Thursday, February 14, 2008

U.S. Amateur Team Champ. Milwuakee
Feb 16-17

Pre-entries
  1. 1781 Team G

Scholastic pre-entries

The hotel has a nice indoor pool/game room

There are currently 17 teams registered in the Open section (7 in the Scholastic):

Wisconsin : 12
Indiana : 2
Missouri : 2
Illinois : 1



The team favored to win it all:

1) 2282 Alex Betaneli
2) 2239 Ashish Vaja
3) 2175 Erik Santarius
4) 2003 Trevor Magness

Avg. rating = 2175


I will be part of the following team:

1) 2000 WILLIAM M WENZ (BYE ROUND 1)
2) 1905 STANLEY T GARVIN (BYE ROUND 3)
3) 1851 IVAN WIJETUNGE (BYE ROUND 2)
4) 1823 NEIL J GLEASON (BYE ROUND 4)
5) 1643 NOLAN R HENDRICKSON (BYE ROUND 5)

Av. Rating = 1895

51 comments:

  1. I see the players on your team will each save themselves $5.00!:)

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  2. Is there any update on how many teams are currently signed up? I imagine we will get teams into the tournament from a lot of our neighboring states.

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  3. I know there will be a strong team from Iowa, and several from IL.

    Alex, how are the pre-entries looking?

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  4. I have 10 teams so far, all from Wisconsin. This weeks should be fruitful: many emails/phone calls asking for details (byes, hotel, etc.). Most likely next Monday and Tuesday there will many entries in the mail. The penalty for late entry is not too big (when split 4-5 ways), so I imagine the walk-in can be as much as 1/3 of the final turnout.

    All in all, I will be happy with more than 25 teams. At present we are on target, but I would love to see entries pouring in!

    If folks need teammates, please let me know.

    Alex Betaneli

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  5. Alex, I am looking for 3 players rated 1800-2000 to form a 5 person team. So far I have 1850, 1697.

    Restrictions : Avg. of top 4 has to be less than 1900.

    Each player sits out one round.

    Ivan

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  6. wesley ferguson and i (scot henderson) looking for a couple teammates. hope to be competetive but with me not having played tournamnet chess in over a year... i think wes is expert-rated while i'm 1900. would that fit with your team, ivan?

    ...scot...

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  7. oh, osrry, my eamil 10mostwanted@sbcglobal.net (scot henderson)

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  8. Scott,

    Thanks for posting.

    I will let you know by Friday, I have already asked a few people, they will let me know by then.

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  9. Hi thanks a lot for the correct wordings!!
    Keep Blogging
    www.chessindia.blogspot.com

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  10. Scot,
    I emailed you with a few options. Let's make sure make a comeback!
    Alex

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  11. Ivan, good to see you have formed a strong team. Is Ryan not playing ?

    Souvik

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  12. Ryan had another commitment.

    See you Saturday?

    Are you playing all rounds?

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  13. I intend to play n all rounds. And we are 4 member team only. So....

    lets hope we all have a great tornament.

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  14. Play well, Ivan and teammates!

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  15. UPDATE on the evening of Feb.10th:
    We have about 20 teams at the moment. Two from Indiana, two from Kansas City, one from IL (Eric Rosen with other talented juniors) and the rest are from Wisconsin. We certainly expect 1-2 teams from Iowa, at least one more from Indiana (with NM Jim Dean) and a bunch from IL. MN almost never fields a team they have a dubious tradition of holding the strong MN Open on the same weekend.

    Thirty will be a solid turn-out for the first time! I will definitely bid for the tournament again if we get 30 teams.
    Thanks to all!
    Alex

    (Ivan feel free to post this where you wish. Thanks.)

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  16. What is the name of your team, Ivan?

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  17. we are going with "Team name here" unless we come up with something better, what's yours?

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  18. We are Becker's Bishops!

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  19. The Racine Chess Club got together a team, creatively named "Racine Chess Club."

    HAUBRICH, Scott - 2033
    WALLER, Matt - 1938
    NIEMI, Nicole - 1774
    PEEL, Art - 1701

    Hope to see all of you there!

    -Matt

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  20. The Iowa teams will not be coming. There is a another tournament in Iowa at same time.

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  21. That's too bad: NM Karagianis has assured me that a nice team from his state planned to attend, but I guess it's not a complete surprise when folks opt to play locally instead. It's a definite problem for MN players as they hold a strong event over President Day weekend all the time, I only hope that Iowa doesn't begin another tradition of this sort. :-)
    Alex

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  22. Ivan, looks great, but can we remove the big snow pile from the tournament site photograph ?

    ;)

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  23. Ivan,

    A better picture is with the POOL!!! So, your pictures are credited to your website on uschess.org first page! you should have some extra hits now.

    UPDATE: 15 teams in the Open and 7 in Scholastic! We are going be between 30 and 40 unless a snow storms pays a brutal visit.

    Alex

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  24. how about some results ?

    Jon

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  25. Results will be available after the tournament starts :)

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  26. The bidding for results is open! :)

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  27. BTW, cbv Classic GM database 3,274 games, just sent to your email. dk

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  28. I dont think this event ever happend since there are no results either from ivan or the uscf website

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  29. The Tournamen dates are Feb 16-17

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  30. Much smaller turn out compared to having the tournament run in Illinois.

    Of course the lack of coordination with surrounding states contributed to this.

