The 2007 Pre-Summer Foothills Open was held June 16, 2007, at Orange Grove Middle School. This is the first time we ran a tournament in June, and it was a wonderful success, drawing 81 players. The tournament had mostly scholastic players, but also some adults, including four “young men” who traveled from Green Valley to take on the ever tough scholastic monsters in Tucson.
The 1st Annual Western Alliance Chess Camp debut in Tucson was a tremendous success, attracting about 60 participants from Tucson, Arizona, as well as some out of town students from as far as Illinois! The camp was held June 24-27, 2006, at St. Joseph’s in Tucson, and was organized by Tucson International Master, Levon Altounian.
1,500 teenagers. 300 parents. 16 tournament directors. That’s right -- it’s the 2007 National High School Chess Championship. I flew to Kansas City, MO, from Tucson, AZ, with Coach FM Robby Adamson and 16 team members from Catalina Foothills High School. We also brought a few adult chauffeurs, just to keep 17 teenagers from acting TOO much like 17 teenagers. We arrived at the Hyatt Wednesday evening (well, technically, it was Thursday morning) to give us plenty of time to rest up before the blitz tournament Thursday evening.
Tucson, AZ - As the weather warmed up and most of the state were enjoying a weekend of sunshine, 631 scholastic chess players stayed indoors to compete in the 2007 State Scholastic Chess Championships. A total of 2100 chess games were played as players ranging from pre-kindergarten to high school senior competed for the official state title. The chess tournament is an annual event that rotates throughout the state from year to year. This year the Southern Arizona Chess Association hosted the event at the Double Tree Inn, in Tucson.
Levon analyzes a game by Steven Waldstein (1300) and Karen Brownell (1300) from the Foothills Open, and discusses how to analyze.
This was a big game for me in that I had started off the tournament very well and was on pace for a GM norm after 6 rounds, before going for the win in a risky position against GM Pavel Blatny, and losing the game, and another loss in round 8. I was nervous going into the round knowing a win would secure an IM norm.