The Lichess arena allows users to participate in real-time online tournaments. Arenas are open tournaments with a specified time duration. During this time, players can join and leave whenever they want. After the tournament concludes, you can review your games, analyze them, and learn from your games. Accessing the arena: Go…
Up until this year, whenever someone asked me how I balanced school and chess, I gave a principally correct answer (school first, try to study chess every day, etc.), but I never really understood the question. Middle school and even freshman-year coursework barely required time outside of school, after all—still lots…
We had another amazing turnout to the December Tournament of over 50 players! Of the 50 players, 5 played their first tournament, 10 were girls who received a free entry to the event and 2 free entries to players with low-income or from a rural-area. Now, for our prizes (even score medals…
Puddletown had another amazing turnout to the November Tournament with over 60 players! Unfortunately we had a smaller play venue this time and have to set a limit to total number of players. Of the 60 players, 8 played their first tournament, 20 were girls who received free entry for the…
Puddletown had another amazing turnout to the October Tournament with over 60 players! Huge shoutout to the Sherman County School chess team, who had to wake up at 5 a.m. (again!) to drive for almost 3 hours just to play in this tournament. Of the 60 players, 3 played their first…
It was just one year ago when Puddletown had its first event at a pizza parlor with 20 players. Now, one year later, we had almost 100 players at our first-anniversary tournament. We'd like to thank everyone who has been supporting us. In the past year, Puddletown Chess provided over 100…
This year, for the first time ever, the annual Pan-American Youth Chess Championship was held in the United States. This was also my first time playing in the popular youth event. I missed the opportunity to travel to a new country, but at least flying to Chicago was much easier logistically.…
After a pause in Puddletown tournaments due to our busy summer schedules, we were finally back for another in-person event today. 65 players joined us at Village Church to battle it out in their respective sections. We had many new players this time: shoutout to Stellan B., Elliot S., Bryan W.,…
How odd, I thought, scrolling past this year's US Girls Junior Championship player list. Many of the familiar names I had seen on television over and over again in the past were absent this year. Instead, I saw more young friends, attending this prestigious event for the first time. Last year,…
We had a full house today with 40 players. Our new venue, Village Church - Beaverton was perfect with the right amount of space for players and their families. We had exactly 10 quads with many new returning players. Great job to Cody, Devan, Alexander, Austin, Andrew, and Rajvi for competing…
During the lunch break of the Spring Festival, we held a simul, or simultaneous exhibition, where one player (typically a stronger player) plays multiple opponents at the same time. Two titled players hosted the simul: NM Wilson Gibbins and WIM Zoey Tang. The players had 10 minutes, while Wilson and Zoey…
My first impressions of chess tournaments were their size. Rows upon rows of long tables, filled with checkered boards and tall (or so they seemed to me at the time) people on either side of them; gigantic rooms and hallways dedicated entirely to chess. Gradually, though, as I played in more…
Our May chess tournament was unlike any other tournament we have held before. This time, we decided to do a “Spring Festival”, which is a regular Swiss tournament and not quads styled. We had an outstanding turnout with over 80 players coming to the tournament. We had 3 big sections, divided…
It was a couple of weeks before the OSCF team championships. I was just minding my business when suddenly a unique idea popped up in my head: What if my little brother Neev and I hosted practice and game analysis sessions to help our 2 favorite schools, Jacob Wismer and Stoller…
Recently the 13th annual OSCF state championship took place in seaside, where it’s been hosted since the first occurrence. Something really special about this one however was how me, Zoey, and Austin donated the cost from Puddletown to support the venue of the tournament. This is our biggest donation by far…