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Area chess fans gather for play, points in tournament
  
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Laura Thompson
Staff Reporter
Some were seasoned players with years of experience in the game. Others were out for their first competition. But they all were brought to the boards Saturday morning for a test of poise, patience and prestige.
The quarterly Mayberry Chess Tournament brought fans of the game from around the region to Moby's Coffee for a crack at the local competition. And as one of a handful of “rated” tournaments in the area, the Mount Airy event offered players more than just a crack at some prize money.
“Mostly the players are here for the competition and the points,” said event organizer John Claxton.
The United States Chess Federation tracks ratings for all competitive players in the country, Claxton said. Players can add points to their rating - which can range from about 100 to about 2800 - by going up against higher-rated players in tournaments.
On Saturday, the field of 10 competitors represented a range of experience. Two players sported ratings of more than 1900 points, while four others were competing in their first rated tournament.
The three rounds of competition pitted players with decades of experience against teenagers just starting out in the game. But as seasoned player Randy Lovelace said, “It's not how long you've been playing.”
The Taylorsville resident got his start in chess in the 1970s. He remembers one of his teachers talking about Bobby Fischer, who competed for the chess world championship in 1972 and died earlier this year.
“I just thought, ‘gosh, that's something I'd like to do,'” he said.
As he learned the game, Lovelace collected stacks of famous games copied out move-by-move on notebook paper from the local library. Now, he says, all those games are available online, and a computer a key tool for people new to chess.
“You need a computer,” he said. “That's really changed a whole lot.”
Lovelace said he gets much of his practice with online chess clubs. But he also competes in tournaments almost every weekend. With 1966 points, he was the highest-rated player at Saturday's event.
“On the Internet, you play really fast games,” he said. “You play three-minute games or five-minute games. When you go to a tournament, there's a little more thought put into it.”
Another drawback to Internet play is that players don't often know who they're playing against, he said. At tournaments, “it's always nice to see people you've met before.”
Lovelace's first-round match on Saturday was against 13-year-old Ben Zhang, a seventh-grader from Winston-Salem who has been playing almost five years.
Ben's father, Yaochun Zhang, said he and his wife, Jing Wei, bought Ben a book about chess so he could learn to play. But after that, he said, “he did it all by himself.”
Ben participates in a chess club at school, informal games around Winston-Salem and online clubs. Zhang used to play with his son at home, but he said it's been a while since Ben outstripped his skills.
The seventh-grader has a collection of trophies from tournaments he competed in frequently, his parents said, but lately the tournaments have been fewer as other school activities have claimed Ben's free time on the weekends. Still, his mother said, “he's on Chess.com almost every day,” interacting with other chess fans through articles and puzzles he can post online.
“Chess is good for kids,” Zhang said. “It's better than playing computer games.”
Ben ended up in a three-way tie for sixth place Saturday after winning one of three matches, two of which were against players ranked higher than he was.
In a tournament of more than four people, players are divided into “top half” and “bottom half” groups based on their ratings. In the first round, the highest-rated player in the “top half” faces the highest-rated player in the “bottom half,” and so on down to the lowest-rated players in each half. Subsequent opponents are determined based on how a player performs in the first and second matches.
Scott Baldwin and Chad Eller took top prizes on Saturday, each finishing with two wins and a draw in their last match against each other. Lovelace, David Stamper and Matt Embler had two wins and one loss each, while three more players - Tony Bryant, Ben Zhang and Blake Johnson - won a match apiece. Xiaohan Ying and Thurman Hollar, both competing in their first rated tournament, both lost two games but ended up in a draw when they played each other.
Each player has one hour to complete their game, meaning no match can last more than two hours. But most were over much more quickly, giving players a chance to review their moves and play quick practice games with each other between rounds.
Claxton, a former Class A - or 1800 to 1999 points - player himself, has helped organize the Mayberry Chess Tournaments for about three years.
Claxton got his start in chess as an 8-year-old, when he and several boys in his neighborhood received chess sets for Christmas one year. He was a competitive player and tournament director in Florida before moving with his family to Mount Airy.
