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Starting on Friday, March 2nd and ending on April 6th, Hart House Chess Club  ran a series of workshops for first-time chess players, introducing them to the movements of the pieces and the rules of the game. These lessons were taught by Varsity chess player, Panayoti Tsialas, and they were addressed addressed to students who wanted to learn how to play the royal game!

The first workshops covered the basic rules of the game and the later ones discussed the rudiments of the strategy & tactics of chess. The course took place at the Hart House Reading Room, 5-6 pm and it was completed in 6 weeks.

The topics covered included: The Pieces and their Movements/ En passant, Pawn Promotion, Castling / Check, Checkmate, Stalemate / Basic Pawn-less Endgames / The Names of the Squares /Short and Long Algebraic Notation

Teaching material and ideas were taken from Learning Chess (Step 1), by Rob Brunia and For van Wijgerden, and Chess Camp (Volumes 1-4), by Igor Sukhin, copies of which could be found in the Chess Club Library.

Panayoti would like to thank each and every one of his students for their very active participation, which made this workshop a success: Rena, Zara, Giwa, Zinnia, Constantine and Yasser!

We hope to see you again next year in our more advanced workshops!

 

From January 26th until March 30th Hart House Chess Club and its experienced coach and ex-Varsity member Jonathan Yu offered a series of lessons for intermediate level players. Activities included practice games, problem solving tactics, endgame theory, middlegame strategy, and master game analysis. The worship ran for 8 Fridays, it attracted more than 15 students and it took place in the Hart House Reading Room 6-7 pm.

The course was mainly aimed at upper beginners to intermediate players (CFC 1200-1750). It built on what was learnt in the previous semester with Panayoti Tsialas and attempts were made to cover different topics. The workshop emphasized practical play (80% Practical, 20% Theory) and the main topic was exchanging pieces. To accommodate the potentially diverse skill level of the class, starting from lecture 2, two examples were given at once to illustrate important concepts. One was labelled “interesting” and the other more “complex”. The instructor first introduced fundamental positions and tried to cover the result of them. Then he invited the class to reach these positions in their games through exchanges.

According to Jonathan, “the primary objectives of the course were to have fun learning chess and hopefully we become stronger players; including myself!”

The topics that were covered included: Attacking the castled king, focal points and “the Greek Gift” / Intro to Chess – An overview of the Course / Mating Nets / Won Endgames / Middlegame – Isolated Queen Pawn / Introduction to Exchanges / Middlegame – Exchanges of uneven material (sacrifices), trading bad pieces for good pieces / Endgame – Exchanges of even material.

Teaching material and ideas were taken from The Art of Attack In Chess, by Vladimir Vukovic, Reassess your Chess, by Jeremy Silman and from other sources.

It was a very popular workshop and Jonathan would like to thank all his students for attending the class and contributing their energy and innovative ideas! Hart House Chess Club wishes to extend a heartfelt thanks to Jonathan for the precious time an effort, which he generously volunteers to the club. He’s been an amazing source of inspiration for all of us.

 

On Friday, March 16th, 2018, Hart House Chess Club held its annual executive board elections. Based on a recent constitutional amendment, the number of club executives for the new year increased by one, thereby creating six executive seats that had to be filled.

At 6 p.m. the old execs were joined  by more than 20 club members as well as the Club’s Alumni Chair, Ben Hahn, who was in charge of running the elections. Chris Knox, twice Secretary of the Club, and Peter Vuong, who served as External Events Coordinator for two terms announced that they were not planning to run again and spoke passionately about their amazing experiences as club executives, in the middle of enthusiastic claps by the members.  Andy Liao, the Club’s Fundraiser, also decided not to re-run for an executive position. Hart House Chess Club is really grateful to all three of them for their services.

On the bright side, many members expressed a strong interest in becoming involved with the club government. After a series of very close votes, the brand new Executive Board for the year 2018-19 is:

Club Secretary: Leslie Tang
External Events Coordinator: Sahan Karunaratne
Communications Director #1: Alexandra Yao
Communications Director #2: Zehn Nasir
Treasurer: Jimmy Bartha
Fundraiser: Panayoti Tsialas

We wish them good luck in their difficult but exciting task and we thank everybody else who participated in the process either as a candidate or as a voter. Finally, since the Club is always happy and thankful to get support from its members, we welcome anybody who is interested in volunteering some work to help the club pursue its mission!

