Author: harthousechess

June & July Activities at the HHCC

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Thanks for supporting the club in the first few weeks back in person. We will be hosting a few activities in the coming months. All HHCC activities are currently free since we are not charging membership fees at the moment.

Our first in-house blitz tournament of the year will be next Friday, June 17 at 7 PM ET in the Hart House Reading Room. Register on-site before 6:45 PM. Prizes are HHCC T-shirts. See the poster below.

Sahan Karunaratne will be leading beginner lessons starting Saturday, June 11th at 12 noon on Discord. He is a former HHCC Exec and has numerous years of experience teaching chess. See the poster below for more info. Beginners and intermediates are encouraged to join!

HHCC will be running weekly chess.com blitz arenas with monthly chess.com diamond memberships available. The exact date and time will be communicated through Discord.

Finally, weekly hangouts continue Fridays in the Hart House Reading Room throughout June, starting at 5pm ET and running until 11 pm ET.

Hart House Chess Club Returns!

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Today, Friday, May 20th, 2022, marked the return of the Hart House Chess Club to the chess scene in Toronto. For over 2 years, UofT chess enthusiasts and the general HHCC community were left without a staple in the chess community. The strong showing from 40+ UofT students, chess enthusiasts, and community members showed that the HHCC was still alive and well.

Paul Keres simul at Hart House on May 7th, 1975. He scored 25 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses.
The Toronto chess community, of all ages, showed up to the meetup (May 20th, 2022)

The storied halls of the Hart House, which had once seen the likes of Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, Paul Keres, and many more, were once again alive with the sounds of clocks banging and pieces dropping. Although masks were mandatory, as per UofT guidelines, you could tell that everyone was excited and happy to see the club return. New friends were made and connections rekindled. It felt like a return to normalcy.

As we slowly return from COVID-19, we hope you join us in our weekly hangouts happening Fridays 5 pm – 11 pm in the Hart House Reading Room. For those not local (or who can’t join us for our Friday hangouts), we hope to see you again in-person at our upcoming events and tournaments.

HHCC returned today to great fanfare. (May 20th, 2022)

Written by Victor Zheng, HHCC Communications Director

Return to In-Person Update

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The Hart House Chess Club will be returning in-person Fridays in the Hart House Reading Room from 5 pm – 9 pm starting May 20th. We have finally confirmed with Hart House that we are allowed to use the space!

Please remember that in-person activities follow University of Toronto COVID-19 policies. Right now, masks are required if distancing is not possible. Please also follow any directions from the HHCC Executive Board who will be supervising the in-person activities.

Stay tuned for in-person lectures, tournaments, and more in the coming months! Lichess and Discord HHCC presences will remain active for the time being as students and the HHCC community gradually returns back in-person.

Stay safe, and we hope to see you back in-person,

HHCC Executive Board 2022-2023

Support Hart House Chess Club

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For over 125 years, Hart House Chess Club has been the University of Toronto’s leader in the game of chess. Students, alumni, and community members alike all benefit from the rich ambiance, the chess lessons, and the great tournaments happening at the centre of U of T. Your support will ensure that Hart House Chess Club can continue to offer vital opportunities for students to learn the Royal Game and put their chess skills into practice, developing their capacities and sharing new student-life experiences.

Call for Support:

During its history, Hart House Chess Club has benefited crucially from the number of its members who have chosen to maintain their association and support of the Club beyond their time as students. This has helped the Club to maintain continuity not only of its existence but also of its character. Anyone who has played at the Club will attest to the liveliness of its atmosphere and the enthusiasm of its members. The stream of students who have come through its doors over the years consists of the whole range of players, from complete beginners to ones with international titles.

As the Chess Club moves into 130+ year of existence as U of T’s official Chess Club, its initiatives keep increasing, hitting record numbers of club members as well as internal and external events. More and more students get to enjoy the invaluable benefits of the game in a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. However, these rich activities have also resulted in increased costs, costs that we need your support to sustain.

Thanks to donors like you, many generations of UofT students have understood the value of having a space outside of academia where they can explore and engage in a diverse number of co-curricular chess-related activities, which ultimately provide extraordinary lessons of their own. No matter how small, any donation can help us continue to make progress, accommodating an ever-increasing number of students.

Make a Donation:

Every year, donations like yours help ensure the participation of our Varsity Chess Team in numerous events throughout the year and the continuation of our efforts towards making the Chess Club at U of T even better. Your financial support towards achieving these goals would be greatly appreciated.

