Orlando Sunshine Open - Club Memeber Results

The Central Florida Chess Club held their annual Orlando Sunshine Open & Scholastic Tournament this weekend. The tournament also featured side events by ChessStars.com. The event was held at the Rosen Plaza at 9700 International Drive. Personally it was the best location I've ever played at for a chess tournament, with the possible exception of the old Fells Point Chess Club in Baltimore, Maryland, which is right next to a bar.

The purpose of this post, though, is to congratulate Paul Leggett for his fine performance of 4.5 out of 5 points in the U2000 section, which was good for a two-way tie for first. William Bowman held him to a draw, but he mowed throw the rest of the competition, including a grueling 92 move marathon against me.

As for my performance, and that of Connor, perhaps the best way to sum up the results would be with a cartoon dog in a funny hat.

More from Theo Slade

As I've said, I asked Theo Slade to write for us. It turns out he's already writing for BCM and the CFCC. That's good! I care more about decent content than I do where it gets published. I'm particularly interested in the writing about the local chess scene, as I suspect that could help generate, or at least maintain, local interest.

Theo's first article for BCM from Florida concerned his culture shock adjusting to American chess culture. His articles for BCM since then have been more about the international scene. But I'm happy to report that Theo wrote up a lengthy report about his three tournaments in July, two in Philadelphia and one here in Orlando. You can find that article here, kind of hidden on the CFCC's Games page. Recommended, especially if you're likely to play local Class A or Expert players. Consider it a scouting report!

Theo Slade's second article.

As mentioned a few posts back, Theo Slade writes for BCM, and also posts the articles on the Central Florida Chess Club website. His second article to appear at the CFCC was on the Candidates Tournament from a few months ago. Theo analyzes the magnificent round nine encounter Giri-Caruana. If you haven't seen that one yet, definitely check it out.

Articles by Theo Slade

I recently asked Theo Slade if he'd like to write for our blog. But it turns out he has been a regular contributor to British Chess Magazine for a few years now! I knew about one article he had written, but didn't know about the others. So he's already writing a fair amount.

Fortunately for us, his articles are available even if you don't subscribe to British chess periodicals. In recent months he has allowed the Central Florida Chess Club to post his articles on their website. Here's the first one, Culture Shock, which many of is at the club have already seen. This covers some of the differences between English and Florida chess cultures. (Yes, it's really US chess culture, but each of the bigger states will have their own particular culture.)

One of the big points is that in the USA we use delay time controls instead of incremental time controls. This is something I wonder about myself. Increments were first proposed to a wider audience by Bobby Fischer. (Off the top of my head I can't remember if anyone else suggested the idea earlier.) As far as I know, we're the only major chess country who prefers delay to increments, and I just don't understand it. Increments have been popular online since the days of ICS, and that got its start at Carnegie-Mellon University. So why USCF tournaments prefer delay really baffles me.

Regardless, you can read Theo's article there, as well as play through the game he annotates. I recommend it, and I will link to the other articles in coming days, or readers can find them on the CFCC website. Enjoy!