    Perhaps a ploy by the WI crowd to purposely do this and field the strongest team so they can win easily and go onto national team champs.

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  31. What a joke. The event is always on the same weekend every year.

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  32. If IL wanted to run this tournament they would have put in a bid.

    Either they did not, or their bid was not accepted.

    Why don't you IL guys come take it a way from us?

    BTW the board 4 player for the top WI team is a Shulman student from IL.

    WI player

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  33. I am not sure what "much smaller turn out" means! Last year the event drew a total of 123 people: it's hard to believe that we won't at least match that. As for "strong IL teams".... If one takes the last 15 years and subtracts the winners from Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin, there are very few titles left for IL!

    If IL players enjoy starting their first round an hour later than scheduled, if they love scrambling for chess equipment for every round, if they adore noisy conditions, then who who can blame them for not coming to Wisconsin?! That's minority though. Just about every players from IL who visits WI for a tournament comments on how DIFFERENT the experience is! And the differences are inevitably positive in nature.

    Frankly though, I strongly suspect that Chicago players are simply scared of our tough Wisconsin winter!

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  34. "Lack of coordination with surrounding states"??? As Ken Fee correctly points out, this national event is always held on the same weekend!

    The usual participants from Indiana and from Kansas City were not unhappy to travel a little bit farther and signed up. Wisconsin is fielding a great number of teams. IL teams are few so far, but they often register on the day of the tournament. Folks, Milwaukee is virtually a suburb of Chicago in terms of driving!

    Those who play, will NOT be disappointed, that much I can promise. This will be a true chess holiday with stellar playing conditions.

    Alex Betaneli

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  35. Alex:

    Good to see 22 teams already committed to the tournament. That's already 88 players at least right?

    You're right that Milwaukee is a subarb of Chicago (and there's a reason why in the sales world Milwaukee is included in the Greater Chicagoland area).

    Anon @ 2:18pm - doubt that the strong IL players are scared of the winter up there or the players. Could be that IM Young and Vishnuvardhan, FM's Pasalic, Chow, and Tsyganov, and NM Burgess are all playing in the 8th NA FIDE Invitational which starts on Sunday (http://www.nachess.org/fide) otherwise I'm sure they would have sported teams.

    --Sevan

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  36. Sevan,

    In the future maybe you could shedule you r events so that they don't conflict with nearby major events?

    WI Player

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  37. Honestly I didn't pay much attention to the Amateur Team tournament when I created and posted the schedule for the entire 2008 year back in October 2007.

    I also base the dates of my events at my availability and down time from work.

    Conflicts should be avoided, if possible though.

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  38. Thanks for all the great updates on the teams, etc.

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  39. Sevan,

    Thanks for your encourangment. Indeed, 22 teams before the tournament begins is a good thing.

    Good luck with yet another FIDE event! Just remember that President's Day weekend is always reserved for US Amateur Team for all the years to come. :-)

    Thanks,

    Alex Betaneli

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  40. In response to "WI PLAYER" 'Amatuer' is the key word, why would the NACC even consider the team tournament when organizing one of his 'proffesional' round robins...

    Theres no relationship.

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  41. NACC should have considered the USATN tournament because the winner of this tournament will get the chance to go against the best.

    'Amatuer' is by name only if you knew even a little bit about the USAT tournaments you would know that GMs are very much part of it.

    WI Player

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  42. I cant comment on the west or east tournaments but besides Gurevich, I doubt there were any GM's in the midwest tournament for quite a few years.

    Im not affliated with the NACC in anyway whatsoever, but in my opinion, a proffesional organization based in Chicago doesnt have to worry about scheduling conflicts with a class tournament in Wisconsin. Just my opinion.

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  43. The point is the it was NOT just a class tournement in WI. This is National event where the overall winners of each tournament, North , East , South and West play erch other to determine the best team in the nation.

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  44. So you are saying that an IM playing in the proffessional tournament for the NACC is going to pass up an appearance fee and guarantee of money for a chronos clock?

    I think you need to get come to the real world where they work for money, not chess clocks.

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  45. You are missing the point. The organizer of the Chicago event should have given the opportunity to the IM to play in both.

    Of course if given a choice the IM would choose the Chicago one.

    One of the teams in the East section had 3 GMs on it.

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  46. So the IM would travel, waste gas money, miss out on teaching students, so he can play for a clock? Are you stupid or something? Do you have no business sense on you?

    There were other IM and GM in Chicago area that did not play in FIDE event - you not see IM Smetankin play or IM van de Mortel play, or GM Gurevich, or GM Shulman, or GM Mitkov. Or FM Felecan, or FM Karklins, or even many top illinios high school players and masters.

    Do not blame organizer for organizing event that no one else would since FIDE norm event make no money.

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  47. Guys, relax, nothing bad happened. Sevan didn't know about the team tournament and he will keep this in mind in the future. Aside from Angelo Young, we have not really lost any of the top "regular team players."

    I am sure Sevan put together another splendid round-robin and it's good for chess promotion!

    Alex Betaneli

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  48. Ivan - a recommendation if I may - turn off anonymous posting and force people to post with a Google/Blogger ID. Suddenly you will notice that the peanut gallery gets silenced.

    Alex - good event you ran. Keep it up. The more we do in the midwest, the better it is for chess.

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  49. As a reminder that a Team event can interest GMs, etc, check out the USAT-East report:

    http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8197/436/

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