If you wish to make a donation to the Chess Club:

  • You may do so online through the Hart House portal.  Once you finalize the process you will get a confirmation and you will be issued a tax receipt.
  • You may also write Hart House Chess Club a cheque, made payable to Hart House, in which case you will also get a tax receipt.

Public recognition will be offered to all those people who decide to support but donors may also choose to retain their anonymity.

We hope that, with your precious support, the work done at Hart House Chess Club will gain momentum and help build an even better future for generations of students to come.

Please note, you can also choose to support the Club through our online Merchandise page.

Ahmed Khalf — Co-Communications

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Ahmed is a second-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto pursuing a specialist in computer science. Motivated to beat his best friend, he started earnestly playing chess in high school. Aside from chess, Ahmed has various other hobbies, such as swimming and ice skating.

As a Communications Director for the Hart House Chess Club, he hopes to promote chess across campus and create a welcoming environment for all players. Being a new player himself, he expects to use his background to improve the experience of novice club members. Regardless of whether HHCC operates in-person or online, he hopes to make the best of it.

Tanner McNamara – Secretary & President

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Tanner is beginning his fourth year studying behavioural neuroscience at the Scarborough campus in the Psychology PhD program. He is focused on finding out what happens when we let rats drink alcohol, but he still finds time to enjoy chess. Tanner has played chess since the age of seven, after learning from his dad. Following mild success growing up in Maryland as a three-time state champion (Pre-Teen, Middle School, and High School), he went off to study at Carleton College. There he became President of the Chess Club and took a team to the Pan-American Intercollegiate Championship for the first time in school history in 2014. Despite earning awards for Biggest Team Upset and Top Small School, as well as an individual prize for Top Alternate, that team lost badly to a team from the University of Toronto.

Four years later, Tanner moved up north and switched sides, and now has represented the UofT at PanAms twice, as well as in other competitions, memorably at the World Prestigious University Invitational held in Tianjin, China in 2019. He is excited now to be starting his fourth consecutive term on the Executive Board serving as Secretary. He is happy to give back to the Club that has treated him so well and to continue working with the game that has brought him so much joy over the years.

Crystal Cao — Treasurer

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Crystal is a third-year PhD student at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering studying the mechanism of cancer drug resistance. Before coming to U of T for an undergrad degree in Engineering Science, Crystal played competitively during middle school and high school (provincial and national tournaments). She also served as the VP of her school chess club and organized school-wide chess competitions and tournaments with neighbouring schools. Crystal has been a Hart House Chess Club member since undergrad time and now is excited to serve as Treasurer to support the club!

Having had the great opportunities to enjoy all the fun in-person activities and tournaments hosted by HHCC, she hopes to help bring back in-person opportunities post COVID-19. This is the second consecutive term Crystal will be serving as the Treasurer of the club.

Victor Zheng — Co-Communications

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Victor is a second-year undergraduate student at U of T pursuing a specialist in Computer Science. Currently, he is one of the Communications Directors for the Hart House Chess Club and is thrilled to be a part of the club’s amazing history.

At a young age, Victor began chess with his 2 older brothers. He went on to play regularly in chess tournaments in his hometown of Vancouver, and frequently played at chess tournaments in BC. He has volunteered, coached, and played in numerous chess tournaments and has experience working with students. His biggest chess achievement was beating FM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux at the Canadian Chess Challenge in St. John’s in 2018. Believing in expanding the reach of chess to students regardless of their background, Victor started a chess club at his high school in 2019. Victor believes that chess can be taught to anyone, and strives to promote an open and hospitable environment for everyone at the HHCC.

Being in the footsteps of giants of the club has only further driven him to share his love for chess with the HHCC community. He recognizes the incredible legacy and the unbelievable impact that the HHCC has made on chess in Canada and looks forward to bringing the chess club and the Canadian chess community to even greater heights.

As the Co-Communications Director, he is responsible for the Club’s Discord, Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook pages. He is also responsible for maintaining and update the Club’s website. He is also the Club’s main tournament director and is the lead organizer of the Club’s many weekly events. He serves as the Chief Organizer for the Club’s Holidays Open and Reading Week events.

