Pleasant view week 12

This week Hazel came back to visit and will join us to our meetings from now on. Welcome back to her; and thanks to Kelly who refilled the bag of candy with new candies. This sure will motivate people to the puzzles activity a lot more. Wonderful volunteers we have!

Unfortunately, I myself am moving away in December and will not be able to run the Pleasant view library. Kelly will take over then and run the program. I will of course visit back and see how things are going.

On the other hand we are still trying to promote the program as much as possible. Because of my inconveniences, Kelly will do the promotion. She will goto elementary schools and hand out flyers.

Week 9 Pleasant VIew branch

This week all the pleasant view students had other plans. Therefore 10 people showed up. New faces are still showing up to the library. Despite the lack of participants, it was our most dramatic week ever.

The puzzles activity is still a huge attraction. The big bag of candy is finding itself thinned every week.

In the future it would be nice to maybe host some unrated double chess tournaments, or simply unrated chess tournaments.

That's it for this week. Sorry for the delay. See you next.

Pleasant View week Seven

This week 14 people showed up to our library, six of whom are students at Pleasant View Junior High School. The newcomers off-balance the loss of players due to the new school year.

Hazel came back to Toronto and visited us, she brought more candy supplies for the kids. Thanks Hazel.

As more people from Pleasant View came, the skill level of the competition has increased. I personally think that we should teacher/ask the participants to record their games(it's Hazel's idea, I felt the obligation to credit her for it). Their recorded games can be of great use for maybe posting them on the website. Thus making a game of the week kind of thing. This way the players will be more encouraged and this will attract more visitors to the site(mind the pun).

The bag of candy hasn't been very generous lately as the puzzles are getting harder! Due to me forgetting to bring the puzzle book(oops), we made our own puzzle and it's apparently pretty hard to solve!

Helping me this week was(in alphabetical order of first name), Aaron, Hazel, Kelly, and Sam.

That's it for this week, see you next week.

Pleasant View meeting

This week the school has taken its toll on the program as this time 12 people showed up. But I am optimistic that it will get back to normal next week. Thanks to the staff who are working in the Pleasant View Junior High School for advertising the program there. This time there are several high school students who came and played. Also there was adult players too.

I am glad that people of higher ages are starting to join this program and I am certain that this will improve the skills of the participants.

I want to welcome Kelly Zheng to the volunteering team here at the library. Kelly joined last week and has been a great help to the program.

Week FIVE

Interestingly the number "16" seems to be haunting us, as this week, again 16 people showed up. The puzzles activity again proved it's popularity as this time we almost had a puzzle "shortage". I am to be honest impressed at how fast the kids solve them. It seems that the younger the participant the faster he/she solves the puzzles. I was constantly summoned to change the puzzle.

This week is also the last week that Hazel's gonna be here. I wanna thank her for her contributions.

I have talked to the library leader about the room, she said she's booked the room for our program. I hereby thank her and announce that our players could come play again next Saturday 10-12 am.

It's here it's finally here!

http://www.chessinthelibrary.com/

It was a dark and stormy night when Yuanling and I have decided to make a website.

To be honest there was a lot of hard times making the website. From editing the content, to flash, to photoshop, and to confusing html, yet we did it. At times we thought that we could never do this or is on the verge of giving up. But after 1 and half month of hardwork it has finally arrived.

Everything you see is designed by me your humble webmaster. The only thing that isn't "homemade" is the feedreader(it was way beyond my level).

Thanks to Yuanling for this great opportunity to show off my web skills and thank TechForceOnCall for donating the webhosting server. Thanks to Macromedia flash for its wonderful functions and thanks to Macromedia dreamweaver for it's ease of control. Also thanks to Adobe photoshop.

Also thanks to inventor of the computer and internet and HTML for making this all possible.

PleasantView Branch week 4

This week, all our "regulars" have returned, sustained from last week is the number of people, as this week "16" people came again. As four weeks have passed, between the members and the organizers grew a great harmony. This week Aaron, Hazel and me were helping out, Sam couldn't make it because he was sick.

Business as usual, we played casual chess and with the great puzzles activity players were kept busy. The puzzle activity again proved its popularity as our players displayed strong interests.

After the rounds Aaron and I with 2 players played double chess together. It was a lot of fun. Other kids who also enjoyed this variation of chess played it as well. Maybe next time we will host a double chess tournament.

Another great idea came up by Hazel is to teach the players to write their moves down. This way we could put their games online, or even analyze it with them. Having the players writing the moves down could bring us a lot of benefits.

The website(made by me(not showing off or anything)) is upon completion. Hopefully you guys could see it by this very AFTERNOON!

www.chessinthelibrary.com ! it should work once Yuanling upload it.

Pleasant View Branch week 3

Our third meeting was held last Saturday at ten again. This time due to other appointments of Hazel's students, 16 people showed up. Which is still an optimistic number. Each week we have a steady "supply" of new members joining our program. And this time we had improvements to the program as well.

This week we set up another activity for the kids and that is puzzles. We had three boards(including a big instruction board that Hazel brought) and set up chess puzzles for the kids. One is for beginner, one is for intermediate, and the really cool instruction board was for advanced. Hazel also brought some candies and we used them as prizes for solving the puzzle. If one person solved it then we set up another puzzle. Hazel brought(yes she brought LOTS of stuff) other interesting puzzles, as well as scrap paper and scrap pens.

This time things went smoothly. The kids who are finished their games are invited to solve the puzzles. Ironically, advanced and intermediate was easily solved whereas the beginner puzzle stayed unsolved until i showed them the answer.