When his son was a student at Mount Airy Middle School, Claxton began helping out with a chess club at the school. He said he was surprised by the interest in the game he encountered there.
Although he no longer works with the middle school, he runs a local chess club that meets each Tuesday at Moby's Coffee for informal games in addition to the quarterly tournaments.
The next Mayberry Chess Tournament will take place June 28 at Moby's.
Contact Laura Thompson at lathompson@mtairynews.com, or at 719-1930.
Staff Reporter
Some were seasoned players with years of experience in the game. Others were out for their first competition. But they all were brought to the boards Saturday morning for a test of poise, patience and prestige.
The quarterly Mayberry Chess Tournament brought fans of the game from around the region to Moby's Coffee for a crack at the local competition. And as one of a handful of “rated” tournaments in the area, the Mount Airy event offered players more than just a crack at some prize money.
“Mostly the players are here for the competition and the points,” said event organizer John Claxton.
The United States Chess Federation tracks ratings for all competitive players in the country, Claxton said. Players can add points to their rating - which can range from about 100 to about 2800 - by going up against higher-rated players in tournaments.
On Saturday, the field of 10 competitors represented a range of experience. Two players sported ratings of more than 1900 points, while four others were competing in their first rated tournament.
The three rounds of competition pitted players with decades of experience against teenagers just starting out in the game. But as seasoned player Randy Lovelace said, “It's not how long you've been playing.”
The Taylorsville resident got his start in chess in the 1970s. He remembers one of his teachers talking about Bobby Fischer, who competed for the chess world championship in 1972 and died earlier this year.
“I just thought, ‘gosh, that's something I'd like to do,'” he said.
As he learned the game, Lovelace collected stacks of famous games copied out move-by-move on notebook paper from the local library. Now, he says, all those games are available online, and a computer a key tool for people new to chess.
“You need a computer,” he said. “That's really changed a whole lot.”
Lovelace said he gets much of his practice with online chess clubs. But he also competes in tournaments almost every weekend. With 1966 points, he was the highest-rated player at Saturday's event.
“On the Internet, you play really fast games,” he said. “You play three-minute games or five-minute games. When you go to a tournament, there's a little more thought put into it.”
Another drawback to Internet play is that players don't often know who they're playing against, he said. At tournaments, “it's always nice to see people you've met before.”
Lovelace's first-round match on Saturday was against 13-year-old Ben Zhang, a seventh-grader from Winston-Salem who has been playing almost five years.
Ben's father, Yaochun Zhang, said he and his wife, Jing Wei, bought Ben a book about chess so he could learn to play. But after that, he said, “he did it all by himself.”
Ben participates in a chess club at school, informal games around Winston-Salem and online clubs. Zhang used to play with his son at home, but he said it's been a while since Ben outstripped his skills.
The seventh-grader has a collection of trophies from tournaments he competed in frequently, his parents said, but lately the tournaments have been fewer as other school activities have claimed Ben's free time on the weekends. Still, his mother said, “he's on Chess.com almost every day,” interacting with other chess fans through articles and puzzles he can post online.
“Chess is good for kids,” Zhang said. “It's better than playing computer games.”
Ben ended up in a three-way tie for sixth place Saturday after winning one of three matches, two of which were against players ranked higher than he was.
In a tournament of more than four people, players are divided into “top half” and “bottom half” groups based on their ratings. In the first round, the highest-rated player in the “top half” faces the highest-rated player in the “bottom half,” and so on down to the lowest-rated players in each half. Subsequent opponents are determined based on how a player performs in the first and second matches.
Scott Baldwin and Chad Eller took top prizes on Saturday, each finishing with two wins and a draw in their last match against each other. Lovelace, David Stamper and Matt Embler had two wins and one loss each, while three more players - Tony Bryant, Ben Zhang and Blake Johnson - won a match apiece. Xiaohan Ying and Thurman Hollar, both competing in their first rated tournament, both lost two games but ended up in a draw when they played each other.
