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Junior Congress Poised to Break Records |
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By Tom Langland
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October 25, 2011 |
Scholastic Trophies from US G/30 Championships
After recently hosting the U.S. National G/60 and G/30 Chess Championships in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this month, the U.S. Junior Congress Championship will be coming to the Santa Clara Convention Center the last weekend of October. With better than expected turnout at the first two National Events (even paying out 165% of the based on prizes for the G/30 Championships in Santa Clara!), now the Junior Congress also looks likely to break the previous record (260) for attendance. With the advance entries list now over 275, projections show that attendance may top 400 players!
The Santa Clara Convention Center is an ideal location for this event. The venue has hosted several of the CalChess State Championship events where participation has exceeded 1000 players. The Convention Center is directly attached to the Hyatt Regency Hotel and the BayAreaChess organizers have secured a hotel rate of only $99. With the huge Great America Amusement Park across the street from the event, this can be a real spook-tacular adventure for all the kids. Entry fees are still between $48 and $60 through Sunday October 23rd, making this is a very affordable event.
Santa Clara Convention Center ready for last year's CalChess State Scholastic Championships
There will be seven sections are divided by age: 5 & Under, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11,12-13, 14-15 and 16-18, offering huge trophies, appropriate for a National Event of this type, to the top 20 players in each division. Also to be awarded are trophies to the top 10 teams in each section, which can include club teams. Players in the 5 & Under group only play on Saturday and the 6-7 age group only plays on Sunday. They will each play 5 rounds at G/30. All the other sections will play 3 rounds each day with a time control of G/75. Side events will include a blitz tournament on Friday night and Bughouse tournament on Saturday evening.
The organizing staff led by Dr. Salman Azhar, and tournament directors National TD John McCumiskey, Senior TD Tom Langland and Senior TD Richard Koepcke look forward to upholding the tradition of well run local tournaments. For full details, please review the flyer (pdf) located on bayareachess.com.
Award ceremony at the Convention Center
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