US G/60 and G/30 National Chess Championships

US G/60 and G/30 National Chess Championships Update

The US G/60 and US G/30 National Chess Championships are scheduled for August 22 and 23, 2009 at the Holiday Inn North Shore Hotel in Skokie, IL .

Texas Tech University (TTU) and the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE) are offering two (2) scholarships, each valued at $36,000, to the top performing players under the age of 22. There will be one (1) scholarship for the US G/60 National Chess Championship and one (1) for the US G/30 National Chess Championship!

To be eligible for the scholarship there are some guidelines to meet:

• You must be under the age of 22
• You must meet all standard admission guidelines for TTU
• You must be registered for either the US G/60 or G/30 with an adult entry fee or a youth entry fee

Now the question of the day is – what does it mean to be the top performing player? This is a valid question based on the fact that there are multiple class sections for players to participate in. During the course of the next two weeks we will be working out a system to take into account what ‘top performing’ means. So stay tuned to our website at http://www.nachess.org for further details on this!

Parents of eligible players and eligible players – send this email around to fellow parents and fellow scholastic / youth chess players. A great opportunity to take a crack at scholarship. Playing in both events gives you 2 shots at the scholarships!

To recap announcements from the past three weeks on the US G/60 and US G/30 :

• Week 1 – $20 per tournament no prize special entry fee – just play chess!
• Week 2 – Progressive Prize Fund
• Week 3 – 2 Scholarships valued at $36,000 each

What does next weeks announcement hold?

GM Yury Shulman Chess Camps

GM Shulman will be holding two (2) chess camps, one in June and one in July. As everything Yury does, he has assembled a top notch group of trainers to work with camp participants. The trainers include:

• GM Yury Shulman
• GM Alexander Onischuk
• GM Gregory Kaidanov
• GM Varuzhan Akobian
• FM Alexander Betaneli

I highly recommend Yury’s camps as I have heard many great things about the experience, both chess wise and personal wise. You can’t go wrong with it.

For more information on the camps including dates and fees please visit Yury Shulman’s website .

GM/IM Norm Event

Last week I announced that I will organize an Open Swiss GM/IM norm tournament in August that will run alongside for its first two days with the US G/60 and US G/30 National Chess Championships. This week I will start breaking down some of the condition of the event.

First off there will be a limited number of players for the event – 64 total. If I see demand for more players that meet the eligibility requirements I may increase the number. Second we will have only 2 spots for unrated (FIDE) players and 2 spots for players rated under 2100 FIDE. If your USCF rating is not at least 2100, you will not be considered for one of the unrated spots. FIDE has changed some of its rules for rating floors which is why I have to limit lower rated players.

Be prepared to ensure that your scoresheet is legible. If it’s not legible we will ask you to replay the game for the arbiters and organizers so all games can go into our tournament booklet. Top boards will be required to use MonRoi Personal Chess Managers.

The event will provide all of the boards, sets, clocks, etc. which you will be required to use. The time control is G/90 + 30/sec increments. For those of you not used to increment chess – you will have 30 sec added at the end of each move. Even if your clock runs down past 5 minutes, you are still required to notate.

Also cell phones ringing, cell phone alarms ringing, or cell phones beeping will result in a forfeit which does affect your rating. Also anyone caught using their cell phone (talking or texting) during a game will be forfeited. No exception.

Further details will be available during the 20th NA FIDE Invitational, scheduled to begin April 25, 2009.

Good Chess to All,

Sevan A. Muradian
FIDE Arbiter and International Organizer
North American Chess Association