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!
Leslie Tang arrived a bit late for the tournament but this did not stop him from proving why he’s regarded as the friendliest kibitzer of the club!
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!
Joe Bellissimo had to overcome “Zeus’s” thunders before facing the “Great Jim”!
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.
“Why do these two bishops have to be of opposite color?”
As a result, the incredible Joe, a super polite UofT freshman, won the tournament convincingly, with a perfect score of 10 out of 10!
Joe Bellissimo was the proud winner of the 2018 Hart House Spring Blitz Tournament!
With 8 out of 10, Jim Zhao claimed second place, winning a $20 gift-card!
Silver-medal position for the strong National Master, Jim Zhao!
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!
Mr. Vadim Khachaturov tied for 2nd place climbing up 3 ranks from his starting rank!
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!
A wide smile and a bronze medal for the restless Ethan Moon!
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!
Alexandra Yao deservedly won the award for top woman of the tournament!
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!
Leon Yao (White) is facing Sahan Karunaratne (Black) for the U-1500 award!
After a hard-fought game, Leon managed to outplay Sahan and he became the U-1500 winner!
It took him a few extra rounds but this only made victory even sweeter for Leon Yao!
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!
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 1900Section, 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 1600Section 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:
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!
An exhibition of original chess cartoons by an anonymous cartoonist was put on display at the Hart House building for four days from February 16th through February 19th. The title of the exhibition was “Lost Game”, a political satire on contemporary political issues in Europe and Canada.
The exhibition was scheduled to take place during the Hart House Reading Week Open. In this way, more than 200 people had the opportunity to view 35 pieces of original chess cartoon artwork!
The collection was on display first at the Hart House Reading Room, Feb. 16th, 4-10 pm and then at the Great Hall, Feb. 17-19, 10 am – 10 pm.
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!
Two familiar faces locked in an epic battle till judgment day!
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!
The last-round match between Jon and Jim would determine the tournament winner!
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!
Another chess distinction for our Great Jim!
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!
Seiji Nakagawa continued his streak of great chess results!
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!
Aliaj Jurgen was the pleasant surprise of the tournament!
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!
A very good performance for Isabelle Xu, who won the top woman award!
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!
Final Tournament Cross-table
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)!
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.
Our own Andy Liao (Black) facing Shallow Blue (White)
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!
Earlier this month Hart House Chess Club continued its long-held tradition of representing the University of Toronto at the annual Canadian University Chess Championship. This year’s tournament, which was held at the University of Ottawa on January 13-14, featured five Hart House teams which courageously battled against schools from across Canada in an attempt to win the prestigious title of Canadian Champion for a third consecutive year.
CUCC 2018: A Memoir
The competition was challenging even for the club’s most experienced players. Jimmy Bartha, the Chess Club’s treasurer, offers a brief summary of the year’s most exciting weekend of chess:
“The members of Hart House Chess Club who travelled to Ottawa for the weekend displayed a tremendous amount of sportsmanship and performed exceptionally well. Our A team consisting of Christopher Knox (President), Mark Plotkin, Jim Zhao, and Zehn Nasir finished tied for second place with long-time rivals McGill. They narrowly missed a chance to defeat the eventual first place finishers from Waterloo. In the Reserves section, our C and D teams finished tied for fourth place. While we were unable to defend our title as Canadian Champions, our team is determined and already making plans to reclaim the throne at next year’s championship in Hamilton!”
Jimmy Bartha played Board 3 on Univ. of Toronto “C”
The Chess Club executive this year has placed a strong emphasis on expanding its membership and encouraging participation by both new and experienced players alike. For Alexandra Yao, this year’s championship was an opportunity to showcase and improve her chess while enjoying the camaraderie displayed amongst our players and visiting some of the sites our national capital has to offer.
“In order to visit Parliament Hill and roam downtown Ottawa the day before the tournament, I took the earlier bus apart from my UofT teammates. To my surprise, on that very bus I met teams from other universities who were also participating in the CUCC, and the long road trip quickly flew by as we developed a friendship over our love of the game.