The puzzles activity is a big success as suprisingly people stayed longer and some of them still didn't leave even until almost 30 minutes after 12.

I thank Hazel for all her wonderful contributions.

And it was a great turn out for the program.

That's all for this week, see you next!

Pleasant View Branch week 2

Today we had our second meeting of the Chess in the Library program. It was great. There were almost 20 people here this time. We had a lot of fun. Because of a printer difficulty we had, we decided to hand the certificates from last week next week. I think the winners didn't mind at all.

Overall it was great, we've came across some very interesting games. But because the more players we had and Aaron's absence, we didn't have time to record interesting positions.

As Hazel mention in her blog, we are planning for some more activities, as some players in our Branch has finished 3 rounds in only 30 minutes while other players take 1 hour to complete a game. There is a strong demand of something else for them to do. In the brookbanks library we put chess books for the players to read, I have talked to the Librarian about it. We've decided that we should also put interesting puzzles or even use the television we have in that room for some chess movies.

The puzzle activity will be hosted by a organizer(me), with candy bars rewarded. I'll put up easy 2 move tactics and whoever solves it first gets a candy bar.

That's it for this week, see you next week!

My games

After showing off for Yuanling and Michael, i decided that i deserve some glory too(and to test multiply chess views' load time for the website). So here is a very "instructive" game played by me and this other guy on Chess.com. It is instructive because the epic use of pin, by me.

I am playing white, we played the C70: Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense, Caro Variation.

Although having the same material on the board, the computer analysis shows that i was actually up by 3 point! How did i gain such an enormous advantage? Let's see the game.

Play online chess

So there you go, that was a good game played by me. I got the analysis from chess.com, unlike my friend Fritz 6, it thinks a bit different.

Surprise

To award our dedicated audience who has been so supporting, I now present to you a little "gift".

Now after knowing us, and our program, you must have wondered: "How good in chess are the organizers?". Well I will tell you now.

First of all I suck so we'll skip me.

Yuanling Yuan and Michael Kleinman are good, REALLY good. And here is a interesting game played between the 2 in 2008. Michael Kleinman played white while Yuanling Yuan played Black. The end result was that Michael got checkmated by Yuanling, sadly the scoresheet didn't have the record of the glorious checkmate.How did i get the scoresheet? I don't know either, but here is the game between the two. Commented by me and my smart friend, Fritz 6.

Play chess online

Pleasant View branch first meeting!

The first meeting of the Pleasant View branch took place August 1st, 2009. The festival and the long weekend has taken it's toll on the program as only 11 out of the 27 people who signed up showed up.

Dispite the lack of number of people, the fun and the quality of the games wasn't affected at all. The people who came had a great time; the whole room was so filled with laughter and the joy of victory, that we had to constantly remind people to be quiet.

Lots of people were helping out: Aaron, Hazel, and Sam. They did a great job at keeping the people quiet and engaged, espeically Hazel for her helpful instructions given to the more amateur players.

We came across a very interesting checkmate position where pins are involved, there was a lot of neat things about this checkmate.

CHECKMATE

Watch now nicely the knight takes away c2 square from the king. Qf2 pins the e pawn so the checkmate cannot be blocked.

That's all for this week, see you next week people.

Donations

Last evening, Michael, Yuanling and me went to the home of Southams to receive their generous donations.

First we were overwhelmed by the warm welcomes, the Southams greeted us with their cordial handshakes and their friendly smiles. As we entered the dining room we were again overwhelmed, this time by the numerous donations that occupied the entire dining table. In front was 15 Trophies that the Southams have promised. Behind the neatly arranged trophies was several chess sets. The Southams enthusiastically showed us these items that I am sure are worth a lot of money.

Then behind the chess sets lied 5 big thick binders. In those binders are the precious memories of whom all the trophies belonged to: Todd Southams.

As Ms. Southam showed to us all the photos and newspapers of Todd Southam, a life of a Chess genius who passed away at a young age appear before our eyes. Todd's first tournament was when he was 10 and from then on he became more and more interested in the game of chess. He started going to all kinds of tournaments and he dominated the chess world. His name frequently occurred in the newspapers. Sadly, he passed away in 1996 at the age of only 27.

He was remembered though, there was a Todd Southam Memorial tournament, his face occurred on the cover of the En passant chess magazine and his name on the newspapers.

I feel the deepest appreciation at their donations. The donations themselves are worth a lot in both material and spiritual. Those trophies marked Todd's proudest chess moments, and I'm sure is the treasure to the Southams family.

Todd's chess legacy will live on. As we give the trophies to the new champions in the chess world, they will find "Todd Southam Momorial Award" written on the plate, which will remind them of Todd and his legacy.

Chess in the Library - Pleasant View Branch

When I first heard of Yuanling's Brilliant program Chess in the Library, I was suprised at the uniqueness and the promising goals of this program. Thus without hesitation I decided to help out. But I never would have thought that as fast as a month, a new branch of the program will open up, and I would be the leader of that branch!

After being humorously bossed around by Yuanling in the Brookbanks meetings, I have learned from her leadership skills and all the techniques needed to organize my own branch. Stuff like making pairings, registrations, grabbing people's attentions, speaking loudly, and of course the most important of all: how to boss other people around.

Last time I checked, 15 people already signed up. To me that is both relief and pressure. Relief knowing that so many people already signed up, but there is a sudden rush of responsibility. To be honest I am a bit scared of the first meeting, for all its uncertainties. All I have is a list with names; I know nothing about their age, gender, personality.

Still I am looking forward to the first meeting next saturday, and I have no doubt that it is going to turn out great.