On Wednesday, March 14th, Hart House Chess Club joined the University College Athletics Commission as they encouraged students to train their minds by taking part in stimulating and fun games!

Our chess club was really excited to collaborate with the Atletics Commission to bring UC and UofT students an opportunity to either try chess for the first time or advance their chess skills. About 15 students stopped by for some drop-in chess with our club members or with their own friends!  The games were supervised by members of the Athletics Commission and of Hart House Chess Club, which was represented in the event by two of its executive members, Jimmy Bartha and Panayoti Tsialas!

The hosts treated their guests to some delicious pizza and gave out more than 50 Diabolos’ Coffee Bar coffee/tea/pastry certificates to enthusiastic participants & winners throughout the night.

We were delighted to be a part of this event and we are looking forward to collaborating again with UC in the future!

On Friday, March 9th, our chess club proudly hosted its 2018 Spring Hart House Blitz Tournament, a 5 double-round Swiss tourney, open to chess enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels (time control: 3′ +2”)! Despite the midterms, almost 30 players participated in the competition, with even more joining us, as viewers or kibitzers!

The competition at the top tables was friendly and joyful but also very suspenseful! After Round 4, two players had an unbeatable streak of 4 match-victories, making them the solid candidates for the crown. As we entered the last round, the stakes for 2nd seed, Joseph Bellissimo, and 3rd seed, Jim Zhao, were high. Simply stated, the winner in this match would become the Spring Hart House Blitz Champion!

In the critical match, Jim (also known as “the Great Jim”) misplayed his first game and lost to Joe with black. This defeat meant that he had to press a lot with white, in order to win the second game, tie the match and send it to the playoffs. However, Joe defended successfully, leading the game into a dead-drawn, opposite-colored bishop endgame. Seeing that there were zero chances for a win, Jim agreed on a draw.

As a result, the incredible Joe, a super polite UofT freshman, won the tournament convincingly, with a perfect score of 10 out of 10!

With 8 out of 10, Jim Zhao claimed second place, winning a $20 gift-card!

A pleasant surprise in the tournament was the performance of Mr. Vadim Khachaturov, who tied for second place, scoring 8 out of 10 and losing only to Jim!

However, the third top-finisher award went to our own, super fast and resulted, Ethan Moon, who tied for 4th place, scoring a convincing 7 out of 10!

The tournament award for the top woman was won by Alexandra Yao, a dedicated club member, whose hard work is only matched by her steady progress as a chess player!

Finally, the battle for the U-1500 rating award was a real thriller as seven UofT students tied with 5 out of 10. After two rounds of play-offs, the seven contenders were reduced to two, Leon Yao and Sahan Karunaratne! The one who would prevail in a blitz death-match, would become the U-1500 award winner!

 

After a hard-fought game, Leon managed to outplay Sahan and he became the U-1500 winner!

Twenty-eight people took part in the competition, which lasted for about 2 hours and 30 minutes! The tournament was administered by Panayoti Tsialas, who was generously assisted in his job by Chris Knox, Jimmy Bartha, Edward Chan and Peter Vuong!

We would like to congratulate the winners for their distinction and thank all the players for their participation! We really hope to see you all again in our future events!

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From Saturday, February 17th through Monday February 19th, a record number of 186 chess players, organized in six rating-based sections, competed in the 2018 Hart House Reading Week Open!

Hart House Chess Club was the host of this exciting and huge Open Tournament, which probably set a new record for Toronto chess tournaments in recent years! Canadian as well as International chess enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels packed the majestic Great Hall and the proud winners shared the very generous prizes, in the total amount of over $7,000!

Most credit for this success goes undoubtedly to Alex Ferreira, the amazing Tournament Director! Alex has been the soul of the Reading Week Open for over a decade and his hard and dedicated efforts have elevated this Open Tournament to one of the most celebrated chess events in all of Canada! Just like in the Holidays Open, Alex ran the Reading Week tournament with a team of formidable colleagues, each of whom is also worthy of some high praise!