Despite the snowstorm on Friday evening, 30 participants made it to the blitz tournament. We relaxed and got to know one another over a few games of bughouse before diving into 10 rounds of 5.0 blitz.
CUCC provides a chance for competition but also for social interaction and team bonding!
During the tournament proper, I was surprised to find each of my opponents happy to analyze our games afterwards. They patiently demonstrated key moments of the game with me and we discussed stronger lines that could have played. I had analyzed games with my own teammates before, but I had not expected the same practice from unfamiliar opponents, especially after spending hours trying to trap and attack each others’ pieces across the board. Instead, my opponents were encouraging and insightful, and I was struck by their sportsmanship. I learned that many of the higher rated players knew one another well, and had grown up attending the same weekly chess tournaments together.
UofT boasted the most attending players, with a total of 5 teams. Teams played side-by-side and we wished each other good luck, occasionally glancing over at one another’s boards mid-game to take note and analyze afterwards. Eating and laughing together in the lounge, we enjoyed great camaraderie. At the end of the day, chess is a game of war, and it was assuring to have my teammates by my side both in battle and in post-game analysis.
Alexandra Yao: “For the entire weekend, we did nothing but live and breathe chess!”
When players weren’t competing, we were analyzing, spectating, watching GM 1.0 blitz live streams, and even joking about wild chess openings. For the entire weekend, we did nothing but live and breathe chess. It was an honor to represent UofT at the CUCC and a truly unforgettable experience.”
The Competition
The Canadian University Chess Championship is traditionally split into two Divisions: the Competitive Section (Group A) and the Reserves Section (Group B). University of Toronto registered two teams in Group A and three teams in Group B! Team “A”, which was led by National Master and Hart House Chess Club Secretary/President, Chris Knox, finished the tournament undefeated, tying for second place!
National Master, Chris Knox, led U of T’s Team “A”
The competition on Group A was really fierce and Team “A”, seeded #2 in the starting list, was paired against all the favorites (Teams #1, #3, #4, #5 and #6), drawing its matches against #1, #3 and #6 and winning against #4 and #5.
The critical match took place on Round 3, when UofT “A” was facing Waterloo “A”, the tournament’s top seed. Things started out pretty well for U of T, with Chris Knox defeating IM Michael Song on board 1 and Jim Zhao and Zehn Nasir drawing their games on boards 3 and 4 against Diwen Si and Toni Lin respectively. A draw on board 2, in the game of Mark Plotkin against Zi Yi Quin would have been enough for U of T to clinch the match! Mark had the better chances and so he decided to play for the full point but a couple of inaccuracies allowed his opponent to escape and to even seize the initiative, scoring a decisive victory and drawing the match for his team.
“Oopsie!” Mark Plotkin realizes he should have picked the other plan
Three teams, Waterloo “A”, UofT “A” and McGill “A” entered the last round with 3 points. Waterloo defeated U of Ottawa pretty convincingly, whereas UofT was paired against McGill. The match between the two old rivals ended in a draw cancelling both teams chances for winning the precious trophy. As a result, Waterloo finished clear first, dethroning UofT and becoming the new 2018 Canadian University Chess Champion!
“Nasty little thieves, they stole our precious”
For University of Toronto “B”, participation in the Competitive League would have seemed like an uphill struggle as the team was the bottom seed in the competition. However, the four players on Team A really rose to the challenge, scoring 1.5 points in 5 games, climbing one rank up their starting rank and overtaking Waterloo “B” in the final standings (not against our Team “B” too Waterloo 🙂 )!
UofT “B” had a challenging tournament but the players rose to the occasion
2018 Canadian University Chess Championship – Group A / Final Team Standings
1. University of Waterloo A (2400) – 4.0pt
2-3. University of Toronto A (2292) – 3.5pt
2-3. McGill University A (2201) – 3.5pt
4. Queens University (1943) – 3pt
5-6. University of Ottawa (2242) – 2.5pt
5-6. Carleton University A (2122) – 2.5pt
7. University of Western Ontario A (2097) – 2pt
8-9. McGill University B (1928) – 1.5pt
8-9. University of Toronto B (1811) – 1.5pt
10. University of Waterloo B (1881) – 1pt
University of Toronto A: “We’ll be back and we’ll beat Wat!”
