This weekend in Hamilton

[Bob Gillanders]

Hamilton Winter Open 2010

Another successful weekend swiss for the Hamilton organizers led by Garvin Nunes. Another new high of 70 players.:)

A special thanks to our titled players, IM David Cummings, FM's Hans Jung, Michael Dougherty, and Doug Bailey.
And many thanks to our regulars who continue to support Hamilton chess. :)

An added touch this time around were name cards for the Open section and demonstration boards for the top 2 boards, courtesy of Mikhail Egorov who went that extra mile.:)

Winners were:

Open

1st/2nd - 4 pts
Hans Jung, Michael Dougherty $ 360 each

Tie 3rd - 3.5 pts
Doug Bailey, Vlad Drkulec, Keith Wight, Aaron Both $ 45 each

U1900

1st - 4.5 pts
Adam Cormier $ 270

2nd/3rd - 4 pts
Yuanchen Zhang, Mario Piccinin $ 165 each

Juniors - Trophies. Garvin will report later.

Total prize fund = $ 1,500

But more important, lots of great chess!


SWOCL annual meeting

Hamilton Winter Open hosted the meeting in the skittles room before round 4. Those in attendance:

Garvin Nunes, Chris Mallon, Hal Bond, Michael Von Keitz, John Brown, Stuart Brammall, Keith Wight, Bob Gillanders, John Erickson, and John Jordan.

SWOCL executive elected (all acclaimed) for 2010/2011 are:

President: Bob Gillanders
VP: Keith Wight
Secretary: Garvin Nunes
Treasurer: John Erickson
Executive at large: Stuart Brammall

President Michael Von Keitz reported on league business and led the discussion on a number of issues. Michael declined to serve for another year. We thank him for his excellent service.

Minutes of the meeting will be made available at a later date.

[Bob Armstrong]

SWOCL CFC Governors?

Hi Bob:

Who got elected as SWOCL CFC Governors?

Bob

[Bob Gillanders]

Re: This weekend in Hamilton

The topic of CFC and OCA Governors was discussed and we do have a preliminary list of candidates. As you will appreciate, there was insufficient time to fully discuss the matter as round 4 was fast approaching.

The list will be finalized at a latter date once,

1. All candidates are confirmed as willing to serve.
2. We know how many candidates are required.

Fortunately, in SWOCL we have an abundance of good people to choose from. :)

[Hans Jung]

Re: This weekend in Hamilton

Bob and Garvin thanks for a wonderful tournament. Congratulations to a very successful organizing team - Garvin, Bob, and Mikhail - you realize you are all perfect role models as organizers and I think many of the players noticed how you have been adding more and more "attractions and benefits" to your now very successful Hamilton Open tournaments. I was particularly impressed by Mikhail and his actions of putting name cards down at the tables for every player (not just titled masters) and handling the demonstration boards for the top two tables as well as playing his own games!! (kind of like an organizer-player simul) Maybe Mikhail has some anecdotes he wants to share with chesstalk readers?? Anyways guys congratulations again and keep growing the organisation and the team!

[Paul Bonham]

Re: This weekend in Hamilton

Bob and Garvin thanks for a wonderful tournament. Congratulations to a very successful organizing team - Garvin, Bob, and Mikhail - you realize you are all perfect role models as organizers and I think many of the players noticed how you have been adding more and more "attractions and benefits" to your now very successful Hamilton Open tournaments. I was particularly impressed by Mikhail and his actions of putting name cards down at the tables for every player (not just titled masters) and handling the demonstration boards for the top two tables as well as playing his own games!! (kind of like an organizer-player simul) Maybe Mikhail has some anecdotes he wants to share with chesstalk readers?? Anyways guys congratulations again and keep growing the organisation and the team!

Wait a minute: you're saying Mikhail Egorov helped the organizers by placing name cards and running demo boards AND played in the tournament?

Why, Bob Armstrong and Jean Hebert must be appalled at the news! Imagine, someone setting aside their personal chess aspirations to HELP AN ORGANIZER! TO HELP THE GAME OF CHESS!

I found Mikhail's facebook page and he lists Jean Hebert as a friend. Maybe Mikhail could convince the infamous whiner to follow the great example set by his humble friend? Maybe even at a Canadian Closed?

Excellent work, Mikhail! By setting this example, you do more for Canadian chess than a lifetime of postings from either BA or JH.

[Mikhail Egorov]

Re: This weekend in Hamilton

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for not replying much earlier. I just got my authorization to post.

I would love to thank all titled players, and especially IM David Cummings for coming out and playing in Hamilton Winter Open. For those of you who don’t know David, he is not just a strong IM, but also good chess write.
His book on Symetrical English can be found at this link:
http://shop.chesscafe.com/item.asp?cID=15&PID=1007


Yes our goal is to run 3 Hamilton tournaments, instead of one, but we need to make sure players are happy with 1 before we commit to 2 more. It was very nice to see more and more titles players coming. We would have more, if IM Artem Samsonkin and Roman Sapozhnikov could come. They had to cancel participation in last minute due to schedule conflict. Next Hamilton Open tournament is planned for August 2010. Artem and Roman said they will not miss it this time. If we also manage to IM David Cummings, FM Hans Jung and FM Michael Dougherty and FM Doug Bailey to come, that will make 6 titled players. We promise that our next tournament will be even better.

I would also like to congratulate our new FM Doug Bailey for acquiring his FIDE MASTER title from FIDE. Doug was qualified for titled as long as I was playing in Hamilton Chess Club. I started coming around 1994. FIDE Master request was never submitted until recently.

As far as stories go, I have one…. Thanks Hans for reminder.

Moral of this story is: How Chess skills can help you in real life.

Ok it all started on Sunday afternoon, when 2 bishops gone missing before round 5 on demonstration board. Myself and Garvin were trying to find them, before last rounds starts. We realized, if we can’t then we will have to remove one display board from the tournament. We were asking almost everyone, if they have seen 2 pieces from demonstration board. I briefly remembered that talented junior Rueben McCleary gave me 2 pieces at star of round 4, but was not sure. He told me that he did in fact give me 2 pieces from demonstration board. At this point I started to trace all the steps.

I remembered that it was round 4 and I was making coffee for everyone. Rueben McCleary came to me and gave me 2 pieces from demonstration board, but could not remember what I did with them. At this point I was extremely busy. I know I took it into my hand, but don’t remember what I did with them. First I decided to check packets in my coat. I didn’t find anything there. I also checked the coffee table, with no results. So I tried to remember in detail what was I doing at this time. I realized that I was throwing empty Timbit boxed and some other garbage into garbage bin. I decided to check the bin for 2 missing pieces. At this point Constantin Khayutin asked me, if I am looking for food. Nice one Constantin.:)
I kept looking and found them! :D

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

[Vlad Dobrich]

Re: This weekend in Hamilton

If on a Sunday, you find that a bishop or two are missing, check the local church. As Geza Fuster used to say, "Bishops good in church!" :)