Tournament last Wednesday and tomorrow. The bane this week has been more about silly t-shirts than Chess, but will hope to have time to talk about things in the next few days.

Sleep now, up early and set-up the venue.

We’re serving lunch to all the players, so that’s an added bit that most TD’s and Assistant TD’s don’t have to bargain for… I wonder if that’s in the USCF TD certification program??? (smile)

Receiving nine more registrations from hearing students today… makes 21 pre-registered altogether for tomorrow’s tournament.

Running mock tournament with actual names to input the players now and to get familiar with all the buttons and whistles once again.

UPDATE… it’s 2233 and about ready to call it a day. We received 33 pre-registrations for the school-wide tournament tomorrow. Sixteen boards and also hoping to get some teachers to play in the Booster section… long-shot, but have it set-up in case. We’ll be setting up a table for free Gospel books to be given away and hoping to get some of the hearing kids interested in attending Chess Club on Saturdays. After tomorrow, we’ll be preparing for Saturday… have a few dozen t-shirts to make by Friday and lots of work ahead. Time to hit the hay and get some sleep. Thanks for all your prayers.

Received 12 registration forms from the hearing students so far who will play at the School tournament on the 11th. Since there is no rating system here and pairings need to be as equal as can be, I asked a question about the names of pieces to get a rudimentary idea… ten got it right with one of those having crossed out a selection.

Looks like we’ll have more hearing students than deaf students playing, but in the RPI, you just never know what will be in your box of chocolates (apologies to Forrest Gump).

Last Wednesday, I worked with the Deaf students on scorekeeping and gave them some homework. Yesterday, we went over one of the papers (a 15 move partial game). I had a coterie of students sitting around the board watching and learning. After all this time, looks like I’ve hit on a method that works far better than a classroom-type setting for these students. It fits my style of mentoring and discipling a lot better, but have been reluctant to do it, since using it with the hearing has resulted previously with most not focusing and wandering off. The Deaf students actually clustered around – girls included (which is always fantastic to see, especially here).

I have an interesting aside here… on Wednesday, when reviewing how to keep score and notate moves, one of the students was having difficulty. He’s 21 (yes, in elementary school, not uncommon here… last year had a 29 year old) and still learning his ABC’s… he’s a very competitive and smart young man and I was greatly encouraged to see him stick with it to get the letters and to understand the process of scoring. But I’d never considered that learning Chess and Chess scoring was a way for learners to get their ABC’s… another benefit of Chess, eh? (smile) Praise God!

I’ll be travelling this weekend, but hopefully will be able to run a full mock tournament including the actual names of players on Tuesday to get truly familiar with SwissSys. The big concern is the Saturday 14th Tournament… mixed signals on whether the Deaf students from the highschool will show, but they have the applications nonetheless.

We’ll be uploading a PDF of this scoresheet shortly.

[ UPDATE 3 NOVEMBER... I've made it available for free download without yet having the introduction sheet ready. Page two has a short explanation of the fields and what to put in them. After an okay night's sleep, I figured it's more important to make it available and let you decide if it's valuable without my immediate input on the subject. You can access it from the "De Re" page here ». Let me know what you think... e-mail me. --- Sterling ]

It’s a standard size sheet and holds 51 moves (36 on front, 15 on the back). It has a place for notes as well as a board for writing adjournment postions or for study reasons. It’s not posted for download now because I need to write out the rationale for the system. But since I worked quite some time on this today (or yesterday now as it turns out), I wanted to splash a little of it today/tonight.

A side note here… I’ve used Macromedia Firefox graphic software for more than a decade (the last standalone version before they bundled it up and then sold themselves to Adobe). It does what I need to have done, but, yikes, is it tough on memory allocation! It’s been a looooooong day (smile).

As with most inventions, ChessGrid™ is something I needed to help students and myself get the most out of analyzing personal games. I’ve always hated the simple line-by-line thing.

About twenty years ago, I invented ScorGrid™ Baseball Scoring System. It uses the situational system of scoring created by Alex Reisner, but allows the information to be set apart better so that it doesn’t clutter the box. Pitch location is one added advantage of the format, as well. You can view the PDF that gives instructions to the format here. The intent was to be able to read the scoresheet and literally call a game just as if you were there… (on radio of course, which was my all-time wanna have job).

I finally sat down today/yesterday and re-worked the design for ChessGrid™. I’m pretty excited about using it. Hope you will be too when you see it.

Saturday, 14 November, we will be organizing and directing the Second Annual Deaf Awareness Week tournament. This year we will have Deaf students from at least two, possibly three, schools participating. We only have boards for 42 players, so we will be looking to see how many will play.

