A Word about Chess Ratings

A word about the USCF Rating

As stated on the flyer for the IAC tournaments, which are usually USCF rated, "USCF membership is required for all sections. It is recommended that memberships are purchased in advance at www.uschess.org to facilitate onsite registration and check-in.

In addition, three month discount USCF memberships may be purchased onsite. The membership includes a three month subscription to Chess Life magazine."

The Star of Bethlehem tournament is USCF rated.

I recommend the annual membership which you can sign up to on the uschess.org site, then just bring this number to the tournament (or you can look it up online again with a smart phone if you forget).  The rating is something you carry from year to year.  A beginner is usually about 100 after first tournament.  A master is 2,000+.  A solid high school player will be around 1,500.  Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, recently achieved a 3,000 rating.

Interestingly, our own Mr. Dan Gomoll has created an "app" called "chess rating" on Apple's App Store which you can download for free if you have an iphone.  It lets you look up a player's USCF rating.

The WSCF Rating - Discovery World

The Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation, run by Bob Patterson-Sumwaldt, has its OWN rating system, similar to the USCF.  When you play in a WSCF rated tournament, you automatically get a WSCF rating.  Many of our players have one on Bob's books from previous years.  It doesn't cost anything, but is meaningless outside of the WSCF events.

At Discovery World, the tournament is based on a combination of grade level AND rating.  If a player has both USCF and WSCF ratings, the rating that is used is the HIGHER one.  If a player has only one of the two, that is used.  If a player has neither, then only the grade matters.  K3 U300 means "Grades K through 3 AND the player has rating Under 300."  If a 2nd grader for example has a rating of 500, then they would not qualify for this division and would have to play K6 U600 division (it may accidentally say "WSCF U600" on the registration page, but it is a K-6 only division).  Similarly, if a 5th grader had a rating of 1000, they would not qualify for K6 U600 and would have to play in WSCF K-12.

Let me know if you have any questions about ratings.  USCF is the more useful (and universal) measuring stick.

Last Call for Star of Bethlehem!

Thanks to all who have signed up for Star of Bethlehem.  Please go to http://ia-chess.com/registration/participants.html?id=27 to see who is signed up - if you'd asked me to sign you up, please make sure you are on the list!  Hope I didnt forget anybody!  Just pay at the door if you're registered - if not just email me at seghers@gmail.com and I'll get you registered.
Remember this is a USCF-rated tournament.  You can sign up for USCF at the door if you're not already signed up.  To read about the USCF, see their site at http://USChess.org
Remember, you can also just register at the door on Saturday morning.  Costs $5 additional.

For Discovery World, parents can sign themselves up at their site http://wisconsinscholasticchess.com  ... email me if you have problems.

Tough Brookfield Varsity Edges MHS, JV wins

Exams caused us to lose 3 out of our normal 10 players!  Thanks to Will Schantz and newcomer Kyle Jain for filling in for two of those spots.  We didn't have time to find a third, since we didn't know about the last missing kid until Tuesday.   Ugh.
The very tough Troy Zimmerman-led Brookfield Academy varsity chess team edged Muskego High last night, winning 3 out of 5 games and earning a win 25-15.  Winning for Muskego Varsity was Jason Markowski on board 2 and Rachel Gomoll on board 5.
This was our varsity team's first loss since joining the conference 2 years ago.  Brookfield is that tough.
In Jayvee, we only had 4 boards out of 5 playing, so we automatically lost one game.  Nonetheless, we won 3 out of the 4 boards we played and edged BA 15-10!  Our JV remains undefeated therefore.  Great job by Jake Gomoll, Kolt Otterbacher and Kyle Jain who won their games.  Will Schantz also had a great game, but ended up with a rare loss- he has been a dependable regular for us on JV.  Will and Kyle could be the nucleus of a strong high school team in a few years after our core group of older kids has moved on...

Feb 1- Discovery World!!!!

NEWLY ANNOUNCED - FEB 1 - DISCOVERY WORLD - Club Tournament

Discovery World on Milwaukee's Lakefront (in warmer times)

Not only does this offer a great day at a Discovery World, included in $15 chess fee, but this tournament allows us to play as a CLUB and combine schools!   See info below-

Saturday, February 1st, at Discovery World: (info and link to flyer AND REGISTRATION):
http://www.wisconsinscholasticchess.org/event/discovery-world-chess-tournament-2/

When you register your child, please note the following:

• This tournament will place your child based on their USCF rating.  If you have a K-3 child over 300 USCF, they will be moved to K-6 (and knowing this, you should register them there).  If you have a K-6 child rated over 600, you should register them as K-12.
• Please register and pay online for your own child - there is a "PayPal" button there which also takes credit card.  This tournament requires prepayment.

