Are there any chess players out there in the Buckie/Banff area or nearby who either want to help run a club or help juniors play?

Please let me know - ye ken ye want tae!

The app e+Chess (for iPad or iPhone or iPod touch) is now live on iTunes - read all about it on <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.eplusbooks.com">www.eplusbooks.com</a><!-- w -->. The reason I'm flagrantly pushing this on the Chess Scotland noticeboard is that one of the books available now is Andy Burnett's Streetfighting Chess. The app is free (and contains a free copy of Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals with an introduction by Jeremy Silman). Andy's book (available through the Store on the app) is US $ 14.99 - I don't know what that comes out as on the UK ITunes store. Any Scottish authors or publishers who would like their books to look like Andy's - get in touch with me!

While at swim meet this weekend I attended a talk given by the performance director of swim scotland on defining what exactly is talent and a new view on why junior high flyers frequently do not become senior high flyers. One of the problems they have identified is that in the past they have concentrated on identifying talent based on a swimmer's personal best times (pb: think chess grading) and wasted a lot of resources on a group that always experienced high drop out rates.

There are some obvious reasons why one swimmer appears better than another within a particular age group e.g. when born - rank any bunch of swimmers with the same birth year and you will find the vast majority of the top 10 or 20 will be born in the first quarter. No doubt something similar will apply in chess.

The main factor they focused on in this talk was mindset and because they believe it is such a significant factor it is now part of the selection criteria for the national squads.

In essence they have identified two main mindsets - 'fixed' and 'growth' which all swimmers (indeed the academic work behind it is not sports based and so applies to all of us in most activities) have a mixture of. See page 4 of the following pdf http://www.scottishswimming.com/assets/f...0Oct11.pdf
In summary the 'fixed' mindset basically has at its core the belief that your success is essentially largely due to natural talent, whereas a 'growth' mindset emphasis that success comes from hard work. Those with a growth mindset tend to seek new challenges, are not put off with having to work hard to learn new skills and take ownership of their own success. They tend to be less put off by set backs. Those that have the fixed mindset tend to shy away from doing things that they think may show that they are not talented. If you believe that your talent is innate it is much harder to justify the work to progress beyond whatever level your 'natural talent' gets you to.

As consequence, the growth mindset is to be taught/encouraged in swimming training. One study showed that simply the language used to praise success has a significant impact: those praised in a growth mindset manner ("you've worked hard for that ...") progressed faster than those that had fixed mindset praise ("You are talented").

Thoughts?

With less than six months to go until the Prestwick Airport Congress 2012, I thought I would mark the event with a game from the Open section of the 2011 Congress. This one features the Ayrshire Champion Elliot Frew against Mike Surtees from England. Both were graded 2148 at the time of the event.

[pgn][Event "Prestwick Airport Open"]
[Site "Prestwick"]
[Date "2011.05.15"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Surtees, Mike J"]
[Black "Frew, Elliot"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B22"]
[WhiteElo "2148"]
[BlackElo "2148"]
[PlyCount "86"]
[EventDate "2011.05.15"]
[EventType "swiss"]
[EventRounds "5"]
[EventCountry "SCO"]

1. e4 c5 2. c3 d5 3. f3 e6 4. Nh3 Nc6 5. d3 Nf6 6. g3 Be7 7. Bg2 dxe4 8. fxe4
e5 9. Nf2 Be6 10. Be3 Qd7 11. h3 O-O 12. Nd2 Rfd8 13. O-O Rac8 14. Nf3 Ne8 15.
g4 Qc7 16. Qe2 b5 17. Rfc1 Qb8 18. g5 a5 19. Rd1 b4 20. Ng4 Bxg4 21. hxg4 Qb5
22. Bf1 Rb8 23. Rd2 Qb7 24. Qh2 f6 25. Qh3 fxg5 26. Nxg5 Bxg5 27. Bxg5 Rd6 28.
Rf2 Rg6 29. Qh5 Nf6 30. Bxf6 gxf6 31. Be2 Qe7 32. Bd1 bxc3 33. bxc3 Qd7 34.
Bb3+ Kg7 35. Rg2 Qxd3 36. Rd1 Qe3+ 37. Kf1 Rb7 38. Qf5 Rh6 39. Rg1 Rh2 40. Rd7+
Ne7 41. Rxe7+ Rxe7 42. Bd1 Qd3+ 43. Ke1 Qd2+ 0-1[/pgn]

This year's Glasgow Allegro will take place on Sunday (6th Nov) at Glasgow University Queen Margaret Students' Union. Details are in the calendar section of the Chess Scotland website.

Come along for an exciting day of chess. Entries taken up to 10am.

The 2011 Glasgow Allegro will take place this Sunday 6th November at Glasgow University Queen Margaret Students' Union. Details appear in the calendar section of the Chess Scotland website.

Come along for an exciting day of chess. Entries taken up to 10am on Sunday.

Good luck to the Scotland team (FM Alan Tate, FM Graham Morrison, IM Andrew Muir, CM Paul Roberts, Martin Mitchell), we have a tough draw against Croatia today. Unfortunately only the top 9 matches seem to be live.

November 1 file of SCO players outside Scotland FIDE game data imported into domestic ratings for CS members. The results will appear in player records later today.

A few duplicate SCO players again appearing in the FIDE system despite the players already having a record in the database. Thanks to Robin Moore for spotting the errors.

Most international events request FIDE pnum data when players enter. Does that also apply to representative junior team events? If we do already supply pnums then organisers must be ignoring the information and creating rogue doublers. If we dont supply then it's easy to create a new record or check if a record already exists.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ratings.fide.com/">http://ratings.fide.com/</a><!-- m --> is a name search for any graded or ungraded player in the FIDE system. If no record exists then just email <!-- e --><a href="mailto:grading@chessscotland.com">grading@chessscotland.com</a><!-- e --> and a new FIDE pnum will be created. This also applies to individuals competing in FIDE rated events - get an ID before the event and make sure you get credited with the correct results.

Hi Folks,

It was lovely to see you all today and I'm happy that you had such a good time.

Through the thoughtfulness of the catering girls we were given the extra facilities for the cafe area today. Depending on future events and commitments we may or may not have it. We cannot afford to 'buy' this area so please would you keep it tidy so that we are welcome to return.

There are plenty of bins at the venue and it only takes a moment for you to put your rubbish into one.
Once you have finished your games and go away home it is very disheartening for my SNCL Team to find that we have to spent ages clearing your mess. Cups (with and without liquid!!), plates, pens, scoresheets and other rubbish left at the playing boards -- Why?

Analysis area is also left to us. For example when tidying up tonight, rather than disturb a couple who were analysising their game, one of my colleagues left the tub on the table. Coming back ten minutes later -- the couple had gone but the pieces, far from being in the box, had been scattered over the table.

We have a very long day too -- it starts before you arrive and ends long after you leave. Please have some consideration
a) Put all your rubbish in the bin
b) Do not leave anything at the tables - analysis or competition
c) Pack away the analysis sets and leave them tidily on the table when you are finished. If someone else wants to use them it will only take a minute for them to tip them out and reset.

I would like to thank my team for their commitment to SNCL. Through your dedication we have an excellent rapport with the venue staff. I would hope that the chess community will recognise the need to assist us in this matter.

Glynis

Will be available on the links from 7pm ish onwards

Div 1
Div 2
Div 3
Div 4