BayAreaChess - Past, Present and the Future

Published: Sat, 12/30/17

    

Thank you for this amazing year!
Read our End-of-year Newsletter below
and learn all about 2017 and what's ahead for 2018!
 

Happy holidays to the chess community from myself and the rest of BayAreaChess!
2017 was another momentous year, but I’m looking forward to even bigger and better 2018! I’d like to start with a recap before going onto preview next year. With so many things to talk about, there are two end-of-year updates: this one primarily for tournament players, including both Scholastic and Regular competitors, and one was sent out from Deputy Director Abel Talamantez aimed at students (and parents of) enrolled in one of our many Enrichment programs. Please read both to learn about the breadth of just what we do here at BayAreaChess!

2017 Recap

The year’s not over yet, but we expect to repeat as the no. 1 USCF tournament affiliate west of Texas in 2017 for the tenth year in a row (for which I was awarded US Chess Organizer of the Year in June).

This year, we held nearly 200 tournaments all over northern California (including Sacramento), and continued to hit record number of players attending the bigger and/or the recurring events.

These ran the gamut from unrated Rising Star tournaments for kids just starting out with tournament play, to monthly scholastic Swiss and Quads and regular Grand Prix tournaments in six different locations, to state and national scholastic and regular tournaments that drew strong and record-sized fields due to the wealth of local talent, our generous open tournament prize funds, and our relationships with international-caliber players.
The list of tournaments included:

  • The U.S. Amateur Team West tournament in February which drew a record breaking 400+ players (including scholastic section), showing the growing popularity of team-based tournaments;
    usatw

We’re not just about tournaments and kids’ lessons. In 2017, we also:

In 2018, you can look forward to:

We are bringing back perennial favorites, like:
  • Jan 5-7: BAC New Year’s Championship, including Scholastic section;
     
  • Feb 17-19: U.S. Amateur Team West (and Scholastic teams);   
     
  • April 7-8: CalChess State Scholastic Championship, with 1,200 players expected;
     
  • CalChess Girls State Championship (TBA);
     
  • CalChess Scholastic Team-on-Team Championship (TBA);
     
  • Memorial Day Weekend: Best of the West Championships;
     
  • People’s Tournament (July TBA);
     
  • Eight BAC Championship tournaments planned for 2018, all to be held in the Santa Clara Convention Center in Rooms 209-210 (the upstairs rooms near the parking garage entrance typically used as team rooms during large scholastic tournaments). These can comfortably hold 150 players as well as two rows of spectators. Even with the improved venue, we will keep prize funds the same and only increase entry fees slightly.
     
  • CalChess Grade Level Championship in December


And we are bringing you some exciting NEW tournaments:

  • BAC won the right to organize the prestigious U.S. Junior Cadet Invitational hosting the 8-10 best players under Age16 in the United States. The event will take place in mid July, a few weeks before the US Open.
     
  • For the first time, BAC will organize the 2018 Pan-American Collegiate Championships, which will surely bring lots of fun, excitement and attention to Northern California Chess, hosting the best 50+ college chess teams and their coaches at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt next year Dec 27-30.
     
  • We will be debuting quarterly Open FIDE-rated tournaments, aimed at rising players eager to earn a world chess rating that they can use in tournaments anywhere. These tournaments will have one big Open section, similar to the Mechanics Institute’s Tuesday Marathons, but concentrating as many rounds on one weekend as possible.
     
  • BAC will also make the AB section and eventually all three sections of the recurring BAC Championship series FIDE-rated, expanding opportunities for our hard-working young players to earn and improve their FIDE ratings.
     
  • And in the works also are round robin FIDE IM and GM Norm tournaments that BAC will hopefully be offering on a regular basis.


Tournament Changes for 2018

I hope you’ll agree that for the most part, BAC tournaments run well, on-time and with minimal errors. Part of that is due to our hard-working, eagle-eyed staff, but part of that comes from encouraging players and parents to sign up as early as possible online, so that our staff is not overloaded with last-minute registrations and changes at the tournament.


For 2018, here are the new changes and rules we are enforcing:

Registration:

  • Enforce our mandatory late fee for ALL on-site registrants. Sorry, no exceptions.
     
  • Discounts for simultaneously registering for multiple tournaments at a time will ONLY apply when done online, similar to other discounts. That means that if registering for multiple events onsite, no discount will be offered, and late fee will be charged! PLEASE register in advance, makes your life cheaper and our lives easier!
     
  • Economy registration fee - a lower-cost option for players in the non-scholastic tournaments choosing to forego the maximum prize money - will only be available up to 3 days before the tournament. That means for a Saturday tournament economy registration option will be turned off Tuesday midnight, for a Sunday tournament, it'll be turned off Wednesday midnight! This will be enforces strictly, no exceptions. No economy registration option will be available onsite. This is needed to be able to better plan for tournament budgets. Again, please register in advance, to make your life cheaper and our lives easier!
     