2022 Varsity Chess Team

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The members of U of T’s Varsity Chess Team represent U of T at various events throughout the year. The 2022 Varsity Chess Team is made up of the following students (by order of CFC rating):

CM Koosha Jaferian 

CFC: 2349

FIDE: 2218

NM Chris Knox

CFC: 2340

FIDE: 2187

NM Sergey Noritsyn

CFC: 2332

FIDE: 2111

NM Joseph Bellissimo

CFC: 2276

FIDE: 2203

WIM Yunshan Li 

CFC: unrated

FIDE: 2262

2021-2022 Ivy League Challenge

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On Friday, April 1st the Hart House Chess Club, at the University of Toronto, hosted the 4th annual Ivy League Challenge. The competition featured a modified online team battle where teams of students from the University of Toronto, University of Chicago, Princeton University, and the University of Waterloo battled it out in sets of intense matches to determine the dominating Chess power on the East coast. Being the second time that the event’s been held online, the event was carried out on the Lichess platform under 15m + 10s time controls, with each university fielding a full team of four players.

Team UofT was led by our very own CM Koosha Jaferian. A PhD student in computer science, with a lot more to show than just simple calculation, known for his strong positional play and being able to hold down the fort on board 1 even against the best of competition. On board 2 WIM Yunshan Li looked to replicate some of the recent successes she achieved at the KCF Cup, which included a 8/9 performance and a win over a grandmaster. Christopher Knox was slotted in on board 3, where he scored a sensational 5/5 at CUCC in February. Finally, to complete the line up Joseph Bellissimo returned back in the fold on board 4, ready to show us what we were missing out on in his temporary leave from competitive play.

On paper, UofT faced a tough field. UChicago brought two GMs to the event (Awonder Liang and Praveen Balakrishnan) while Princeton fielded one GM (Andrew Tang) and one IM (Daniel Gurevich). Waterloo, who edged us out at CUCC after a tense tiebreak, was also led by IM Michael Song on board one. Tension was high.

In the first round it was UChicago vs Waterloo and Princeton vs UofT. However, things didn’t go as planned for all the favourites. In a series of several exciting up-and-down battles, UChicago’s board 2 GM ended up falling to Waterloo’s Richard Chen and Princeton’s board 2 IM lost to UofT’s Yunshan Li! While Chicago overcame that setback to defeat Waterloo 3-1, Princeton was held to a standoff as as Chris Knox picked up a win on board 3 for UofT to tie the match to 2-2.

In round 2, UChicago looked to extend its lead against Princeton, while UofT hoped to avenge their narrow loss in the CUCC against their rivals at Waterloo. Following a nice win by Awonder Liang on board one in a matchup of GMs, Chicago went on to sweep Princeton 4-0. While Joseph won on board 4, draws on boards 2 and 3 resulted in UofT’s second consecutive tied match. Sadly despite having some chances in the wild game on board 3, Chris Knox was unable to successfully the hunt down of William Li’s fleeing King, ultimately leading to a draw. However, the round’s performance still left UofT only a full match point behind UChicago going into the last round.

With Princeton and Waterloo sitting on half a match point each, they were fighting in the last round to overtake UofT for second place. Hoping that UChicago could beat UofT. With a win, UofT would tie UChicago for first, but anything less would keep the door to second place wide open. With a quick draw against Koosha on board one, Awonder Liang secured the top board one prize. His teammates finished the job, sweeping the bottom three boards, and concluding a perfect event for Kapil Chandran (board 3) and William Graif (board 4). With UChicago well ahead on 3 match points and 10.5 game points, Princeton defeated Waterloo by the narrowest of margins (2.5-1.5) to edge the other teams for second place. Though they collected 1.5 match points to UofT’s 1 and Waterloo’s 0.5, all three teams finished second with a total of 4.5 game points.

At the end of the event, several prizes were awarded to individual players for their performances. After a last round draw, Richard Chen shared the board 2 prize with Praveen Balakrishnan. Furthermore based on their flawless results, Kapil Chandran and William Graif of UChigago won the best board 3 and board 4 categories. Finally, the best game prize of the event was awarded to Kapil Chandran’s final round victory over Chris Knox.

Despite such a bittersweet result, with opportunities to edge it out into a shared first place, UofT ended up placing 2nd. Several amazing performances by our board 2 and board 3, Yunshan Li and Chris Knox proved to be the backbone to the team’s success in the event. Currently, we hope to continue to build up our roster’s strength and come back stronger next year! We’re looking forward to taking the IVY League crown next season…

Acknowledgements
Special thanks to the Hart House Chess Club Executives for putting setting up the event. A further message of appreciation for Jonathan Yu for providing commentary and live coverage of the event on twitch. We’d also like to thank the other schools for their enthusiastic participation. We hope to welcome everyone back to Toronto for an in-person classical event next school year!