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Calendars for 2008: General; Official school calendar; Adult Club (on Wednesdays)
and 2008 International Junior Calendar (kindly provided by GM Ian Rogers)

Quite a lot has gone on since our last email bulletin.

IM Stephen Solomon won the Gold Coast Open for the fourth time. Moulthun Ly, who has played little chess this year due to year 12 studies, came second, finishing undefeated and ahead of Grandmaster Dejan Antic. Full details here.
 

Grandmaster Ian Rogers gave a 30 player simultaneous exhibition at the chess centre. Ian showed that he is still very fit as the simul lasted nearly four hours. Despite his recent retirement, he also showed that he had lost little of his playing strength. He conceded one loss to Ed Hibbert, and a convincing draw by Jonas Muller. This was an impressive display by the 'living legend'.

The Australian Olympiad teams have been selected. Queenslanders IM David Smerdon and IM Stephen Solomon have been selected on boards two and three for the open team.....great news for them and for Queensland chess! WIM Alexandra Jule has been selected as reserve for the women's team.

Five of the six age group winners at the Queensland Junior Championships were from the Gold Coast, and the other (Robin Wei) was from Cairns.

Congratulations to Gene Nakauchi, Jonas Muller, Robin Wei, Alex Stahnke, Martin Jack and James Kay! It was good to see the Ousmand brothers (ex Sri Lanka) coming down from Townsville for this event and giving a good account of themselves. Full details here.

Gene Nakauchi also won the Runaway Bay Junior Tournament, from Alex Stahnke and Daniel Ford. Alex Stahnke was somewhat unlucky not to win this event, after defeating Gene, but narrowly losing to Daniel in the final round. Full details here.

Eight juniors and two adults travelled as a group to the Coffs Harbour Open. The event was won by Australia's new number one player (and Olympiad Board one) Zong-Yuan Zhao who hails from Coffs Harbour. Jonas Muller came outright second, followed by IM Stephen Solomon, Gene Nakauchi and Sam Grigg in third equal. Gene defeated Stephen Solomon, and Jonas defeated Gene. All eight juniors on the trip won prizes! Well done to all of them! Full details here.

Queensland InterSchools Teams Chess Championships

All the regional finals will be held in term 3. The two biggest events in terms of numbers will be the Brisbane Finals at Brisbane City Hall on Monday 1st September, and the Gold Coast Finals at Carrara Basketball Stadium on 10th September. All schools are welcome to enter as many teams or part teams as they wish, irrespective of whether they have entered teams in previous rounds.

Term 2 Results are shown on the left hand sidebar on our frontpage www.gardinerchess.com.

For school entry forms for all regions  click on one either for emailing (openable in Word) or faxing (a pdf file).

For the latest schools' bulletin, giving information for interschool chess this term (including a few changes of venue) and the results from Term 2 - click here.

Live Chess

We are currently using the Monroi system to provide live chess for both the term 3 Junior Masters (Mondays from 4.45pm) and the Ruth Coxhill Memorial FIDE Rated event (Wednesdays from 6.30pm). Last Wednesday Gene Nakauchi defeated his coach IM Peter Froehlich with the black pieces.

World Youth Chess Championships Vung Tau, Vietnam 19-31 October

The following Queenslanders will be representing Australia at this important
event:

Boys Under 16 - Jonas Muller
Boys under 14 - Gene Nakauchi
Boys under 12 - Yi Liu
Girls under 12 - Leteisha Simmonds

Follow the event at http://wycc2008.vietnamchess.com/index.php

2 to 13 January 2009 - Australian Junior Championships, Adelaide

This important event will be held  at St Ignatius School in Athelstone, Adelaide, South Australia. Graeme Gardiner will be leading a group from Gardiner Chess, and package details are shown here.

Registrations of interest are welcome to Graeme Gardiner at ggardiner@gardinerchess.com.

15 to 24 January 2009 - 2009 Queenstown Open, NZ

We are proud to be taking a group to this event. There will be a top class international field, but this is an open event, and anyone can enter.