In spite of the big number of participants and the many different sections, which resulted in huge workload, Tyler Longo, the Chief Arbiter of the Tournament, administered the pairings, the results and the standings of each round flawlessly. Chris Knox, the omnipresent Secretary/President of Hart House Chess Club, coordinated everybody’s efforts, making sure that the tournament would indeed be a great success. Peter Vuong, our Club’s External Events Co-ordinator, handled the challenging processes of registration and fee-payment with remarkable professionalism. Tasked with advertising, promoting and reporting on the tournament info, our Club’s Director of Communications, Panayoti Tsialas, offered a beautifully designed tournament poster and a rich gallery of pictures and videos. As for our Club Treasurer, Jimmy Bartha, he dealt very successfully with the financial accounting of the tournament. Finally, on every single day of the tournament, our longtime volunteer and U of T alumnus, Andrew MacMillan, was the first one to arrive and the last one to leave the playing hall, bringing in two fully-loaded carts of chess materials, setting up and taking down chess boards, scoresheets and timers for more than 80 boards and making sure that the club’s equipment would not be damaged or lost.

This amazing team of volunteers worked together to organize a successful six-round tournament, which will, hopefully, be remembered as a generous service to the chess community both for in terms of its quality as well as in term of its record turnout!

Special thanks is owed to the people at the Hart House Hub (Lynsay, Mauro, Juan, Cynthia, Steven, Grace, Aster, Victoria and all the others), who were always helpful and friendly in the reception of the players, but our warmest thanks goes out to the parents, who remained with the children-participants throughout the day, making it possible for these young chess-players to practice their favorite game!

In terms of individual results, in the Crown Section, International Masters Nikolay Noritsyn and Leonid Gerzhoy were joined in first place by Richard Chen. Each of them scored 4.5/6 so the prizes was split into three equal shares.

In the Under 2200 Section, Annex Chess Club’s Daniel Wiebe finished clear first with 5/6 and four players tied for 2nd-4th places with 4.5/6: Amirsalar Javidfard, Jonathan Yu and Nameer Issani.

In the Under 1900 Section, it was Dumitru Mindrigan who won gold with a splendid performance of 5 wins and 1 drawn in 6 games! Kumar Sharma was second with 5/6 and Alberto Ranola scored 4.5/6 and tied for third place with Mr. Vadim Khachaturov.

In the Under 1600 Section the unstoppable Bhavatharshan Jeyakumar performed formidably and claimed first place with 5.5/6. The silver medal went to our own Jack Moore who scored 5/6 losing only to the gold medalist. Finally, the third place was shared by three players who scored 4.5/6: Austin Xie, Amy Ai and Evgeny Kalmanson.

With 5.5/6, Rohit Skumar was the proud and sole winner of the Under 1300 Section but two more players won prizes by scoring 5/6, thereby tying for 2nd place: Dylan Xiong and Noah Ripley.

Finally, the Under 1000 Section saw three (!) gold medalists, each of whom scored 5 points in 6 games: Jacob Gaisinsky, Valery Stroganov and Danylo Glinnyi.

For the complete List of Participants and for a a full record of the Pairings, Results and Final Standing in each Section of the Tournament, click on following links:

• Participants List
• Parings and Results
• Final Standing

You can also check out the Photo Gallery and the promotional video of the tournament.

Many thanks to every person who contributed to the success of the 2018 Hart House Reading Week Open (players, organizers, parents) and congratulations to the winners of the respective sections!

See you all at our next Open Tournament in December 2018!

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2018 Hart House Reading Week Open
Starting List of Players 

– Crown Section
– U-2200 Section
– U-1900 Section
– U-1600 Section
– U-1300 Section
– U-1000 Section

It started as yet another casual, student chess tournament but it quickly became clear that, this time, it would be much more than that! This year’s Hart House Winter Rapid Tournament attracted almost 30 students of all skills and ages, offering a unique opportunity to compete and have fun in a five-round swiss tournament of rapid chess!

The competition in the top boards was pretty fierce and some of the participants were really strong player. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was super friendly and truly recreational, with lots of giggling, post mortem analysis and friendly teasing! Besides, the club held its regular open chess play on top of the Rapid Chess Tournament!

