Greetings,
We have a new champion! 
The 1st City Quick Chess Championship & Challenger was a rousing success. With the ballroom being remodeled, we were limited to 24 players. 22 players accepted the challenge of our new event (the most players on one night in our new space).
The event was not without a lot of heart-racing excitement! I had drawn my first game against Mark McGough, but I was in the driver’s seat when Mark suffered a loss in the 4th round to Ryan McKeel. All I needed was a draw versus Bill Slichenmyer in the final round to win the title. I picked up a couple of Pawns and thought I would cruise to a win. However, my overconfidence caused me to push my Queen into enemy territory on a speculative attack. My heartrate skyrocketed when I thought my Queen was trapped at 10:23pm. I thought for sure I had thrown away the win and the crown. Now, I would lose on tiebreaks. Why didn’t I just play it safe and shoot for a draw?!?!
Well, I was able to calm myself to find the only-move and save my position. I went on to hold off the counter-attack and win on time. In the process, I won the 1st City Quick Chess Championship and my 7th City Title. This time the treasurer, Mark McGough, was nice enough to present me with the prize. Last time, as president, I had to give myself the prize - not an east job to accomplish!
You can see all the City Champs over the years on our champions page:
Hopefully, our 29th Speed Champ at the end of December will go just as well. You can qualify for the Championship section online with points and medals in the next 5 Sunday nights.
Over-The-Board
In the Challenger section, Daniel Marmer won all his games to claim the top prize and qualify for the 2nd Quick Champ. Will Wolf’s second place performance also qualifies him for next year.
Here are the 1st City Quick Chess Championship and Challenger results & prizes:
You can view the full standings at the bottom the home page :
Better with faces than names, then you can view all the photos in the google album:
Peace be with you,
Paul Anderson - President of the Colorado Springs Chess Club