Each player has one hour to complete their game, meaning no match can last more than two hours. But most were over much more quickly, giving players a chance to review their moves and play quick practice games with each other between rounds.
Claxton, a former Class A - or 1800 to 1999 points - player himself, has helped organize the Mayberry Chess Tournaments for about three years.
Claxton got his start in chess as an 8-year-old, when he and several boys in his neighborhood received chess sets for Christmas one year. He was a competitive player and tournament director in Florida before moving with his family to Mount Airy.
When his son was a student at Mount Airy Middle School, Claxton began helping out with a chess club at the school. He said he was surprised by the interest in the game he encountered there.
Although he no longer works with the middle school, he runs a local chess club that meets each Tuesday at Moby's Coffee for informal games in addition to the quarterly tournaments.
The next Mayberry Chess Tournament will take place June 28 at Moby's.
Contact Laura Thompson at lathompson@mtairynews.com, or at 719-1930.
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The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of mtairynews.com.
shrikant barve wrote on Mar 23, 2008 2:55 AM:
" AICF circular: a case of misinterpretation?
The Indian chess federation’s circular gets murkier day by day, at least to the discerning eye, if one reads the vague answers (to my email query) provided by a stalwart like Praful Zaveri, the FIDE instructor from Mumbai, who is closely associated with the game, and same being endorsed by own Sameerbab, who is the vice-president of the body controlling the game of 64 squares in the country. So much so that Zaveri relates the AICF circular to a press release of a film, saying that the reviews of a film are written after watching it and so according to him, Shrikant Barve should have first seen the `chess film` unfolding at the AICF executive committee meeting on March 27 before posting his comments on the net. Which in other words means that it is AICF’s usual procedure of announcing such plans in detail following an executive committee meet, much after putting the circular on its website.
Zaveri’s merry-go-round
And by the way why did Zaveri chose to do the merry-go-round, when I asked him (through email) to use his good offices with the AICF bosses to get in a straighter circular which could be understood by all and sundry without requiring to do any guessing work (or interpretation) of its contents. That Zaveri chose to forward a copy of his `merry-go-round’ reply to Sameer is quite understandable but I do fail to understand what Sameer tried to indicate by redirecting that reply to me along with his compliments sent to the Mumbai official. Why the hell would I be interested in knowing how Sameer complimented Zaveri for his reply to my query? Did Sameer thought it was a tit-for-tat reply and therefore tried to taunt me? Well I reproduced in the adjoining space what I asked Zaveri and his subsequent replies. Looks like there is more to it than what meets the eye.
The missing link
Interestingly, according to Zaveri, the circular should be interpreted as Rs 1000 per session, which in his opinion would amount to Rs 30,000 for a 10-day period if the GMs were to conduct three sessions of 90 minutes each day. So what’s missing in the circular are only the words “per session of 90 minutes each”. Whether the GM conducts more sessions per day is secondary here. It would be a Herculean task indeed. But what’s the need for the AICF to unravel the `suspense’ at the executive committee meeting if the circular just has a few words from the jigsaw puzzle missing. Was it really AICF’s intention not to reveal the exciting part of the story till it’s meeting in Chennai?
Questions and more questions
If what Zaveri says is true, wasn’t Sameerbab, being an important member of the Federation, aware of it? Instead of Zaveri providing the answers, why didn’t he (Sameerbab) tell the Taleigao Chess Academy secretary that he had not interpreted the circular correctly? If that is the case, I am sure, Barve would have certainly relented. Not even the members of the state association’s executive committee were apprised of such hidden meanings in the circular, when they met on March 9 to decide on action to be taken against Barve. Or did he not let out the `secret’ because he wanted to put Barve in the dock?
I do not want to comment on whether Barve was right or wrong in venting his frustration at the AICF circular or whether he ought to be banned for it. What, however puzzles me is that the AICF is not forthcoming on its own decision over a trivial matter and is instead waiting for its Executive meeting to reveal the story in detail. Wouldn’t it have been better to douse the fire as soon as it was spotted?
