The previously announced tournament for March 24, 2018 has been cancelled. Stay tuned for the announcement of a new tournament date.

On October 7, 2017, come out for a simultaneous exhibition with 2017 Manitoba Champion NCM Gustav Baron

Where: 3rd floor 91 Albert St.
When: Saturday October 7, doors open for casual chess at noon. Simul starts at 1pm. Even closed by 4pm.

Price to play in the simul: $10 or $8 for Manitoba Scholastic players

Price to casually before and after: free

What to bring: If you can, bring a portable set (smaller than tournament size), as this will help us use some of the small tables in our venue.

Saturday April 29 is international table top day. We’ll be having a regular chess club day, but we invite you to bring other table top games in celebration of the day.

Our usual time and location
noon-4pm
3rd Floor 91 Albert St.
Winnipeg

Long overdue!

July 2015 – February 2017 financial report

Income

• $1356.70 donations
• $153 — January 30, 2016 tournament ($225 gross, -$72 in prizes)
• $112 — October 27, 2015 tournament ($225 gross, -$113 in prizes)
• $80 (approximately) — February 20, 2016 simul
• $35 (approximately) — September 12, 2015 simul

Total income: $1736.70

Expenses

• $2000 rent (20 months at $100)

Total expenses: $2000

Net income: $-263.30

As of 2017-02-18

Assets

• $25.54 Bank account
• $52 petty cash held on site
• $74.85 petty cash held off site

Total assets: $152.39

No Liabilities

Equity

Retained earnings: $152.39

We will have live coverage at the club of the Carlsen-Karjakin world championship on Saturday November 12 (round 2) and Saturday November 26 (round 11).

Casual chess will be available as usual.

The games start at 12:30 Winnipeg time.  If there is interest we will keep the coverage going past 4pm on the 2nd floor common area of 91 Albert .

On Saturday November 26 the club will be meeting in the room at the back of the third floor instead of the usual room at the front of the third floor.

The world champions will take a break on Saturday November 19 (between rounds 6 and 7). We break for no-one! Our regular, casual club day is still on.

The chess club is a voluntary, non-profit association. We’re not incorporated and we don’t formalized membership or a board of directors.

The most formal thing we’ve ever done is open a bank account.

Where we direct our time is opening/closing our club week in and week out and occasionally running special events like tournaments.

The people who do this consistently are an organizing committee. We’ve now taken the step of calling ourselves that and have made it clear that participation in making this happen is open to new people who demonstrate responsibility and commitment. We’d like more help and would like to rely on a broader base of people to take care of this over time.

We invite folks interested in helping to come out to our September 10 club day, where as an organizing committee we will renew our opening/closing commitments for the next quarter and consider interest from new organizers.

The opening/closing commitments that have been made up until that date are:

• August 6, 2016 — Jamie
• August 13, 2016 — Mark
• August 20, 2016 — Jamie
• August 27, 2016 — Mark
• September 3, 2016 — Jamie
• September 10, 2016 — Mark

Mind Sport Manitoba is hosting a sectioned, 5 round-robin rapid tournament (plus a group champion bonus round) on Saturday July 9, 2016, 9am to 7pm at Sinclair Park Community Centre. Entry fee is $20.

We will still be hosting a casual club day at 91 Albert St, noon-4pm as ussual. Choose your own adventure.

Greetings to fans of the Rudolf Rocker Chess Club,

We are now wrapping up our second year of hosting casual chess every Saturday noon to 4pm. I am proud that we have demonstrated the viability of a drop in chess club located downtown that makes rent by donation vs charging for memberships and is open every single week.

Attendance and donations have been very strong in the last three months in particular and we’re impressed by the scholastic and CFC tournament performance of club attendees.

As we start year three, we have decided it is time to open up our organizing committee to more people. Jamie and I (Mark) have been opening and closing every week and also receiving a lot of assistance from folks in attendance, Theo in particular. To make the club stronger, lighten the load on Jamie and I, and to ensure we continue to never miss a week we are expanding the organizing committee to include more responsible folks who love enabling casual chess.

To join our all-volunteer organizing committee, we require that you sign up in the next three months (May-July 2016) for a commitment to do three open/close shifts for casual days or organize one special event like a tournament, simul, or other chess related event like a workshop if they are designed to create high attendance and revenue.

Opening and closing a club day requires your to be responsible for the following:

• Checking our venue’s calendar to open the correct room. (we can be booked in any one of three rooms at 91 Albert) We will provide access to the keys.
• Showing up on time for opening at noon.
• Moving tables, chairs, equipment and cash box into position for club use, often requiring effort up and down stairs.
• Greeting newcomers, offering them extra attention in getting the opportunity to learn and play.
• Letting attendees know that voluntary donations allow the club to make rent and run casual chess week in and week out and showing appreciation for said donations.
• Room cleanup up to the standards of our venue, and commencing this cleanup in time to be out of the room by 4pm if there is another booking right after us.

We will train you in all of these things and be available to support you carrying out this work.

Organizing a special event requires all the above plus:

• Ensuring the largest room of our venue is booked specifically well in advance so we have room for a special event to hold a crowd.
• Marketing the event well in advance of the day, including direct contacts with other parts of the chess community to give us the greatest reach
• Pricing the event appropriately to ensure the event is both well attended and earns revenue for the club
• Operating the special event up to the standards expected by the chess community (this is particularly important for tournaments)
• If the event is a tournament, ensuring tournament specific rules are posted in advance

As a member of the organizing committee we will include you in the internal discussion process whenever the club has bigger decisions to make.

