Barry Eacker just earned his final Grandmaster Norm at the MVCC Championship. . . April Fool’s!
He did organize the Magic Valley Chess Club Championship on April 1, however, with the support of the Idaho Chess Association. The ICA is increasingly organizing events in partnership with Idaho groups and clubs. In fact, the MVCC and the ICU have a webpage on the ICA’s website so that players can find out about tournaments and view the results of events sponsored by those organizations. The ICA would like to encourage more cooperation and collaboration among the many Idaho chess clubs and affiliating with the ICA is one way to make this happen. The ICA can provide tournament support, webpage development, tournament directing, organizational, equipment, and calendar opportunities for groups in need.
The MVCC Championship began in 1991 before the Idaho Chess Union formed. It is rated using the Rocky Mountain Rating
system which was developed by Barry Eacker after the Idaho Chess Union formed. This system is as good as the US Chess rating system but the RMRS uses 1000 as the floor for all players. This year’s tournament attracted 18 people from as far away as Casper, Wyoming.
“Cheater time controls” and “cheater clocks” were not allowed. The preferred clock was an analog with the time controls being G/60; d0. These time controls provided ample time for quality games with the added excitement of some games ending with both parties in time trouble. After players completed their games, they were able to witness very intense endgames that brought games to the brink of flag falls. In one such game, DeWayne Derryberry and Tom Uptain almost elicited applause. DeWayne won by flagfall with a potato-chip holding his own flag up.
John Glenn (Mountain Home) won the tournament with a relaxed panache as he securely tucked his hands behind his head while entrenched on Board One the entire tournament. His eyes studied the board thoroughly from under his cowboy hat as his opponents blundered or missed critical positions. He scored a perfect 4.0 and donated his book prize to the young Uptain children. Four players ended with 3.0 points tying for 2nd place. I am sure that most would have stayed for another round as most were from the Twin Falls area. In the end, however, DeWayne Derryberry (Pocatello) and Samir Saltaga (Twin Falls) won the books based on tiebreakers.
We would like a shout out and warm welcome to the Uptain family, bringing three generations of players from Wyoming to play in the tournament. In the last round, little brother Uptain faced off with big sister Uptain and snarky witticisms were overheard by neighboring players. All in fun, big sister won! Newcomer, Larry Schwartz (Hailey), commented that this was a very strong group to play against and a good group to learn from. We hope many others will be able to enjoy the ICU/ICA partnership in future tournaments.