Simon Alphonso GT Weekender Page 14 dt 23/03/08 GOA
"
The Indian chess federation’s circular gets murkier day by day, at least to the discerning eye, if one reads the vague answers (to my email query) provided by a stalwart like Praful Zaveri, the FIDE instructor from Mumbai, who is closely associated with the game, and same being endorsed by own Sameerbab, who is the vice-president of the body controlling the game of 64 squares in the country. So much so that Zaveri relates the AICF circular to a press release of a film, saying that the reviews of a film are written after watching it and so according to him, Shrikant Barve should have first seen the `chess film` unfolding at the AICF executive committee meeting on March 27 before posting his comments on the net. Which in other words means that it is AICF’s usual procedure of announcing such plans in detail following an executive committee meet, much after putting the circular on its website.
Zaveri’s merry-go-round
And by the way why did Zaveri chose to do the merry-go-round, when I asked him (through email) to use his good offices with the AICF bosses to get in a straighter circular which could be understood by all and sundry without requiring to do any guessing work (or interpretation) of its contents. That Zaveri chose to forward a copy of his `merry-go-round’ reply to Sameer is quite understandable but I do fail to understand what Sameer tried to indicate by redirecting that reply to me along with his compliments sent to the Mumbai official. Why the hell would I be interested in knowing how Sameer complimented Zaveri for his reply to my query? Did Sameer thought it was a tit-for-tat reply and therefore tried to taunt me? Well I reproduced in the adjoining space what I asked Zaveri and his subsequent replies. Looks like there is more to it than what meets the eye.
The missing link
Interestingly, according to Zaveri, the circular should be interpreted as Rs 1000 per session, which in his opinion would amount to Rs 30,000 for a 10-day period if the GMs were to conduct three sessions of 90 minutes each day. So what’s missing in the circular are only the words “per session of 90 minutes each”. Whether the GM conducts more sessions per day is secondary here. It would be a Herculean task indeed. But what’s the need for the AICF to unravel the `suspense’ at the executive committee meeting if the circular just has a few words from the jigsaw puzzle missing. Was it really AICF’s intention not to reveal the exciting part of the story till it’s meeting in Chennai?
Questions and more questions
If what Zaveri says is true, wasn’t Sameerbab, being an important member of the Federation, aware of it? Instead of Zaveri providing the answers, why didn’t he (Sameerbab) tell the Taleigao Chess Academy secretary that he had not interpreted the circular correctly? If that is the case, I am sure, Barve would have certainly relented. Not even the members of the state association’s executive committee were apprised of such hidden meanings in the circular, when they met on March 9 to decide on action to be taken against Barve. Or did he not let out the `secret’ because he wanted to put Barve in the dock?
I do not want to comment on whether Barve was right or wrong in venting his frustration at the AICF circular or whether he ought to be banned for it. What, however puzzles me is that the AICF is not forthcoming on its own decision over a trivial matter and is instead waiting for its Executive meeting to reveal the story in detail. Wouldn’t it have been better to douse the fire as soon as it was spotted?
Simon Alphonso GT Weekender Page 14 dt 23/03/08 GOA
"
shrikant barve wrote on Mar 23, 2008 2:56 AM:
" Demand Supply of IM’s level chess coaches IN INDIA
“The AICF shall pay Rs.10,000/- for GM's and RS.7,000/- or Rs 5000/- for others for a ten day coaching programme. For outstation coaches AICF will reimburse, on production of tickets, third A/c train fare and shall take care of the local hospitality.”
http://www.indianchessfed.org/News/2008/January/natI13Girls/appealtoourplayerscoachingprogramme.asp
Coach unit = 10 days batch for a group of 10
General ratings statistics for India Jan 1 2008 as per FIDE (World Chess Federation)
Total (inactive inclusive): 3371
Total : 2485
Below statistics is valid for active players only:
Grand Master : 16
Woman Grand Master : 5
International Master : 53
Woman International Master : 12
FIDE Master : 24
Woman FIDE Master number : 9
http://fide.com/ratings/avgtoplist.phtml?country=IND
Rating of 2300 is considered as International Master level and
Rating of 2500 is considered as Grand Master level
India has 100 International Master or higher level players. http://fide.com/ratings/topfed.phtml?ina=1&country=IND
Considering all 100 are ready to coach throughout the year we have 2400 coach units.
