The results from our ACF sanctioned Grand Prix are in!

We had 11 players for the tournament last Saturday, May 17th, and it was a fun atmosphere. Lots of good play, a couple of upsets, and even a new unrated player!

Congratulations to Landon Burton Hoard for a clean sweep of the competition!

There was a question at the end about tie breaks and I had a hard time explaining the plus/minus scores. After brushing up on it at home, I hope that we can provide better answers in future tournaments, but the point in question was how does Modified Median work?

If the players who tie have even scores (meaning even number of wins and loses for themselves, not against each other) - in this case that would be 2 wins, 2 losses, being even - then the high and low score of their opponents are discarded.

For example, the fourth place tie of the 5 players. They will take their opponents scores, throw out the top score, and the bottom score, and add the other scores together, in this case two scores, because of only four rounds.

Now, if the players are tied with a plus score, such as the two players tied for 2nd place, being a score higher than 2.0, in this case +1 at 3.0, 3 wins and 1 loss, or two wins and two draws, then only the lowest score of their opponent is thrown out - in this case adding three of their opponents scores together.

But if the player has a minus score, meaning less wins than losses, like players 9 and 10, being less than the even score of 2.0, then instead, only the highest opponent score is removed.

To further add to the tie breaks confusion, if there are 9 or more rounds, then the number of removed scores is doubled. Also, any unplayed games count as 1/2 point for the purpose of calculating someone else's tie, but for calculating their own tie, and unplayed game gets an adjusted score of 0.

Hopefully that's not too confusing, and that this explanation is helpful!

The tournament results are in for our latest event, the 20250322 AACC Swiss!

20250322 AACC Rated Swiss: Open
# Name             USCF ID Rating Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Rd 4 Score
1 Colton Evans     15044644 1437  W10w W3b  W6w  D2b  3.5
2 Weston Howard    31397231 1516  H--  W4w  W5b  D1w  3.0
3 John Huling      31924786 1287  W7b  L1w  W11b W6b  3.0
4 Jeremiah Youmans 31847556 1024  W12w L2b  D8b  W10w 2.5
5 Michael Olsta    32104412 927   H--  W10b L2w  W8w  2.5
6 Josh Meyers      31373531 1341  W11b W8w  L1b  L3w  2.0
7 Benjamin Matz    31474875 374   L3w  L9b  W12w W11w 2.0
8 Samuel Craymer   31979660 1309  W9w  L6b  D4w  L5b  1.5
9 Zion Craymer     31830241 537   L8b  W7w  L10b D12w 1.5
10 Madeline Howard 31830192 765   L1b  L5w  W9w  L4b  1.0
11 Jonathan Kugler 31400562 596   L6w  W12b L3w  L7b  1.0
12 Genesis Craymer 31830239 348   L4b  L11w L7b  D9b  0.5

What a fun event and a great crowd! Congratulations to Colton Evans for taking first place in the tournament!

The results are out for the 2025 January 4th Swiss tournament! We had a small group, but a lot of fun!

Congratulations to Landon Burton Hoard for taking the gold in tie breaks!

It was great to play with and against everyone in this tournament, and it marks a special tournament for me, as this gave me the last 3 rated games I needed to have an established rating, and allows me to request to take the test and, Lord willing, become a Local Tournament Director (LTD), which allows us to run events with up to 100 to 120 competitors! Only possible because of great players like you, so thank you!

*Photo courtesy of Dawn Burton.

The results are in from the AACC November 2024 Swiss tournament!

The cross table from the open section:

Rank   Player          Score   Rating  MM  Solk    Cum. 
1   Weston Howard       3.0     1485    4.0 5.0 6.0
2   Don Wall             2.0    1572    5.0 5.0 5.0
3   Landon Burton Hoard 2.0     1059    4.0 5.0 4.0
4   John Huling          2.0    1122    3.0 4.0 4.0
5   Samuel Boylan       1.0     997 3.0 6.0 2.0
6   Michael Olsta       1.0     unr.    2.0 4.0 2.0
7   Colton Evans        1.0     1541    1.0 3.0 1.0
8   Jeremiah Youmans    0.0     1074    2.0 4.0 0.0

And the results cross table from the extra rated games section:

Rank   Player          Score   Rating  MM  Solk    Cum.
1   John Huling         1.0     1122    0.0 0.0 1.0
2   Landon Burton Hoard 1.0     1059    0.0 0.0 1.0
3   Samuel Boylan       1.0     997     0.0 0.0 1.0
4   Don Wall            0.0     1572    0.0 1.0 0.0
5   Colton Evans        0.0     1541    0.0 1.0 0.0
6   Michael Olsta       0.0     unr.    0.0 1.0 0.0

You can check out the US Chess Federations official MSA listing here:

https://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202411094542-31397231

And don't forget, you can also look it up on Chessnut.club if you make a log in to go with your account! You can review your projected rating changes, get your statistics against other players, and much more! This event can be found here: https://chessnut.club/events/713

Here are the pictures of the score sheets and the PawnParse digitized pgn files:

[241109AACCNOVSWISSPICS](https://alaskaarcticchessclub.ddns.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/241109AACCNOVSWISSPICS.zip)[Download](https://alaskaarcticchessclub.ddns.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/241109AACCNOVSWISSPICS.zip)
[241109AACCNOVSWISSPGN](https://alaskaarcticchessclub.ddns.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/241109AACCNOVSWISSPGN.zip)[Download](https://alaskaarcticchessclub.ddns.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/241109AACCNOVSWISSPGN.zip)
Please keep in mind that the digitized pgn files uses AI to read the score sheets. However, several games were incomplete, or had such poor handwriting, or had incorrectly notated moves, and thus are not complete in these pgn files. Some games are listed twice as both players turned in a scoresheet.

You can also check out the games on my Lichess study:

https://lichess.org/study/rvr8FT64/BV8uPK71

Or download the Lichess Study pgn files as well:

https://lichess.org/study/rvr8FT64.pgn

Thanks for playing and we hope to see you there next time!

Alaska's top player, Matt Parshall faces off against Alaska's top female player, Kate Weddleton.

The National Chess Day tournament in Soldotna, Alaska was a huge success, gathering over 30 players and no shortage of spectators! A large part of this success is owed to the Barnes family, of Kenai, Alaska, for their incredible support in making this event happen! The Cook Inlet Academy was very gracious in allowing us to use their facilities as well, with their huge gym providing the prefect space for the setup of tables to play chess!

Here are some excellent photos of the event, taken by Caroline Huling, to whom we also owe a thanks for being the event photographer!

And of course, the winners of our event: Seth LeMaster in 3rd place, Kate Weddleton in 2nd place, and Matt Parshall in 1st place!

These lovely plaques were made by the Barnes family, who hand engraved these chess figures onto these cut rounds with a wood burner! Incredible!

If you missed out on National Chess Day this year, be sure to catch us next time!

Alaska Arctic Chess Club