Thank you!

Beginners- please watch these videos!

When we do testing for White and Blue, I always ask the kids "have you watched the videos on the website?" and about 70% of the time they have not.  These videos contain most of the information they need to get to the BLUE level!  To see our video library, just click here, or see the navigation on the right hand side of our MSCC site.  Thanks!

This week

Brookfield academy on Tuesday for our high school team- please RSVP so I make sure we have full team.

Wednesday night- class with Matt and Danny.

Saturday- tournament at Star of Bethlehem!  Register online at is-chess.com!

LDMS - other results

I just received the results from other divisions - below are some more notes:

• Congratulations to all the kids who jumped into their FIRST tournament!  The non-rated divisions are a great way to do it.  Congrats to: Talan Noel, Evan Stachowiak, Joshua and Ben Kierzek, Anoushka Prasad, Isaac Terrence, Noah Gover, Dylan Cleveland, Steven Wauer and Kyle Jain (sorry if I got anything incorrect here or missed anybody!).
• In K-3 non-rated, Congrats to Tess Corners 2nd grader Talan Noel for winning 3 games in his first tournament!  Congrats also to Mill Valley 3rd grader Evan Stachowiak for starting out very strong and taking 2.5 games also in his first tournament.
• In K-3 rated, congratulations to Mill Valley 3rd Grader Gavin Joers who won 3.0 and raised his rating almost 100 points!  Dependable 2nd grader Nelson Klein also took 3 wins for Mill Valley.
• In K-6 non-rated, congrats to BLMS 5th grader Anoushka Prasad who took home the 3rd place trophy in her first tournament!  Tess Corners 4th grader Isaac Terrence also did very well, winning 3 games in his first tournament.
• In the K-6 rated, congrats to Kyle Jain, who in his first tournament, won 3.5 and earned his Red Division bracelet.  That has happened only a few times in the existence of Muskego chess.  Kyle's opening rating of 1100+ is the 2nd-highest opening rating of any Muskego scholastic player (at least that I'm aware of).  Keep it up Kyle!  Keep studying and becoming stronger.  Congratulations also to his LDMS teammate, Will Schantz, who won 3.  Alyssa Przedwiecki also did well taking 2.5.
• Congratulations to Evan Seghers who won the K-12 rated division with a perfect 5.0.  Our group of kids Evan, Reid, Jorin, Jason, Rachel, Kolt, and a few others have been playing together now for many years.  They are always tough.  Great tournament for Jorin McGuire who won 3.5 including against Jason and Reid, and lost only to Evan, raising his rating almost 250 points!  Good job Jason Markowski (overcoming a tough start) to win 3, and good job Kolt Otterbacher also winning 3.
• The FIRST TOURNAMENT WIN is sometimes hard to come by. Many kids back out of chess before ever getting it.  Congratulations to 4th grader Jack Mallon who stuck with it and won a great game at LDMS.  He has a great attitude and will win more and more as he gets more experience.  4th and 7th grades are the hardest because you're playing against mostly older/more experienced players. 8th grade is also hard, and this is the year most kids drop out of chess.
• Some players will have a great tournament, then a tough tournament.  It happens.  When I think "chess is getting easy!"... that is the time I start to lose a few games.  It's all about practice, and playing people who are better than we are.  Keeping an open mind, and keeping our EGO out of it.  Don't get too upset when you lose and don't get too happy when you win.  The goal is LEARNING and IMPROVING.  Not winning.  I have been prouder of kids who lose a few games but keep fighting (as did Jack Mallon and Cole Zettel yesterday), than kids who win easily without trying, and are lazy about studying.  The journey of learning never ends!  The great masters all knew this. 
• If you're not winning yet, there's a reason. The answer is almost always studying your losses and seeing where you went wrong - take notation!  Then you can replay your games later.  Even if you notate just the first 20 moves.. that is usually enough to see where things went wrong.
• For TEAMS, congrats to: MHS for winning k-12, Mill Valley for taking 2nd in K-3 NR, MV for taking 4th in K-3, Bay Lane for taking 2nd in K-6NR, MV for taking 3rd in K-6NR, Lake Denoon MS for taking 2nd in K6 by a HALF POINT against Brookfield Academy, BLMS for taking 5th in K-6.  We need one parent volunteer to pull together a team for each school!  We came very close in several divisions but lacked the number of players - this will be important in larger tournaments especially.  

WHEW!   That's a lot to read, sorry.   Thanks again to all who attended and supported Muskego Chess!