DESERT GARDEN MONTESSORI TUTORIALS WILL BE POSTED BY MONDAY NIGHT

Hello Parents and club members!

I will be posting a brief tutorial on our "3 Special Moves" - both for our newest members and as a quick reminder to our more experienced players. This will be posted by Monday night so please do "check" out the website later on. For the first few weeks I will be putting up mostly tactical chess puzzles and some chess lessons aimed at our newest members. If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to contact me, either by phone or by email.

Your Desert Garden Montessori Chess Coach
- Coach Sean Tobin.

MAGNUS CARLSEN WON WIJK AAN ZEE!!!!!!!

TABLE TAKEN FROM TWIC WEBSITE
-The best in chess every week is Mark Crowther's TWIC!

Another major victory for young Magnus Carlsen - a great way to start off the New Year! His score of five wins, one loss and seven draws allowed him to take first place in this top level event. To find a round by round review of this event please visit TWIC HERE. TWIC stands for "The Week In Chess" and is the ultimate resource for staying up on all of the latest news in the professional chess world.

- Coach Sean Tobin.

WELCOME TO OUR NEW BLOG - Your source for additional chess lessons and local chess news!

Hello everyone!

Thank you for having me back - I have a lot of fun chess activities planned for this Semester and I am looking forward to working with each of our bright young players. This blog is for all members of the Copper Creek Elementary, Mercury Mine Elementary and Sandpiper Elementary School Enrichment Program Chess Clubs. The clubs that I - Chess Coach Sean - am very happy to be teaching at!

Please check in on this website periodically as there will be new postings every week. This blog is meant to be a resource for the entire coach Sean ASCF Chess Community. You will find the games of our players posted here, Tactical Chess Puzzles, additional chess lessons and news about the local and National Scholastic Chess Communities. You may even see a few postings about some of the Professional - top level - players out there in the World on this blog as well.

Enjoy and as always make it a great day! - Coach Sean Tobin.

THE WORLD'S STRONGEST PLAYER - How old do you think Magnus Carlsen is right now?

World number one Magnus Carlsen is only 19 years old - but he became a Grandmaster of Chess at the ripe old age of 13 years old back in 2004! A Grandmaster title has to be won with something called "norms" - a 2600 performance rating in tournaments of a certain length, usually three events thus three norms. Magnus is the third "oldest" in the record books - the youngest person to ever become a Grandmaster is Sergey Karjakin who accomplished this amazing achievement when he was 12 years old. Simply amazing. Chess, Mathematics and Music are the three fields in which Child prodigies can happen - young people who develop their mental abilities and excel at their respective field or fields irrespective of their age and physical development.

Magnus Carlsen is now the highest rated player in the World at 2810 and is rated higher even than World Champion Anand Vishwanathan - who is third on the list! Right now Magnus Carlsen is leading the A section of Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands by half a point with one round to go. To "tune" into to how he is doing I recommend that you visit either of these excellent websites:

TWIC

CHESSBASE

For more information about the "Mozart of Chess" please feel free to go to Wikipedia's coverage HERE. A lot of people have Magnus pegged as the next World Chess Champion and he may even break Gary Kasparov's record of youngest ever - if he is given the chance! I look forward to many years of games from Magnus Carlsen as he is an upstanding and well balanced young man. A role model for all of our players!

- Chess Coach Sean Tobin
POSTED ON 1/30/2010 @ 6:20 PM

CHESS PHOTOS FROM OUT AND ABOUT IN PHOENIX - Coach Sean.

THREE PICTURES FROM A COACH SEAN SIMULTANEOUS EXHIBITION CHESS MATCH - A.K.A. A LUNCH TIME DEMO!

Ready... set... on your marks.... and...

...GO PLAY CHESS!

From a School lunch time chess demo that I did. The most boards I have been able to do at one school is 21. But that is really pushing it when you have very little time to play!

YOU HAVE TO BE FAST SETTING THE PIECES BACK UP!

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PICTURES TAKEN OF THE DIONISIO ALDAMA SIMULTANEOUS EXHIBITION CHESS MATCH HELD ON SUNDAY 1/17/2010
"The Insanity Event!"

IM Dionisio makes the rounds...

CHESS EMPORIUM CHESS COACH CODY VORHEES!

CHESS EMPORIUM CHESS COACH ALEXANDER APOSTALOV!

IM DIONISIO ALDAMA - A GOOD APPLE!
The "I.M." stands for INTERNATIONAL MASTER,
yet another title that can only be won by playing up in chess events.

THERE I AM - COACH SEAN - PONDERING MY NEXT MOVE!

I have written about this event extensively on one of my other blogs about chess but this "PHOTO ESSAY" hopefully gave you a sense of what this event was like. Dionisio would play 12 players at a time and he is one tough hombre. - Coach Sean Tobin.

TUCSON OPEN - PHOTO GALLERY I

Here are some photos of rounds 1 and 2 from the Tucson Open held on January 22nd - 24th, 2010 over in - you guessed it! This was quite the event with the number one chess player in the state participating in the event. You can see what Levon Altounian's rating is in one of the pictures as it is posted at his table... no wonder he is the number one player in Arizona!

My student Tony Yim is now rated 1754 USCF! He came in second in this event - and he will be an A-player very soon and an expert shortly there after! For the cross table to the Reserve section - the section Tony played in - you can access by going to this webpage:

http://main.uschess.org/assets/msa_joomla/XtblMain.php?201001242011.2-14153602

Two of my friends from Oregon came in with 50% scores while having a good time at this wonderful chess tournament. Jason Evers and Paul Motta will be back next year - and I plan to play as well!

- Coach Sean.

TUCSON OPEN - PHOTO GALLERY II

I spent Friday Night and Saturday morning in Tucson, then headed back to Phoenix for the Birthday Party of one of my students, drove back to Tucson and stayed Saturday night then drove back to Phoenix on Sunday morning so I could teach some of my private and group chess lessons. This was a very tiring weekend of chess for me!

I had two friends playing in the Tucson Open - Jason Evers from Oregon and Paul Motta formerly of Oregon now living in Green Valley. One of my students - Tony Yim - played in this event as well. When I said that I go to events to support my students and chess friends I meant it! : P There were many friendly and familiar faces at this event so next year I hope to participate in this fine chess tournament. - Coach Sean Tobin.