  • Grandprix tournaments are the one day regular tournaments for adults and higher rated scholastic players. For those players who like to ‘play up’ above their rating section, we are lowering the fee to $20 to be more consistent with the number of rounds. Please, note that economy fee will NOT be available during the last three days before the tournament.
     
  • Free entry for our regular tournaments (1-day or multi-day) will now be restricted to players holding the following FIDE titles: GM, IM, WGM, and WIM.
     
  • Debuting early January: Parents will now have the ability to register multiple kids for tournaments in the same transactions. We will be sending out detailed how-to email explaining the steps parents need to make in order to be able to use this option!
     
  • Reminder: online registration closes the midnight the day before any tournament. Same day registration is only available on-site.
 

Timing:

  • Standardizing the first-round times for our one-day Grand Prix tournaments open to adults and advanced youth players at 6 different locations around the Bay Area. For 2018, all Grand Prix tournaments, no matter the time control or the number of rounds (from 4-round G/45 Quick$wiss events to 3-round G/90 Luper$wiss tourneys), will start at 9 AM sharp.

  • Standardizing the start times of our monthly Signature Youth Tournaments, which like the Grand Prix tourneys above, run in six locations around the Bay Area. In 2018, our Swiss tournaments will all start at 9:30 AM sharp. This gives enough time for both morning Swiss and afternoon Quads to run smoothly, and also makes it easier for kids who wish to stay and play BOTH tournaments to do so. If you register online for the Swiss and the Quads, you’ll get the $5 discount for signing up for two events at a time.

 

 

Other Exciting News for 2018

  • Return of the San Jose Hackers pro team, led again by first board and FIDE world no. 3, GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. The rest of last year’s roster - GM Rauf Mamedov, GM Daniel Naroditsky, GM Zviad Izoria, GM Ioan-Cristian Chirila, IM Kosta Kavutskiy, IM Faik Aleskerov, NM Teemu Virtanen, NM Ivan Ke, and NM Christopher Yoo - will return, along with a new addition - GM Andrey Gorovets from Belarus. Cheer them on here!
    SJH

  • More and better communication, from a revamped logo that maintains the theme of a Pawn promoted to a Queen. Since BAC was founded 15 years ago, one of our central missions has been to help educate young players about chess through classes and tournaments, and, through chess, prepare them for life off the board, too.
    logo
     

  • Expanded online presence, including more article recaps from our tournaments, more pictures and results from our Facebook and Twitter pages, continued improvements to our Web sites, and more.
     
  • Last but not least, BayAreaChess, in collaboration with Chess University, has started to offer online classes for players who want to enjoy our coaches without having to commute to our San Jose Location. Check out our offerings at bac.chessuniversity.com, new classes starting in January!
    CU
 

Our Team 

I’d like to thank the amazing group at BayAreaChess for their hard work and dedication. Without their endless energy, BAC would not be able to provide all that we do for you.
This includes BayAreaChess’ leadership: Zarina Azman, Abel Talamantez, Svetlana Kondakova, Kostya Kavutskiy, James Bethany, Wolfgang Behm and Theodore Biyiasas.
Also, of course we have the best Tournament Director crew in the country: Tom Langland, John McCumiskey, Richard Koepcke, Jordan Langland, Arthur Liou, Michael Joseph D’Alfonsi, Matt LeForce, Samyak Karnavat, and everyone else.
BayAreaChess is lucky to have the best of the best in the local chess world on its team, which is what enables us to continuously provide high-quality service and keep improving it.
team

Also, Many thanks and appreciation goes to our amazing Board of Directors: President and Founder Dr. Salman Azhar, and members: WIM Beatriz Marinello, Coach Jay Stallings, Surekha Nidamarthy, and Prasad Dasari. We are lucky to have such a unique board, without their support and direction, BayAreaChess would not be here where we are today!

As always, BayAreaChess and I always welcome feedback and suggestions. Please email me at [email protected] or drop us a message at our Facebook page. And if you’d like to join our team as a chess coach or teacher or tournament director, please contact myself (for potential TDs) or Abel Talamantez (for chess coaching). We provide training and top-notch colleagues.

If you would like to bring a BAC program to your child's school, please reach out to us at [email protected].

 

Happy holidays and a Wonderful New Year filled with health, success and happiness!
 

judit
Judit Sztaray
Executive Director, BayAreaChess Inc.





 
Useful links

General information about enrichment classes, clubs, camps:
www.enrichment.bayareachess.com

General information about the scholastic tournaments:
http://www.bayareachess.com/kids

General information about regular and open tournaments:
http://www.bayareachess.com/regular

Like us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/BayAreaChess

List of email groups and channels: www.bayareachess.com/connect


Contact us
call: 408-409-6596
email: [email protected]