Spicewood Elementary Chess Club

The first scholastic tournament of the year is this Saturday at Meridian School.  There are 22 Spicewood students registered in this tournament.  The school is located on North I35 and it takes about 20-25 minutes to drive there from Spicewood Elementary.

Google Map of Meridian School

We have some helpful advice for all parents to help your kids prepare for the tournament.  First, please make sure to get a good night sleep.  The tournament day is long and you want to be well rested.  There is typically a lot of downtime between rounds, so make sure you bring healthy snacks and drinks.  The Meridian school will have a concessions area, so you can support their school by making purchases through them as well.

We typically find and reserve a section for Spicewood students.  This area becomes our homebase where the students hang out between round, review their recent matches and practice chess.  We recommend bringing a couple of comfortable folding chairs in case seating is limited.  We also recommend that you leave portable video games at home.  We have seen parents and kids bring books to read, games to play (other than chess), homework, coloring books, soccer balls, etc.   It has been normal to have wifi access to the Internet, but each school is different, so we are not 100% sure about this at Meridian.

This will be a relatively small tournament with around 270 participants.  Round 1 starts at 9AM and you should find your board at least 30 minutes before the start.  We recommend arriving as early as possible in order to claim a good spot to reside for the day.  If you plan to be late to any round, please make sure you request a BYE for that round with Lori Balkum (Lori.Balkum@austinchesstournaments.com) who will be located in the computer room which handles all the pairings and result entry.

Results of the tournament rounds will be posted on bulletin boards outside each section as well as online on this page:

https://www.austinchesstournaments.com/events/602

Austin’s first scholastic tournament of the 2015-16 school year is open for registration. Come join us at the Meridian School on September 19th! (limited to the first 350 entries)

This Saturday, August 29th is the last day to register to get the discounted entrance fee of $25.

Entry fee pricing is staggered and based on date of entry. Online registration preferred! 

*Early entry (scholastic – $25, open $25) thru Saturday, 8/29/2015
*Regular entry (scholastic – $30, open $25) thru Saturday, 9/12/2015
*One week Away (scholastic – $40, open $25) begins Sunday, 9/13/2015 and ends at noon on Thursday 09/17/2015, at which time online entry closes.

Adults can also play in the Open section but you will need to have a USCF membership and pay the same entrance fee as shown above.

We held a Chesskid.com contest this last week to see who would play the most fast chess games, attempt the most puzzles and watch the most training videos.   Here are the results:

Congratulations to all of the participates who each get Chess Bucks for playing.  We will hold many more of these contests over the next school year.