( Coach unit = 10 days batch for a group of 10, 2 in one month, 12 month X 100 players of International Master or higher level)
Fifty percent of these are very active players eager to upgrade their rating. These players itself will demand Gm’s Coaching if available at throw away prize.
In reality coach units may not go beyond 150. --- Supply
Like Goa as one chess activity centre, in India there are at least 100 centres.
In Goa there are around 35 Rated players out of which 10 are elderly may not opt for coaching if there is any fee but
25 Rated Players are willing to take IM’s coaching even for the normal fee Rs.2500/- per day.
In addition there are another 60 players who are trying hard to become a rated players will also be ready to pay above fee.
My experience tell me that Goa’s demand is 16 coach units for a year by paying normal fee of 2500 per day.
In India the situation could be as under:
A person takes 2 coach units in a year.
Active Rated Chess players 2500
Active Rated Chess players in a age group below 20 1800
Trying hard to be a Rated player 5000
(5000 + 1800) 6800 group of 10, 680 group twice a year 1360 coach units---Demand.
Shrikant Barve
Shrikant Barve is CEO of Taleigao Chess Academy and Back to back world champion Ivana Furtado was under him till she won Silver Medal at Asian Youth Chess Championship at Teharan.
"
“The AICF shall pay Rs.10,000/- for GM's and RS.7,000/- or Rs 5000/- for others for a ten day coaching programme. For outstation coaches AICF will reimburse, on production of tickets, third A/c train fare and shall take care of the local hospitality.”
http://www.indianchessfed.org/News/2008/January/natI13Girls/appealtoourplayerscoachingprogramme.asp
Coach unit = 10 days batch for a group of 10
General ratings statistics for India Jan 1 2008 as per FIDE (World Chess Federation)
Total (inactive inclusive): 3371
Total : 2485
Below statistics is valid for active players only:
Grand Master : 16
Woman Grand Master : 5
International Master : 53
Woman International Master : 12
FIDE Master : 24
Woman FIDE Master number : 9
http://fide.com/ratings/avgtoplist.phtml?country=IND
Rating of 2300 is considered as International Master level and
Rating of 2500 is considered as Grand Master level
India has 100 International Master or higher level players. http://fide.com/ratings/topfed.phtml?ina=1&country=IND
Considering all 100 are ready to coach throughout the year we have 2400 coach units.
( Coach unit = 10 days batch for a group of 10, 2 in one month, 12 month X 100 players of International Master or higher level)
Fifty percent of these are very active players eager to upgrade their rating. These players itself will demand Gm’s Coaching if available at throw away prize.
In reality coach units may not go beyond 150. --- Supply
Like Goa as one chess activity centre, in India there are at least 100 centres.
In Goa there are around 35 Rated players out of which 10 are elderly may not opt for coaching if there is any fee but
25 Rated Players are willing to take IM’s coaching even for the normal fee Rs.2500/- per day.
In addition there are another 60 players who are trying hard to become a rated players will also be ready to pay above fee.
My experience tell me that Goa’s demand is 16 coach units for a year by paying normal fee of 2500 per day.
In India the situation could be as under:
A person takes 2 coach units in a year.
Active Rated Chess players 2500
Active Rated Chess players in a age group below 20 1800
Trying hard to be a Rated player 5000
(5000 + 1800) 6800 group of 10, 680 group twice a year 1360 coach units---Demand.
Shrikant Barve
Shrikant Barve is CEO of Taleigao Chess Academy and Back to back world champion Ivana Furtado was under him till she won Silver Medal at Asian Youth Chess Championship at Teharan.
"
