3 Way Tie for the 2018 LCCC Club Championship – and GM Gareyev Sets World Record

Chess is always classy!

Two huge accomplishments are the content for this article. First the BIG one!

We had a three-way tie for the Club Championship!

Don Mason, Ken Tack and Vince Valente all tied for 1^st place with 3 points out of 4.

In the K-12 Division, the top 3 finishers were:

1^st – Justin D. (trophy)

2^nd – Ethan J. (medal)

3^rd – Brandon D. (medal)

Congratulations to all the winners!

The other big accomplishment is that GM Timur Gareyev, an Uzbekistan born GM, set a new chess world record by playing 48 people at the same time – Blindfolded! Timur scored an 80 percent winning percentage. The match took 19 hours to complete!

The event was held at the University of Las Vegas Nevada (UNLV) and was sponsored by OFF da Rook, a chess organization that runs scholastic chess events and has a chess site – offdarook dot com.

Most of the players came from locals at the Las Vegas Chess Center, but featured players that came from as far away at Tennessee and there were even 4 out of the country players that played via internet.

Over half of the players in the event were rated 1700 or higher. For those who don’t know what that means, it means over half the players were in the top 5% in the world. That is what that means! Congratulations to GM Gareyev on his amazing achievement!

Your humble scribe went back and forth as whether or not to mention this world record. Chess already has the reputation that it is a game for geeks and the super intelligent. I did not want to highlight that stereotype.

The way to look at chess is the same way you look at any other endeavor. Let’s say you don’t try chess because you think you are not smart enough. Let me let you in on a little secret:

I played high school and league baseball when I was never going to be good enough to be in the Major Leagues.

I played very competitive softball, but was not good enough to make the Michigan Softball Hall of Fame like many of my teammates have.

I played high school and league football when I was never going to even get big enough (let alone fast or strong enough) to play in the NFL.

I played league hockey when I was never going to be a good enough skater to be in the NHL.

I played league and tournament golf, and I have no shot of making any Tour of any kind.

I have played poker for serious stakes in casinos and casual stakes at home games, and I have no shot of ever being a professional poker player.

I have been in a target and self-defense shooting league and finished no where near the scores that the sharpshooters there could achieve. 

Other people run in races, bowl, fish, play soccer, tennis, basketball etc., all against others that enjoy that activity also. Others run marathons, even though they will never compete in the Olympics.

I also play chess. Casual and Tournament Chess. But I am never going to be a Grandmaster. Nor will I ever even try to play ONE chess game blindfolded.

Chess is like all the other activities I mentioned. You can learn chess. You may never be the best at it. You may never even be good at it (where ever that “GOOD” line actually is), but you will never be the worst at it and you will still have fun playing it!

Learn to play chess. You will not regret it and your mind will thank you for the exercise. Your eyes will thank you for the beauty you will create with your games. Trust me. You will have some stunners - both winning and losing! No two chess games are ever the same.

As your humble scribe blogs from the Club this hot casual chess Monday night, we were glad to see Zade K. back from West Pointe to play tonight and also Sam T.- who also returns after a stay at college.

Welcome back guys!

Zade promises to supply us with an article about his participation in various Armed Forces tournaments!

Casual chess continues next Monday. See you there.