It will be a 4-round, Swiss, G/30 with a G/5 tiebreak. We’re serving lunch to the players and giving all participants a small gift. Trophies for 1st and 2nd place and a small cash prize. Also, the Friday before, we are holding a LLCES-school-only tournament with both Deaf and Hearing kids (there is a whole 10 posts just on this aspect of Chessofia™, but I’ll have to hold off for awhile [smile]). It’s great for the kids, but it’ll also help me work out any issues with running the tournament using the computer.

This will be our first tournament using SwissSys tournament software and not all done by hand as in the past. It was time to purchase a software tool as we will be holding multiple tournaments a year as we expand into the Churches. Tournaments are great for lots of reasons and the software will pay for itself quickly in time saved and the ability to organize better. I’m excited to use the software and in mock runs, it’s almost more fun to me than a video game (I’m partial to ATC games when I have hours to kill, which is truly never. It’s been at least 6 years since I ‘worked’ an ARTCC or landed a plane at O’Hare!).

Getting this site up and running has been good to do. Website building was my trade before being called to Missions over 9 years ago and it always is a focusing excercise for me concerning the content.

Next on the agenda is to get some experiential notes up here to let all of you know what God is doing through Chessofia™ and what is happening to us personally as we delve deeper into the realm of God’s Kingdom and Chess and ministering to those in front of us and OTB (smile). If you’re interested, here is our post concerning taking the kids to the Shell® Active Youth tournament, “Observers of Chaos…”

Incidentally, you may have noticed the Latin for the site headings. We homeschool our kids and I’m the Latin & Greek teacher. Since we’re starting with Latin, I’m having fun with it and it makes a site a bit different than the norm, eh? (ha).

“In fides et scacci, agnitio.” Which translates to “In Faith and Chess, Knowledge.”

If you need to see what we’re about, see the category What Is Chessofia™? or click on “Sui Generis” at top OH, INCIDENTALLY, I can’t seem to turn on the Comments, so if you have a question or query, please go to the Cont@ct page above and send me an e-mail. Also, the link list at right is admittedly ecletic, but I use many of these sites and it’s just easier when online to come here and click than to mess with the file tree in the bookmarks.

Chessofia™ is a relational, person-to-person, ministry of Jesus Christ.

Simply put, “Chessofia™ is the royal game… the Royal Way.“

Proverbs 24:3 tells us that, “By wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established.” Alongside that is also this from Proverbs 21:30, “There is no wisdom, and no understanding and no counsel against the Lord.”

Chess study and Chess practice are proven [»] to be excellent tools for building up mental skills and developing important character traits that are required for a successful life. Public school systems in America and globally are fast incorporating Chess into the fabric of their curriculums for this very reason. Yet listen to this—> we are people who are made in the Imago Dei (God’s Image), created for His Glory. We are VASTLY more important than the functions and work that we perform. We were not – indeed ARE NOT – made to be parts of a machine. Chess, for too long, has been used to focus people on the machine-like and technical rather than to show the Imago Dei they were made to reveal. Since we are Imago Dei, our work and efforts, our studies and practices MUST honor the Living Word in Truth – the Reality of things as they TRULY ARE and not as we wish them to be or are told by men or institutions they must be.

Therefore, all our studies and practices must point to the Word of God – Jesus Christ. All our studies and practices must point to the Reality of the Fall and the Reality of the Redemption of man, by God Himself, at the Cross of Calvary. Chess is no exception to this rule. It either conforms to and reveals the Truth of Reality… or it is worthless.

Proverbs 20:25 tells us, “It is a snare for a man to say rashly ‘It is holy!’ and after the vows to make inquiry.” (… to find out if it really is holy and God-honoring!) Therefore, after three years of inquiry and prayer, we believe God by His Holy Spirit has revealed that Chess, although long co-opted by Humanism as a means to make man arrogant and prideful against God his Maker… is indeed a vast reservoir of object lessons pointing directly to and honoring the Holy Word of God, Jesus Christ.

Through Reality-based Chess instruction and it’s honorable, edifying practice, a heart and mind can be directed to the Living Word of God, much like Jesus pointed people to Scripture through parables, and there (and only there) receive the wisdom and understanding of God through His Holy Spirit to build up a man or woman of exceptional character and mental acuity. And, vitally, to receive the salvation of Christ for the day of God’s wrath to come, but also to be sanctified – that is, to be continually taught and guided in the ways of God in Christ in order to grow in faith and, therefore, to please God.

Yet even so, the benefits of Chess are still available to all to lift up and develop the much sought after values of an excellent character and an exceptional mind.

“TRULY, NO ONE CAN CLAIM CHESS IS A MERE GAME.
IT IS ONE OF MANY WORTHY LABORS STUDIED AND PRACTICED
BY ROYALTY, THAT IS PEOPLE MADE IN THE IMAGO DEI,
THAT RICHLY REVEALS THE TRUE ROYAL WAY… JESUS CHRIST.”