New chess season right around the corner! 

We hope you all had an enjoyable summer and were able to relax with family and friends.  With school starting soon, the scholastic chess season will be upon us as well.  As you may know, the MSCC did what we could virtually last year, but that didn't fit well for everyone.  

We're excited to be back in person the new school year!  Unless anything changes (which is always possible, so watch for updates), we're expecting to start up at Mill Valley Elementary again, on Wednesday October 6th (6:30-8 as in the past).  We will once again be coached by the International Academy of Chess!

Sign up on our website any time, and we'll send updates at it gets closer to October.  Feel free to reach out to Leah (leahmike@ymail.com) or Dan (dschantz3@gmail.com).

Congrats Alyssa!

 Congrats Alyssa on graduating! Thank you for being a part of the Chess Club all these years & good luck to you in the future!

 

Thank you to our MSCC players & parents for another good chess year, especially under the circumstances that you all faced.  We all made the best of the situation and still managed to learn & play virtually and have some fun!

This fall, we hope to return to Mill Valley in person as in recent years, so watch for updates when the new school year begins.

In the meantime, have a great summer!  

  WI High School Rapid Online Chess Championship

As mentioned in our last post,  Andy finished 3rd place on our board #1, taking 8 out of 10 points!  

Congratulations Andy!

 WI High School Rapid Online Chess Championship

 IAC (International Academy of Chess) with the endorsement of the Wisconsin Chess Association

Normally this time of year we would have had our last big tournament on the campus of UW Oshkosh.  Thanks to covid it was cancelled last year and held virtually (zoom +lichess.org) this year.

Only the high school team event (no K5 or K8 individual) was held, but it was also opened up to middle schools, so we brought our LDMS team!

• As a 5 player team competing against mostly high schools, LDMS finished 11th out of 18 teams, which i think is very good!
• Andy finished 3rd place on our board #1, taking 8 out of 10 points 
• Luke finished 6th place on our board #2, just barely missing a trophy, taking 6.5 out of 10 points
• Daniel also finished 6th place on our board #3, also just barely missing a trophy, taking 7 out of 10 points 
• Reid on board #4 and Travis on board #5 also played multiple good games against experienced players.

I really want to emphasize how proud I am of this team for stepping up to play against mostly high school teams, thus encountering matches that are more difficult than normal.  Everyone learned a lot from this tournament and came out stronger!

We're looking forward to hopefully being back in-person this fall, and competing again next year on campus!

Coach Dan

 Fun in-house virtual tournament tonight w/ 13 MSCC players

Congratulations to:

1. Andy
2. Anthony 
3. Lucas 

And everyone else who played w/ us tonight!  See you next week for our last lesson.

 Last weeks of Chess club!

Here are the details for the remaining weeks:

• Mar 10 - No lesson, but we'll have a 4 round Swiss style tournament 
• Everyone plays 4 rounds -  G10+5.  Depending on the length of games, we may go past 8pm a little.
• Join the normal Zoom at 6:30 for a few announcements, and then go to Lichess Team page for tournament start at 6:40
• All Players - please try to make this tournament - the more that can join, the better the pairings will be and the more fun we'll have !
• Mar 17 - Last lesson by Coaches Ryan and Chris
• Focus will be on knowing where to go & how to practice to stay in shape, until we meet back up in the fall!
• Mar 24 - Last class -  no lessons, but we'll play different games/ variants on Lichess, should be lots of fun!

For anyone who wishes to still get together on Wednesday nights I will set up Team Arena games for Mar 31 (spring break week for most) through April.  If attendance is high enough (8 or 10+) I will happily extend into May or beyond.

There will be, of course, tournaments hosted by IAC on many upcoming weekends and I recommend joining some if you can!