In the Reserves Section the competition between the 18 contestants, representing 10 Universities, was also quite strong! With 5 wins in 5 games, University of Western Ontario C (1596) was the sole and uncontested winner of the League! Interestingly enough, the champions did not get to face McGill C (1495), the runner-up team, which scored 4 out of 5 without suffering any defeats.
UofT “C” started-out with 2.5/3 but in the last two rounds the advance of the UofTears was painfully repelled…
In the same division, UofT’s Teams “C” (1490) and “D” (1258) scored 3 points in 5 games and tied for places 3-7. Based on the tournament tie-breaking criteria, Team “C” was 4th and Team “D” placed 7th.
Three points out of five games and a tie for 3rd place in Group B! A remarkable success for UofT “D”!
Finally, U of T’s Team “E” (843) made an amazing effort and played some tough games against more experienced opponents, gaining substantial experience for the future!
Leah Yapp and Asmir Abihi – First time playing in a big chess tournament!
Unfortunately, Team “E” had to start each round with a handicap, playing with only 3 players, that is with an empty board, as Team A’s Loyd Mai (2353), did not make it to Ottawa, resulting in a change in the line-ups of all the teams and leaving Team “E” with one player short. Still, the team scored one point, tying for places 17th-18th but beating University of Ottawa “D” in the tiebreakers, as UofT players had scored more individual victories!
Playing with an empty board did not prevent Team “E”‘s players from enjoying the tournament!
Setting a new CUCC Record
This years’ CUCC was hosted by the University of Ottawa. Chief Organizer of this very successful tournament was the incredible Vice President of Ottawa Chess Club, Zach Dukic, who also played on Board 3 for U of Ottawa’s Team “A”.
Lots of extra work and distraction for Tournament Organizer, Zach Dukic, yet he still came within one move of beating Waterloo Board 2 Joey Qin in the last round!
The tournament was held in the hospitable and fairly spacious Desmarais building. According to Dukic, with a total number of 114 participants, this year’s event “set a record for the largest participation in CUCC history!” Indeed, the playing hall was packed with dozens of players, proudly representing their respective Universities! As previously mentioned, U of T was the top chess-player sponsor, by sending out the greatest number of teams and the biggest delegation of players!
The Desmarais Hall proved very accommodating
Out of the 114 players, who signed up for the CUCC 2018, 30 brave ones made the treacherous journey through the snowstorm to participate in a 5.0, 10-round blitz tournament on Friday night (Jan. 12th)! The 150 dollar prize fund, which was generously provided by an anonymous donor, was split 3 ways due to a 3-way tie for first between Tony Bao, Terry Song, and Maroun Tomb, each of whom scored 7.5 points in 10 games.
2018 CUCC Blitz Tourney / Final Standings
Of course, this success wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work and passion of a team of dedicated organizers and volunteers. The RA and Hull Chess Clubs, generously lent chess sets and clocks so that this event could be a success. The very organized and responsible Halldor Palsson, served us the Tournament Director, making sure that everything would go according to plan. John Upper, was present at the event on both days to take many pictures of the playing hall and the players so that the amazing action that took place in the playing could be communicated beyond the four walls of the Desmarais building. Finally, a triad of co-organizers, Misha Voloaca and Sebastian Tansil helped Dukic make the website, reserve the venue and prepare lunch on Saturday.
“You guys did it – you set a record for the largest participation in CUCC history at 114 players”
Next year, the CUCC will be hosted in Hamilton by McMaster University! In his closing statement, Dukic wished good luck to next year’s organizers and thanked all his colleagues – and especially the participants – for the success of the 2018 CUCC. “It warms my heart to see that even as we grow into adults, peer off into separate directions and pursue careers, there will always be a time where we can put our personal lives on hold and meet back at square one, the starting point where we first crossed paths. The chess community among universities is clearly alive and well, and I speak on behalf of the University of Ottawa when I say we can’t wait to see you all next year at McMaster. Until then, I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors.”
