meeting place

The MSU CC and (for two months) the Mur-Cal chess club will generally return to the Mississippi Room with only occasional placement next door in the Cumberland Room.

A new star

This was posted by Randas Burns on the Kentucky Chess Association web site. Very magnanimous  of Randas. 

- My last bit of new involves a player that might not be well known to everyone. This player is Josiah Hereford. From January 2012 to today, Josiah has risen his rating from 928 to 1821. That means in the last 20 months he has gained 893 points at 14 events. In most of the events he is upsetting or drawing players much higher rated than himself. For instance this past Saturday at the "Dog Days of Summer" Open in E-town I watched this player compete against a master and two experts and score 2.5 points. I had the unlucky task of having to play him in the last round but I was fortunate to win. Regardless of my win Josiah picked up 117 pts and moved into the A class. Watch out for this kid. He's coming to a tournament near you.

August meetings

August Leader Jim Hereford  293-3999                                  nightly leader

Aug 5         meeting    Cumberland Room CC          _______James Hereford__________

Aug 12       meeting    Cumberland Room CC          _______James Hereford__________

Aug 19       meeting    Cumberland Room CC          _______Tammi Blalock___________

Aug 26       meeting    Cumberland Room CC          _______Jenny Holcomb__________

Position #4

August 12 column exercises

Double rook type checkmates

 

XABCDEFGHY

8-+-+-+-+(

7+-+-+-+-'

6-+-+-+-+&

5+-+k+-+-%

4-tR-+-+-+$

3wQ-+-+-+-#

2-+-+-+-+"

1+-+-+-mK-!

xabcdefghy

 

1.  White to move and checkmate in 4 moves.  Notice that first the rook hems the king into the upper 4 rows, then the queen pushes the black king back off of the fifth row (counting from the bottom), then the queen hems the black king into three rows and the rook pushes him back.  The active piece is the one holding the black king back and the inactive piece is the one White wants to move.  This is an example of using your inactive pieces.

 

 

 

 

XABCDEFGHY

8-+-+-+-+(

7+-+-+-+-'

6-+-+-+-+&

5+-+-+-+-%

4-+-+k+-+$

3+R+-+-+-#

2-+-+-+-+"

1tR-+-+-mK-!

xabcdefghy

2.  White to move and checkmate more than 4 moves.  The reason is that the Black king should attack the rooks and the rooks will have to move from the left side to the right to the left.  Notice again that the active rook hems the king into the upper part of the board and the inactive one is the piece  that moves to push the black king toward the top of the board. 

Queen type checkmates

XABCDEFGHY
8-+k+-+-+(
7+p+-+-+-'
6p+-zP-sNl+&
5wQ-+-+-+-%
4-+-wq-+-+$
3+-+-+-zPn#
2-+-+-+-zP"
1+-+-+K+-!
xabcdefghy

Whichever player moves first wins.

 Notice that the pattern involves the king being against the edge of the board and is directly between the queen and the edge of the board.  The only thing left is that the queen be protected and not subject to capture.

 

XABCDEFGHY

8-+k+-+-+(

7+p+-+-+-'

6p+-z+-s+l+&

5wQ-+-+-+-%

4-+-wq-+N+$

3+-+-+-zPn#

2-+-+-+-zP"

1+-+-+K+-!

xabcdefghy

Notice that in this position there is no one move checkmate for either player.

 

 

Rules of chess

To see how each piece moves go to the rules of chess.

2013 Murray Calloway County Chess Championships

The Mur-Cal Chess Club hosted the 2013 County Championship Chess Championships on Saturday, August 3, 2013 at the Calloway County Public Library. The tournament attracted students from the Murray and Calloway systems as well as home schooled students.  Student awards were based on 2012-13 grade levels.

Nickolas Holcomb (2-0-2) successfully defended his title as the Primary (K-3) Champion.  Mason Lu (2-0-2) edged out the defending champion, Liam Hereford, for the Elementary (K-5) Title , Samuel Lewis (3-0-1) was a full point ahead of all other K-8 students and won the Middle School title.  Benjamen Thome (3-0-1) is the new High School Champion. 

The title of Challenger was won by Wayne Bell and consequently he will play a 4 game match with Josiah Hereford, the current champion, for the title of 2013 County Champion. 

Part of that match will be played at the Mur-Cal Chess Club which meets at the Curris Center on Mondays at 5-7 PM.  For a list of past County Champions see the Mur-Cal Chess Club website http://mur-calchess.blogspot.com/ .  For more information call Wayne Bell at 270-293-7675.