• Prizes totalling NZ$50,000 (A$45,000 approx) are guaranteed. There are prizes for the lower rating groups (eg Under 2000 $500, Under 1800 $500, Under 1600 $500, Under 15 years of age $125, Under 12 years of age $125).

• The playing venue at the Millennium Hotel is excellent.

• Games don't start until 3pm each day, which means there is plenty of time earlier in the day to do all sorts of things.

Gardiner Chess took a group to this event on the South Island of NZ in 2006. Surely this must be one of the most exquisite locations for a chess tournament in the world. Queenstown is an awesome place, with heaps to see and do, and views to die for. For example, the exhilarating jetboat trip we did out into the mountainous wilderness along the Dart River was indescribably beautiful and heaps of fun for all of us.

There was an interesting innovation at the 2006 event where Cathy Rogers brought along a very challenging 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and set it up just outside the tournament hall. It had the fantastic effect of bringing everyone together socially at various times over several days doing this mammoth jigsaw. We even saw a certain well-known Aus Grandmaster who was in the middle of his game on board one standing outside with a group doing the puzzle. It was finally completed on the final day after the last round had finished, and there was not one piece missing despite some mysterious 'sabotage' that occurred overnight. We understand that Cathy has ordered a special puzzle from Thailand for the 2009 event.

Full details at www.newzealandchess.co.nz/queenstownchess/. We will be flying Air New Zealand, and staying at the Queenstown Lodge (www.qlodge.co.nz/). We can highly recommend this accommodation because we stayed there last time. Gardiner Chess package details here.

Justine Jule, who hails from Kiwiland, but has never been to Queenstown (shame on her!), will be leading the group. Registrations of interest most welcome to Justine Jule at Gardiner Chess on jjule@gardinerchess.com.

As there is only one day between the Australian Juniors and Queenstown Open, we have made special arrangements for players who wish to play in both events to enable them do so. We already have flight reservations from Adelaide to Queenstown, via Melbourne and Christchurch.

Planning and organising these trips are not easy. You can help us by making an early booking, or at least registering your interest. Bookings close on 30th June.

Chess Blogs

Two good Australian blog sites are

• The Closet Grandmaster http://closetgrandmaster.blogspot.com/

• Chess Express http://chessexpress.blogspot.com/. 

There are many overseas sites, which include (for example)

• http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/.

Here are some sites to visit, where you will find a wealth of information:

• FIDE at www.fide.com. This is the official site of the World Chess Federation.

• Australian Chess Federation (ACF) www.auschess.org.au. The official site for Australian Chess.

• Chess Association of Queensland (CAQ) www.caq.org.au. Queensland's official site.

• The Week in Chess (TWIC) www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html  - news about the latest top class tournaments worldwide.

• Chess Base www.chessbase.com.  World chess news.

• www.letsplaychess.com is a friendly online chess club where you can play chess with players from all over the World.

• Internet Chess Club (ICC) www.chessclub.com  - this is the number one site for serious players to play online.

• Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) www.freechess.org  - another very good free chess playing server.

• Chess Chat bulletin board http://chesschat.org/  Unofficial Australian bulletin board
  
  ...and of course www.gardinerchess.com

Gardiner Chess employs many coaches (mainly casual part-time) around South East Queensland and Northern NSW. Because increasing numbers of schools are keen to introduce chess programmes we always are on the lookout for more coaching staff. While many of our staff are uni students, others are older and just want to supplement their income. Generally quite strong players are required for high schools, but the playing strength for primary students is not so important, because the vast majority are beginners. The ability to teach and relate well to young people is the most important attribute we are looking for. We provide our coaches with extensive resources plus assistance in training methods and support. Additionally, we hold professional development seminars twice a year. Please contact Graeme Gardiner if you are interested: ggardiner@gardinerchess.com or 5522 7221.

IQ Chess Franchise Opportunities

Our aim is to provide schools throughout Queensland with ongoing chess coaching services. David Cowland-Cooper is already running an excellent franchise in Cairns.

If you are passionate about chess, can teach primary students, have good communication and business skills, then an IQ Chess franchise might be for you. Please contact Graeme Gardiner to discuss. Email ggardiner@gardinerchess.com or phone 5522 7221.