The time control in the tournament was 15′ + 3″ for each player and gift-prizes were awarded to the top three finishers and the top woman in the final ranking. One of the most remarkable aspects of the games was the real-tournament conditions – especially the quiet that all participants duly kept throughout the five rounds. It felt as though the games were official!

After four exciting rounds, with some beautiful games and a few surprising upsets, the two leaders in the tournament, Jonathan Yu and Jim Zhao, were ready to cross their blades in a thrilling death-match!

After some piece trades, the position in the game was simplified into a fairly draw-ish knight endgame. At that moment Jonathan decided to push for a victory but a couple of inaccuracies handed the initiative and, eventually, the full point over to Jim, who became the sole winner of the 2018 HH Winter Rapid Tournament, with a perfect score of 5 out of 5!

Four more players had a very good tournament and managed to score 4 points out of 5 games but, in the end, the silver-medal award went to UTM’s Seiji Nakagawa!

The big surprise of the games, however, was the splendid performance of the, yet unrated, Aliaj Jurgen! Aliaj, who was 25th in the starting list of players, managed to climb all the way up to tying for second, beating the top seed of the tournament and losing only to Seiji!

Finally, the award for the top woman was deservedly won by Isabelle Xu! The winner in this category was practically decided in the 4th round when the two contenders for the prize, Isabelle and Alexandra Yao played each other in a very interesting game, in which Isabelle managed to prevail!

Our wonderful alumni, Kit Ng and Jonathan Yu deserve an honorable mention for scoring a convincing 4 out of 5, placing them among the contenders for 2nd place! That said, we would like to congratulate all 29 players for their participation and their fighting spirit!

The tournament was run by Alex Ferreira and Panayoti Tsialas, who were assisted in their job by Haizhou Xu. Panayoti also thanked the participants in the tournament and awarded the prizes to the four winners!

We are looking forward to seeing you again for classical chess at the HH Reading Week Open (Feb. 17-19) or for some fast games at the HH Spring Blitz Tournament (Mar. 9th)!

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We first met him at the Hart House Reading Room, during our club’s open chess play, when he walked through the main door and challenged one of the strongest players in of our team, Chris Knox! His name is Rhys Rustad-Elliott and he is the creator of a chess engine called “Shallow Blue”. He is also a second-year UofT student, don his major in Computer Science.

Chris’s chess skills proved too much for “Shallow Blue” but Rhys did not give up. He worked hard to improve the ability of his little beastie and, two months later, here he comes again for another challenge, this time against Andy Liao, one of our club’s execs. After an exciting rapid battle in a Slav-defense, Andy’s position started getting worse and, around move 50, our club’s fundraiser threw in the towel. It was now Panayoti Tsialas’s turn to sit down and play “Shallow Blue”. The engine conducted the opening very accurately but its middle-game strategy was not as good, resulting in a long term disadvantage, which Panayoti duly converted into a full point.

It was after we witnessed “Shallow Blue’s” terrific progress that we decided to invite its intelligent and very engaging creator for a lecture at Hart House Chess Club.

But what would the topic be?

Well. Our creative idea was to first watch a documentary on AI, humans and board games and then ask our guest lecturer to reflect on the subject of the film and provide his unique insights as creator of a brute force engine! And what better movies could we have found than the 2017 documentary “AlphaGo”!

Directed by Greg Kohs with an original score by Academy Award nominee, Hauschka, “AlphaGo” chronicles a journey from the halls of Oxford, through the backstreets of Bordeaux, past the coding terminals of Google DeepMind in London, and ultimately, to a seven-day challenge match in Seoul between “Alpha Go” and Lee Sedol!

After the movie, Rhys Rustad-Elliott, gave us a thrilling lecture on Computers, Chess and AI! Should the evolution of AI make us nervous? How do you teach a brute force engine how to play chess and beat a Grandmaster? Are engines capable of generating original ideas? Those were only some of the interesting questions addressed by Rhys!

Rhys, who is originally from Vancouver, had an interest in Computer Science and Software Engineering since elementary school, when he started toying around with simple programs in Python. Nowadays, he’s interested in a wide variety of Computer Science related topics and recently finished work on his chess engine, Shallow Blue (a play on words of Deep Blue).

It was a privilege to have hosted Rhys for an elite lecture and an even greater honor to have interviewed him after his lecture!