Members of UF’s Pan Am team played a simul against 30 kids and parents on Oct 12 at Westside Park. Pictured in back are UF students Britt Ryerson, Alex Malakin and Warren Jones. Pictured in front is Dacheng Li, the only one to beat the UF team (there were no draws).

UF’s first rated tournament tournament in years was wildly successful with 40 players entered.  USCF-rated tournament at UF on Friday night, Oct 17. Click here to see the results. This was the first rated tournament open for adults in Gainesville in many, many years.

Grandmaster Gabriel Schwartzman lectures the kids at the Westside Park Chess Grand Opening on October 5, 2008.

First ACSCA tournament of Fall 2008 was held at Kanapaha on October 19, 2008

Maya Harris wins the Fall 08 Scholastic Blitz Championship at Westside Park on October 26, 2008. Maya was the youngest player and the only girl in the open section (shown on the right, above). Maya drew Andy Wu (shown on left) in the final round to clinch. Andy and his brother Ben won the open section of the bughouse tournament with a perfect 4-0 score. Click here for full results.

Warren Jones (far right) wins the Westside Park Fall Chess Championship with a perfect 5-0 score (11/9/08).  Samuel Cockey won the U1000 section. See full results here. More photos here.

14-year-old IM Ray Robson visited Gainesville on Dec. 6, 2008. Ray gave a wonderful lecture about one of his recent games (he was white against the Scandinavian Defense). He then won every game against 25 players in a simultaneous exhibition. Ray’s visit was sponsored by the Gator Chess Club.

The final day of the ACSCA Fall Grand Prix was Sunday Dec. 7. Click here for final results.

The North Florida Regional championships were held on Saturday January 24. See photos above of the top boards of the last round games in K-1 (top left), K-3 (top right), K-5 (bottom left) and K-8 (bottom right).  Click here for the individual and team results!

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS! Oak Hall’s First grade team (left) and kindergarten team (right) each take first place at the National K-12 grade level championships in Orlando, Dec 12-15, 2008. Congratulations to Coaches Tim Tusing (in picture) and John Salisbury.  Full results at http://main.uschess.org/tournaments/2008/k12/?page=RESULTS

A number of our scholastic players played at the UF Winter Chess Championship on January 17, 2009, see photos above. Among the scholastic winners were Harish Vemuri (2nd place in the U1400 section, bottom left photo) and Maya Harris (3rd place in the U1000 section, top right photo). Click here to see full results. Watch for the UF Spring Championship on March 21, it is great practice for our young kids to play against college students with long time limits.

Grand opening of Westside Park Sunday afternoon chess on October 5, 2008. Westside Park events

Congratulations to Oak Hall for sweeping the K-1, K-3 and K-5 open sections at the State Scholastic tournament in Miami Feb 6-8. This is the second year in a row that Oak Hall has swept these divisions. See full results at: www.floridachess.org/2009ScholasticChampionship/ Shown above are the first place K-1 team (top left), the 3rd place U600 K-3 team (top right), the first place K-3 team (bottom left) and the first place K-5 team (bottom right).

The UF Spring Chess Championships were held on Saturday March 21, 2009--many K-5 scholastic students played (see photo top left). The prize winners are shown in the U1200 (top right), U1600 (bottom left) and open sections (bottom right). The full results are posted.

The final day of the ACSCA Spring Grand Prix was held on Sunday March 15. There were lots of tight individual and team races, the final standings are posted.

The spring season of the Westside Park Scholastic Chess Club started on Feb 1, 2009. The older players attended an advanced lecture by Greg Kimmel (UF student/chess coach/USCF rating of 2150). The younger players heard a beginner/intermediate lecture from George Pyne (ACSCA director and founder). In addition, the children had plenty of time to play lots of chess.

Congratulations to Oak Hall K-1 team for winning 5th place at the Supernationals! This is the premier national scholastic chess tournament and was held in Nashville, TN April 2-5, 2009. Shown above are, back row: Connor Clark, Natahja Graddy, Daniel Min and Spencer Krebs; front row: Romer Kohlhaas and Maya Harris. Full results can be found here. Several other Gainesville students played and did well.

The Westside Park Spring Championship concluded on Sunday May 3, 2009. Final standings are here. U700 section shown top left are Daniel Koropeckyj-Cox (1st place), Alex Kobalev (2nd place) and Jeffrey Lu (3rd place). U1100 section shown top right Andy Wu (1st place), Amir Helmy (2nd place). Madison Reese (not shown) was top U900. U1500 section shown bottom left is Faris Wasim (1st place). Not shown are Samuel Cockey (2nd place) and George Cockey (top U1300). Open section shown bottom right are Sasha Vaziri (top U1700), Warren Jones (1st place) and Nhan Van Le (2nd place). Congratulations to all.

The Florida Invitational Superstars (FISS) tournament was May 15-17, 2009 in Palm Beach Gardens featuring many of the best individuals and teams in the state. Gainesville had many notable accomplishments: Natahja Graddy (Oak Hall) placed third in the K-1 section. Cindy Jie (Williams) won the K-3 section, Amir Helmy (Williams) was 6th and Aadil Qamar (Oak Hall) took 10th place. Harish Vemuri (Steven Foster) and Benjamin Wu (Chiles) took 5th and 6th place respectively in the K-5 section. While Oak Hall did not have any teams at this tournament, Williams Elementary won the K-3 section and Chiles Elementary won the K-5 section. Elementary school chess in Gainesville is extremely strong! Congratulations to all of the Gainesville players for their excellent showing. Full results can be found at www.floridachess.org

Sunday (5/24/09) was the final meeting of the year for the Westside Park Chess Club. There was a blitz competition (won by Andy Wu) and a bughouse competition (won by Noah Harris and Benjamin Wu).