We will be wrapping up our organizer calendar for May-July at the April 30th club day, so if you would like to volunteer to open/close and be part of the organizing committee in that period, please let us know in advance of or at club that day. If you’re not able to attend, please let us know by email which days you would like to commit to.

Auxilary volunteer assistance to help us with the above workload is also welcome at any time. If you’d like to volunteer for us in the May-July period, but can’t commit to three shifts or a special event, let us know. At this time we also welcome offers to help us organize in the August-October, 2016 quarter.

Mark Jenkins
Co-founder and treasurer
club@rockerchess.ca

Simultaneous chess exhibition with National Candidate Master Isaac Wiebe.

Where: 3rd Floor 91 Albert Street
When: noon-4pm, Saturday February 20, 2016
Doors at noon, simul starts at 12:30.

Admission: $15

Discounted admission to $10 for players registered in the Canadian Chess Challenge (Scholastic Chess Association of Manitoba).

Isaac is the 3rd highest active rated player in Manitoba and the only one in the top 3 without a master title. He’s climbed from a 1654 to 2245 Chess Federation of Canada rating in only 16 months. As the Manitoban most likely to become our next master, we’re giving you a chance to slow his ascent!

Isaac has agreed to pass on the usual convention of playing white on all boards to play alternating white and blacks.

Lecture to follow.

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A five round rapid swiss tournament with half of entry fees ($15) supporting the club and the other half forming the prize fund.

Where: 3rd floor, 91 Albert St.
Date: Saturday January 30, 2016
Time: Registration closes at 1pm, pairings announced shortly after. Doors open at noon for setup, registration and casual play.

Entry fee: $15

Time control: 15 minutes + 5 second delay

Prizes: to be based on entries. 75% of prize fund will go towards overall prizes, 25% will be used as under prizes for the bottom 1/3 of the field, unless there are few low rated players, in which case adjustments will be made. See further details below. Additional prize sponsors welcome, please contact us

Parking: See this parking guide . The two hour street meters (first two hours free) are not advised as we’ll have tight starts between rounds. Save the hassle and park in a lot.

Tournament specific rules

1. Touch move. Will not be enforced strictly for castling. (proper way is to move the king first)
2. Cell phone ban. First instance, game in progress or next round is forfeited, next instance, out of tournament. We welcome players in the vicinity of a cell phone going off to pause their clock and to help point the arbiter in the direction of the infraction.
3. The first illegal move made will result in a one minute penalty (if claimed), unless either player has less than 4 minutes on their clock, in which case the illegal move immediately results in a loss if claimed. Second illegal move will always result in a loss. Arbiters will not point out illegal moves as per FIDE laws of chess, a claim should be made. We will not penalize a player for claiming a win for illegal move if they capture a king illegally left in check. (but you really should just pause the clock and claim the win that way)
4. Regarding 50 move (since pawn move or any capture) and 3 move repetition draws: games are not required to be recorded as per FIDE laws of chess Appendix A.4.b and we don’t recommend doing so. As such, we don’t expect that anyone is going to claim these kinds of draws by writing the relevant move down down prior to making the claim as per FIDE laws of chess 9.2.a and 9.3a. But, it is permissible to pause the clock and attempt a draw claim on your own turn as per FIDE laws of chess 9.2b and 9.3b if you believe your opponents previous move was the 50th move or later or has created the third or later repetition for a position. Because there is no writing of the moves by the players and no assistant arbiter or fancy e-board recording the games to help us evaluate such claims, we will resolve them as follows. i) if your opponent agrees with the draw claim, the matter is so resolved, if  not ii)  an arbiter or a designated assistant watching the game can deem the claim valid or invalid by their own observation, claims that are denied by not in the opinion of the arbiter made in bad faith will not be penalized,  or iii) if the arbiter or designated assistant is not watching the game, the arbiter should be notified that a draw claim was made but not agreed up, and play will continue with an arbiter or assistant to continue watching it there after. The arbiter and assistant’s will also endeavor to declare games drawn as per FIDE laws of chess 9.6 if by their own observations there have been 75 or more moves without a pawn move or capture or 5 or more repetitions of position.

Detailed cash prize allocation formula

Half of entries will go to prizes. Prize fund will be divided into a overall leaders pool and under prize pool if at least 5 under 1600 CFC and/or CFC unrated players are registered. Otherwise, the entire prize fund will be for overall leaders.

The under prize pool will be for lowest ranked 1/3 of field, at our discretion we made move the cut-off line a few places to reflect rating clusters.

Under prize elligibility for players without CFC ratings but with ratings from other over the board settings will be determined by the tournament directory.

If there are two prize pools, they will be composed as follows:

1st place will take up to the first $50 in available funds
2nd place will take up to the next $20
3rd place will take up to the next $10
The next $30 will be allocated 50% to 1st, 25% to 2nd, 25% to 3rd.
The next $10 will go to forth
Any remaining proportionally equally between 1st-4th
1st place under prize for bottom 1/3 will take up first $25
2nd place under prize will take up next $15
Next $5 will go to first place under
Any remaining under prize monies will be allocated equally to 1st and 2nd under
If there is only one pool (due to few under 1600 entries), the same overall prize rule above will absorb the entire pool