2018 WCA President’s Report

April 1, 2018

 

The Wisconsin Chess Association had another strong year in 2017. Attendance at our tournaments was up again. The Association’s finances are the strongest in recent memory. We hope to continue building on this success in 2018 and hope that you’ll continue supporting WCA events and all Wisconsin tournaments.

We are excited to once again host the US Open in Middleton July 28-August 5. Please consider playing but if you do play, get your room now as in December Madison announced they had won the right to host the 2018 Reebok Crossfit games August 1-5 and overnight hotel rates shot up. A limited number of hotel rooms remain in our block at the Madison Marriott West. Please double up on the rooms if you can.

The traditional nine day event begins Saturday, July 28. The six day schedule begins on Tuesday, July 31 and the four day option (with accelerated time controls for the first six rounds) begins on Thursday, August 2. There will be side events every day, a bughouse championship, a speed tournament, workshops and governance meetings that are open to all play in or attend.

Since only three nominations were received for the WCA Board, all were automatically elected to fill the three open seats. Congratulations to Ken Rasmussen, Robin Grochowski and Chris Wainscott who have each gained three year terms. In addition, due to a growing family, Ben Corcoran resigned his seat on the Board. The Bylaws allow the President to name a replacement for open seats and I selected Jeff Peck to fill the open seat. My thanks to the all Board members for their dedication this past year.

I have two years remaining on my final term on the US Chess Federation’s Executive Board. A lot of our current work is in the area of development to create a fund raising strategy for the Federation.

Two seats on the Executive Board are up for election this summer. Please register to vote on your MSA page at https://new.uschess.org/players/search/ then you’ll receive a ballot in early June that will need to be returned by July 20.

The WCA sponsors the Marshall Rohland Memorial/Wisconsin Closed Championship, the Arpad Elo Open, the William Martz Memorial/North Central Open, the Wisconsin Memorial, the Game/60 State Championship and the Wisconsin Junior Open and Veterans Tournaments. All are open for bids from state organizers and/or tournament directors. If you are interested in more details on how to bid for these events, please contact any board member.

I’m pleased to announce that the WCA is working with a vendor to provide online registration for our tournaments. In addition, the vendor has agreed to allow us to partner with other clubs in the state to allow them to use our portal for their events. So the first event that will use the online registration system will be the Hales Corners Challenge XXVII. Their home page can be located at https://onlineregistration.cc/. Scroll down to our events under ‘Wisconsin Chess Association’.

When deciding on when to hold an event, tournament organizers need to contact the state tournament clearinghouse director Guy Hoffman to find open dates on the tournament calendar. Guy can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Congratulations to Brookfield Academy for taking their first State Scholastic Championship. Congratulations to University School of Milwaukee for winning their fifth K-8 State Team Championship and to Wauwatosa’s McKinley Elementary School for winning their first K-5 State Team Championship. Earlier this month 420 Wisconsin students participated in the State Scholastic Championships at UW-Oshkosh. Thanks to Mark Seghers for putting together a new website to track the history of the event. The website is http://wischolasticchesschampionship.blogspot.com/. If anyone has photos from past events that they’d like to share, you may upload them to the site.

Since the State Scholastic is a team Swiss event at the high school level, Wisconsin uses the Wisconsin Junior Open as its qualifier for national junior individual invitational events. Please plan to participate in the event November 3-4 at UW-Oshkosh to qualify for the 2019 GM Arnold Denker Tournament of High School Champions, the Dewain Barber Tournament of K-8 and the National Girl’s Tournament of Champions. In 2018 these events will be held in conjunction with the US Open in Middleton. Our representatives will be Rithwik Mathur, Hersh Singh and Anupama Rajendra. Good luck team! And since we are the home state, if there is an odd number of participants in any of the events, our alternate will get to play so there are no byes. Our alternates are Kevin Li, Rishav Bhattacharyya and Susanna Ulrich.

Congratulations once again to Joziah Rudolph for capturing his second consecutive Wisconsin Chess Tour title. Organizers desiring to have their event considered for Tour status need to contact Tour Committee Chair Guy Hoffman by November of the year before the tour. Tour standings are listed on our website www.wischess.org.

Tournament organizers are able to add calendar entries to our website calendar and we encourage them to do so. It is free advertising for their events. After submission, you need to e-mail me so that I can approve the event. We have received only a couple of news stories this year and depend on the state players, organizers and TD’s to supply content. If you have an interesting game to share or wish to write up a chess tournament or event, please do so and send it to me. I may be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Respectfully submitted by WCA President, Mike Nietman