Location: Hardee’s 1810 South Main Street
Time: Thursdays from 7:00 PM until 10:00 PM

So read on for things coming up for chess in the Joplin area. If you have other chess related items, let me know and I’ll get it posted.  A few things coming up (details after the break): Study night, Club Quick Tournament, and a standard (possibly two day) tournament in March.

Chess Study Night

Starting January 5th, there will be a chess study night. Right now the plan is for every Wednesday night, from 7:00 p.m. until around 10:00 p.m. at Hardee’s on Main: 1810 South Main Street.

The first few nights will be informal study sessions though the overall format may change based on interest and involvement of other people. Please contact me if you have questions or suggestions. I will post updates on the site if plans change.

Chess Club Quick Tournament

Starting in January, the club is holding a rated, double round robin Quick tournament. Games will be played during the Joplin Chess Club meetings over a couple of months, depending on the number of people that are playing and when opponents can get together.

Opponents can play each other during club meetings as long as a TD is available. Our hope is that a couple of games will be played each week, leaving time for people to also play some casual games.

Entry fee (to cover ratings) will be $1, with no prizes. G/25 with a 5 sec delay will be used. Games will be Quick rated only.

Tournament

The club is planning on holding a full tournament the first weekend of March. Final location and details have not been determined at this point, though hopefully that will be done soon. At this point, the plan is for a 2-day event, though we may have to go with a 1-day, due to cost of the locations. Keep checking back for more details and I will be sending them out as soon as everything is finalized.

Miscellaneous

The Joplin Chess Club has a new Club Tournament Director: Joel Stebbins. Joel plans on helping out with a couple of events first and with two directors we hope to be able to have more events throughout the year. If you know of any good locations to hold tournaments, please let Joel or I know.

I also want to congratulate a couple of our local players for their performance over the past year:

• James Smith: James has had a great year, gaining almost 400 rating points since his 1st tournament of 2010. He also was the 2010 Denker representative for MO. If he keeps up the training and tournament results, he’ll be an Expert soon.
• Joel Stebbins: Joel has seen a 300 point gain this year, finishing 1st with a perfect 5.0 in the reserve section of the 65th Annual Oklahoma State Championship and 1st in the Class B section of the MO Class Championships.

I hope everyone has had a good year and has a Happy New Year. See you at the board.

So stay tuned and keep checking back.

More details can be found on the Clubs page

I hope this year to be a bit more productive and finally talk some other local players to contribute some articles, games, etc to the site. I have renewed the domain name, so barring any unforeseen circumstances, I hope we will be around for many years to come.

So please, if you have any news, tournaments or anything else you feel would benefit local chess or is about chess in the area, please let me know.  Remember, this site is geared to chess in the area in general, is not dedicated to any particular club or group and welcomes your participation.

Thank you for continuing to visit and I look forward to continuing the chess journey with all of you.

As in past events, there were two sections, with the break being at USCF 1250.

In the upper section, Daniel Todd and Joel Stebbins tied for 1st place and 3rd went to James Smith. The standings, based on tie breaks were:

1. Daniel Todd 4.0
2. Joel Stebbins 4.0
3. James Smith 3.0

In the reserve section, Chris Killinger and Andrew Souder tied for 1st place and 3rd went to Devon Stahl. The standings, based on tie breaks were:

1. Chris Killinger 3.0
2. Andrew Souder 3.0
3. Devon Stahl 2.5

The full cross table, without the tie breaks, is available at the USCF site.

Again, I want to thank all the players for coming and Dalton-Killinger Construction for letting us use the room. Hope to see you all again at our next event (details posted as soon as I have them finalized).

Free is always the best but low cost solutions may also be possible. I hope to have it so that entry fees can remain low and still be able to provide a decent prize fund. Hopefully, chess events will begin drawing more attendees, making it easier to book a location and still meet those goals. At this time, we are still trying to grow interest and having free locations seems to work out best.

In the future I hope to have the club sponsor some scholastic events and even some free, unrated events. Having a number of places lined up would help greatly with that. The only real stipulations that a location would have, other than the low or free cost, would be allowing the club to charge entry fees to the event in order to pay out prizes. Some of the locations I have found don’t allow usage if entry fees are charged. Of course, any free events wouldn’t have that issue.

Anyway, if anyone out there has some ideas, if you know of locations that could be used or you have a location, then please let me know. You can contact me at martin.stahl@joplinchess.org.

There were two sections for prizes, with the reserve section being those players rated under 1200 USCF (average rating was actually 1158)

In the over 1200 group there were no ties and the standings were:

1. Daniel Todd 5.0
2. Christopher Talbot 4.0
3. Robert Talbot 3.0

In the under 1200 group there was a 1st and 2nd place tie between Justin Holland and David King with 2 wins each. There was also a tie, with 1 point each, for 3rd and 4th between Devon Stahl and Andrew Souder. Though we only had cash prizes, the 1st-3rd place standings with tie breaks were:

1. Justin Holland 2.0
2. David King 2.0
3. Devon Stahl 1.0

The full cross table, without the tie breaks, is available at the USCF site.

I would again like to thank all the players for coming out and enjoying a day of chess. Also, I want to give thanks to the First Baptist Church of Galena for allowing us to use their site for the tournament.

As soon as a location is finalized, I will have details on the next tournament posted. Hope to see you there.

I want to take a moment to congratulate Joplin Chess Club members James Smith who tied for 2nd/3rd place with 4 wins in the under 1600 section and Jonah Smith for taking 1st with 5 wins, a perfect score, in the under 900 section. Jacob Smith, another Chess Club member, also did very well, with 3 wins in the under 1200 section.

Congratulations to you all. Keep up the good work.

There were two sections for prizes, with the reserve section being those players rated under 1000 USCF.

In the over 1000 group Daniel Todd received 1st place with 5 wins. Brian Gahagan and Robert Talbot tied for 2nd with 3 wins each. Although we only had cash prizes this time, the 1st-3rd place standings with tie breaks were:

1. Daniel Todd
2. Brian Gahagan
3. Robert Talbot

In the 1000 and under group there was a 1st place tie between Chris Killinger and Justin Holland with 3 wins. There was a three-way tie, with 2 points each, for 3rd between Devon Stahl, Andrew Souder and Tywan Anthony. The 1st-3rd place standings with tie breaks were:

1. Chris Killinger
2. Justin Holland
3. Devon Stahl

The full cross table, without the tie breaks, is available at the USCF site. I want to thank all the players, Dalton-Killinger Construction for use of the room and everyone that helped in the process. A special thanks to Bart Gibbons for all his help and suggestions. I learned some good lessons on my first tournament as a director and look forward to the next one.

I hope to see everyone there.