Archive for the 'News' Category

2009 US Women’s Championship

Posted in News on October 14th, 2009 by Chris Bird

The 2009 US Women’s Championship was held from October 3-13, 2009 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis.

Once again I was honored to have been chosen to be the Assistant Arbiter of this national championship and also undertook other duties such as Bulletin Editor, MonRoi operator and Chief TD of the Bounty Blitz tournament.

Here are the bulletins, the Championship Chronicle, for you to download and view (pdf):

Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3
Issue 4
Issue 5
Issue 6
Issue 7
Issue 8
Issue 9

Photos in September Chess Life – National Open

Posted in News on October 1st, 2009 by Chris Bird

I had various photographs from the 2009 National Open, held in Las Vegas, NV, published in the September 2009 Issue of Chess Life, and some little ones on the cover!  Click on the cover of the magazine below to view the various pages.

Chess Life, September 2009

Thank you to the US Chess Federation for giving their permission for me to republish the relevant pages.

2009 Las Vegas International Chess Festival CD

Posted in News on June 11th, 2009 by Chris Bird

The 2009 Las Vegas International Chess Festival commemorative CD, produced by me, is now available to purchase for just $20 (+$3 shipping).  Each CD contains:

PDF’s of all 3 of the Daily Bulletins (in color) for you to view and print.
Over a hundred photographs from the simuls, camps, G/10 Championship and the National Open tournament.
Cross tables of all the events.
PGN files for you to view games from the National Open (194 games), “Under” Sections (17 games), simuls (27 games) and the G/10 Championship (5 games).
Videos from the simuls.

Each CD will be safely packaged and shipped to you upon receipt of your order. I pride myself on prompt, friendly service and will do my best to ensure that you will be able to enjoy your CD in the shortest amount of time possible.

Click the below “Buy Now” button to securely purchase your copy.


Assistant Arbiter at 2009 US Championship

Posted in News on April 24th, 2009 by Chris Bird

It gives me great pleasure to announce that I have been chosen to be the Assistant Arbiter at the 2009 United States Chess Championship.

This year’s Championship will see twenty-four of the best players in the country battling it out over 9 rounds from May 8-17 in St. Louis, Missouri, for the title of 2009 US Chess Champion and nearly $200,000 in prize money.

Participating in the event are some of the strongest Grandmasters in the chess world such as Gata Kamsky, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Onischuk and last year’s Champion Yury Shulman.  International Arbiter Carol Jarecki will be the Chief Arbiter.

Complete information regarding the 2009 US Chess Championship can be found at the tournament website, http://www.uschesschamps.com.

Chris Bird Awarded USCL 2008 Blogger of the Year

Posted in News on December 25th, 2008 by Chris Bird

I was awarded 2008 US Chess League Blogger of the Year for the work I did for the Boston Blitz at http://www.boston-blitz.com.

However, although I did create the website and put a lot of work and effort into it, the Boston Blitz website was a total team effort.  Particular thanks go to Mark LaRocca for his weekly reports and wonderful constant feedback on how to improve things and to Ilya Krasik for writing a handful of articles that received more comments and web traffic than all of my posts combined for the whole two years!

I would also like to thank Matt Phelps, the Blitz Manager, for making life easy with the wonderful facilities that were provided and to the entire Blitz team for providing the results to keep up going to the Finals for two years in a row and for making attending the matches such an enjoyable, friendly experience.

Lastly I would like to thank the US Chess League for providing this wonderful opportunity for players and fans across the country (and world) to participate in such an incredibly worthwhile venture.

The complete award article from the USCL can be viewed at http://usclnews.blogspot.com/2008/12/blogger-of-year.html.