The school is located on North I35 and it takes about 20-25 minutes to drive there from Spicewood Elementary.
We have some helpful advice for all parents to help your kids prepare for the tournament. First, please make sure to get a good night sleep. The tournament day is long and you want to be well rested. There is typically a lot of downtime between rounds, so make sure you bring healthy snacks and drinks. The Meridian school will have a concessions area, so you can support their school by making purchases through them as well.
We typically find and reserve a section for Spicewood students. This area becomes our homebase where the students hang out between round, review their recent matches and practice chess. We recommend bringing a couple of comfortable folding chairs in case seating is limited. We also recommend that you leave portable video games at home. We have seen parents and kids bring books to read, games to play (other than chess), homework, coloring books, soccer balls, etc. It has been normal to have wifi access to the Internet, but each school is different, so we are not 100% sure about this at Meridian.
This will be a relatively small tournament with around 270 participants. Round 1 starts at 9AM and you should find your board at least 30 minutes before the start. We recommend arriving as early as possible in order to claim a good spot to reside for the day. If you plan to be late to any round, please make sure you request a BYE for that round with Lori Balkum (Lori.Balkum@austinchesstournaments.com) who will be located in the computer room which handles all the pairings and result entry.
Results of the tournament rounds will be posted on bulletin boards outside each section as well as online on this page:
https://www.austinchesstournaments.com/events/602