The Fall Semester, 2004

The OWS Chess Club is moving back to the Danforth campus this year. Along with the changed location, will will be introducing a few other changes from last year. Short chess lectures by Dr. Skipper will now be a regular feature, for those who want to pick up some helpful tips. There will only be one tournament each semester, instead of two, and it will distribute cash prizes instead of trophies. Tournaments will be USCF rated events, so membership in the United States Chess Federation is required from all participants. Entry forms will be available at any time. As always, playing in a tournament is voluntary. If you don't want to enter, you don't have to.

So How Do You Join?

Same as before: you can either fill in the new form on your first visit to the club, or you can register online. Just click this link and register:

Click here to sign up!

Games Collection NEW!

Last year, Dr. Skipper played two ten-game matches against another player in San Antonio. These matches were "thematic," that is, both players agreed to use the same opening for every game. The first match consisted of ten games using the Benoni Defense. Dr. Skipper won by a small lead: 6-4. The second match consisted of ten games using the Nimzo-Indian Defense. This match went better, Dr. Skipper ending with a score of 7-3. His current rating is 1661. Click here to go see some of these games.

Ratings

The coach's current rating is 1661. That makes him a "Class B player." There are 69,119 tournament chess players in the U.S., and their average rating is 1064. The highest rated player in the U.S. is above 2700. If you remove the scholastic players, the average rating for the 38,364 non-scholastic players is 1429.

Do you have a rating? Would you like one? The only way to get rated on the national scale is to play in an official USCF-rated event. Usually, such events are big tournaments with over one hundred kids from dozens of school in Austin, San Antonio, or Dallas. But our club offers small, friendly, USCF-rated tournaments for club members. Last year we had eight to ten students who participated in one of these tournaments.

There are 30,755 scholastic players in the U.S. and the average rating is 608. Here are the national ratings of our top-rated club members:

Past Lectures

For the first two years, we tried to have a short talk about some important theme in chess. Themes we covered include these:

• Development
• Control of the center
• Castling
• Stalemate
• Mate with rook and king
• Back row mate
• Greco's mate
• Anastasia's mate
• Boden's mate
• Pillsbury's Mate
• Open Lines

Thanks, Parents!

Parent turnout last semester was great! Each and every volunteer made a big difference in how smoothly things ran. Thank you for all your help.

Do You Want To Promote an Event?

We want to broadcast any chess-related event to the Internet. If you know of something that ought to be publicized, tell us and we will link to it from this page! Send your announcement to Dr. Skipper's email address: robert@skipperweb.org

Photos from Fall, 2000

Photo Page 1

Photo Page 2

Last updated September 12, 2004