Hawaii Chess Federation

We are excited to make an announcement about a major chess event happening on Oahu from March 14th-22nd, 2015 — the Hawaii Chess Festival! Mark your calendars.  The Festival will include an International Open, a Chess Day at Magic Island, appearances from top players and much more!  For complete details on the Festival visit www.HawaiiChessFestival.com.  Like the Festival on Facebook for the latest news on the event.

And if you are outside of Hawaii, be sure to enter the Hawaii Chess Flyaway contest!  You could win a flight to the chess vacation of a lifetime!

Rob Keough (left) faces Charles Sonido, with Kwan Lau Looking on

10 players showed up for the Hawaii Memorial Weekend Open at the Atherton YMCA.  Despite the low turnout there was high drama.  The tournament was won by Charles Sonido, who played well above his 1700 rating, going undefeated with 4.5 points out of 5.  Charles took down three higher rated opponents and gained almost 150 rating points!

For complete results, see the tournament crosstable on the USCF website.  We also posted a small photo gallery from the event on Facebook.

The Washington Middle School (WMS) Chess Team competed in Atlanta, Georgia for the 2014 K-9 National Chess Championships from April 24-27. The WMS team of Quguang (pronounced chu-gwan) Wang, Kai Zheng, Wun-Min Chen, and Huai Yu Zheng won the K-9 Unrated Team Championship by scoring 25.5 points out of a possible 28 points!

Quguang became the K-9 Unrated National Champion by winning all seven of his games for a perfect score of 7.0. Kai Zheng and Wun-Min Chen, also undefeated with 6.5 points, won the second and third place trophies. Huai Yu earned 5.5 for the 6th place trophy. Patrick Perry competed in the Under 750 rating section and he finished with 6.0 points which earned him the seventh place trophy.

In the Blitz Tournament, WMS finished in 10th overall, and Wun-Min won 1st, Quguang finished 2nd, and Huai Yu earned 3rd place trophies in their unrated class.

Mr. Floro competed in a Friends and Family Chess Tournament in the Coach/Player section with Wun-Min Chen. They both won all four of their games for a perfect combined score of 8.0 points, which earned them a first place trophy. Quguang is now preparing to represent Hawaii in the Dewain Barber Tournament of Jr. High Champions that will be held in Orlando, Florida from July 26-29.

Submitted by WMS Coach Eric Floro.  Congrats to the Quguang and the WMS team!  

See the article in the Star-Advertiser (login required) about their great accomplishment.  

Complete crosstables from the event are on USChess.org

The 2014 State Scholastic Championships are now over, with new individual and team scholastic chess champions crowned!

Many spectators gathered to watch an exciting final game!

Among the winners this year are:

Ford Nakagawa – High School (K-12) Individual Champion

Quguang Wang – Middle School (K-8) Individual Champion

Toshiro Ritari – Elementary School (K-6) Individual Champion

Toshiro Ritari, 2014 Hawaii State Scholastic K-6 Chess Champion

Andre Ku – Primary School (K-3) Individual Champion

Punahou School – High School (K-12) Team Champion

Washington Middle School – Middle School (K-8) Team Champions

Punahou School – Elementary School (K-6) Team Champions

Punahou School – Primary School (K-3) Team Champions

Congratulations to all of the winners!  A special mahalo to tournament sponsor, Chess Informant, which generously donated over $500 of books!  1st and 2nd place in each section won a book, and a random winner from each section was selected to win a copy of Chess Informant 118 as well!

Some of the Lucky Chess Informant Winners

Complete Results, Crosstables and Prize Reports

HIGH SCHOOL Section Crosstable, Team Results, and Prize Report (Merged PDF)
MIDDLE SCHOOL Section Crosstable, Team Results, and Prize Report (Merged PDF)
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Section Crosstable, Team Results, and Prize Report (Merged PDF)
PRIMARY SCHOOL Section Crosstable, Team Results, and Prize Report (Merged PDF)

PHOTO GALLERY on Facebook

Beyond the usual glory, prestige and trophies that can be won at the yearly Hawaii State Scholastic Championships, players this year have extra motivation to do well! Premier chess publishing company Chess Informant (Šahovski Informator) has generously donated over $500 worth of chess books! We will be handing out the 12 books as prizes at the Hawaii State Scholastic Championships on 3/29/14.

Based out of Belgrade, Serbia, Chess Informant periodically produces the book of the same name, as well as the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, Encyclopedia of Chess Endings, Opening Monographs, other print publications, and software (including electronic editions of most print publications).

The winner of each section (K-3, 4-6, 7-8, and 9-12) will receive one of the following Encyclopedias:

1) Encyclopedia of Chess Combinations, 4th Edition – A beautiful and powerful hardcover book at 660 pages that offers years of enjoyment and training material to test the reader’s tactical ability. ECC4 is a completely revised and updated edition of one of the fundamental books about the art of combinational chess.

2) Small Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, 3rd Edition – The Small Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings combines this selective approach with today’s exhaustive collection of material. The five volume Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings – A, B, C, D, E – consists of 500 sections based on opening codes. Its key quality, unique among openings books, is a system of elimination which helps the reader to find the critical lines in the midst of the abundance of information.

3) Encyclopedia of Chess Endings I – Pawn Endings, 2nd Edition - Because of its simplicity and systematic approach, the book is useful for active players and for those who want to become familiar with endgame basics.

2) Encyclopedia of Chess Endings II – Rook Endings I – The First Edition of ECE II Rook 1 was compiled by Andras Adorjan, Alexander Beliavsky, Walter Browne, Lubomir Ftacnik, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Lubomir Kavalek, Vlado Kovacevic, John Nunn and Jan Timman. The Second Edition comes to the surface 30 years later! It is still based on the work of these giants, but heavily updated and revised.

2nd-3rd place of each section will each receive a copy of Chess Informant 118!

Only shortly after the end of the dramatic fourth game of the World Championship match between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov tweets from the battlefield in Chennai: ” Game 4 also demonstrated exactly what I wrote for my last Chess Informant column: The Berlin is a sharp & rich middlegame, not an ending.” What better recommendation could there be for Chess Informant 118, than this comment from the world’s best chess player ever? Hot stuff!

Read more about or order Chess Informant 118 here!

A big mahalo to Josip Asik, CEO of Chess Informant, for his support of scholastic chess in Hawaii!  Good luck to all of our young combatants this year!