Vassar-Chadwick Chess Club

On the eve of our first club championship, I would like to share some thoughts on the relaunch so far:

• Attendance jumped 35% during our Poughkeepsie Fall Open compared to the Turning Leaves from years past with several first time players showing up.  However, we did not draw any current masters with our free promotion (only future ones).
• The club championship starting Monday will be our first attempt at finding a clear club champion.  In years past, whoever won the Dutchess County Championship – even on tiebreaks – was the defacto club champion.  Hopefully, attendance will be on par or exceed that of the DCC of recent years’ past.
• Going to one-week events between Thanksgiving and President’s Day was purely for safety’s sake after an ice storm during a multiweek event last January imperiled our players.  The round should have never been played but there was no dedicated system in place to address borderline bad weather (a historic blizzard is obvious).  The TD drives less than 10 mins to direct, its not the same thing as someone coming from 30+ minutes away in that type of storm.  Cancellations will occur via website, Facebook and Twitter from about 24 hours before the event starts.
• Whoever plays in the Amateur Team East in 2018 under the club’s name will have their entry fee for the tournament paid for by the club.  In a pipe dream, we would like to have a junior team (all under 18), a senior team (all over 50) and a regular team all participating.  It might happen…
• Whoever plays in our Columbus Day blitz, Thanksgiving blitz (or club championship playoff) and President’s Day blitz (or the Amateur Team East under the club name) will have free entry to the Hudson Valley Blitz championship next Spring.  For all blitz tournaments, we also went to 3 2 (delay or increment) to align with FIDE and minimizing playing purely to flag the opponent (even though that’s still possible).

John Maxwell Weigand (286[!]) won the inaugural Poughkeepsie Fall Open with a final score of 3.5/4, drawing only expert Chris Brooks (2062).  JJ Oracz (1638) won the u1900 with a score of 3/4, edging out Trevor Brooks (1697) on tiebreaks after drawing Leo Freyvert (2106) in the final round.  Newcomer Taylor Dean (1218) edged out Seamus Gould for the u1500 prize.  The Chadwick GP will be updated shortly.

After our summer vacation at Marist (and our first time at Donnelly Hall), the club will relaunch with new events, time controls and prizes.  A lot of time, thought and feelings (some hurt) were put into this overhaul to ensure the club’s survival over 80+ years, and we intend to be here for the Hudson Valley for decades to come.  A complete rundown of the updates and changes are as follows:

• Seasonal open tournaments – These replace the old Leaves’ tournaments, and are run in the Fall and Spring.  We will award trophies as usual.
• Vassar-Chadwick Club Championship – This is our new flagship tournament (along with the unchanged DCC in February) that will run between Columbus Day and Thanksgiving.  It will culminate in a playoff to break any ties if necessary – one champion will stand in the end!
• Chadwick Grand Prix – Recently rebalanced, our in-house grand prix will run throughout the calendar year while at Vassar.  Prizes will be awarded at years’ end, mostly for each class.
• Safety – To guard against inclement weather typical of our winters, between Thanksgiving and Presidents’ Day we will only run one-day events, and will cancel them as necessary. Cancellations will be announced the night before on Facebook, Twitter and on our website.
• Quads – These dual rated events will run between Thanksgiving and Presidents’ Day, and can be converted to swiss-style tournaments.  To the winner goes the spoils – and lots of Chadwick GP points.
• 4 Games at Poughkeepsie! – These dual rated events will run monthly between Thanksgiving and Presidents’ Day.  Start time is promptly at 7 PM to ensure we finish on time.
• Thanks to Scott Strattner and Tiffany Brooks, our website and social media accounts have been synchronized so we can draw better than we have.  We also have a larger presence in Chess Life as well.
• Blitz tournaments – Generally around each holiday, we will run a blitz tournament with a time control of Game 3+2 or 2 second delay.  This conforms to what was run during the recently completed World Blitz Championships.
• Hudson Valley Blitz Championship – This tournament will run annually, starting next Spring (probably in May).  Those players who will have completed all previous blitz tournaments this season (a waiver for Thanksgiving if playing in a playoff) will have free entry for this event.
• Free entry – Masters over 2200 will have free entry at all times to our tournaments.  Juniors under 18 will have free or reduced entry to all events as noted in our schedule.

Leo Freyvert wins 4 straight games to take the “Growing Leaves” tournament by storm. In the final round Bob Simmons mounted a mating attack that fell short and Leo prevailed. Rasit Topaloglu won the U1900 prize.  Notably Trevor Brooks crossed the 1700 rating line achieving his new high of 1731.

See the wall chart at USCHESS.org

GM Joel Benjamin gave an interesting endgame lecture than played nearly 30 players simultaneously.  Players all played with the black pieces, but were allowed to “play” Mr. Benjamin’s first move (1.e4, 1.d4, or 1.c4).  Colin Denniston (2081) secured the only win in a Caro-Kann, while GM Benjamin’s Amateur Team East teammate Ernie Johnson (2011) managed to draw.  Thanks to all of this year’s participants for showing up in the tight quarters, we will have another simultaneous exhibition next year!