Standings after 9 rounds:
1. Grischuk Alexander 2716 RUS 6
2-3 Gashimov Vugar 2679 AZE 5½
Wang Yue 2689 CHN 5½
4-7 Radjabov Teimour 2751 AZE 5
Carlsen Magnus 2765 NOR 5
Mamedyarov Shakhriyar 2752 AZE 5
Adams Michael 2729 ENG 5
8-9 Bacrot Etienne 2705 FRA 4½
Kamsky Gata 2726 USA 4½
10-11 Svidler Peter 2746 RUS 4
Karjakin Sergey 2732 UKR 4
12. Cheparinov Ivan 2695 BUL 3½
13. Inarkiev Ernesto 2684 RUS 3
14. Navara David 2672 CZE 2½
Official website: http://baku2008.fide.com/
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
http://kingschess.com/uscf/
Hello,
My name is David Monatelli and I am the chess coach of two IL district 103’s state champion teams. The goal of this web site is to achieve public attention/action to an injustice in scholastic chess caused by the USCF. Ultimately I hope this will bring about change in time for our children to be included in this years national chess championship May 9-11, 2008.
Sign the “Let them play” petition
The USCF Scholastic Council has voted to disallow IL District 103’s State Champion Chess Teams from competing at Nationals in May due to a technicality in the regulation 13.x. I have been fighting this for a month now via the USCF channels. It is now clear to me that one person is not going to make a difference when going up against a non for profit corporation like the USCF. I am looking for support in the chess community. Perhaps if this becomes a global issue something will get done. Don’t just take it from me, please read some of our children’s letters requesting a chance to compete. They were all sent to the USCF board members. Please sign our petition and spread the word!
Links:
* Sign the “Let them play” petitionClick here to sign an online petition supporting our children’s right to play as a team.
* Click here to see some of the kids letters requesting the right to play.
* Click here for a contact list of USCF board members and voice your opinion directly to the Executive board and Scholastic Council.
Background:
I’m David Monatelli the coach of two IL State champion chess teams in 2008 and 13 champion teams since 2003. The problem our teams face stem from a poorly worded USCF regulation (#13). Simply stated it says that you must be attending the same building as your teammates to play together. Back in the day when I actually attended Sprague as a child everything was fine. The schools were K-3, 4-5 and 6-8 respectfully. That was a long time ago but the district still remains one school spread over 3 buildings. However as the population changed the distribution of grades per building also changed. Currently we have the following grade breakdown:
The exact breakdown of grades per building is as follows:
* K-2 Sprague
* 3-4 Half Day
* 5-8 Daniel Wright
With this breakdown of grades per building our 2nd and 3rd graders cannot be a team in the K-3 section and similarly neither can 4th and 5th graders be a team in the K-5 section. (I am sure this regulation affects many other schools across the USA).
NOTE: Our buildings are all located within a one mile radius of each other.
One school feeds directly into the next There is simply no other choice for the children. Our schools do not overlap or duplicate any grades in any of the buildings involved. In theory we could have 9 buildings with one grade in each building or conversely 1 building for all of K-8. The actual children would be the same in either scenario just where they are housed would change. The only thing that changes are the buildings. Perhaps our buildings shouldn’t be allowed to play chess but our children should!
The intent of regulation 13.x is mainly to disallow super teams that can be created from a large school district with many feeder schools. To that extent the rule is useful. However its current wording harshly discriminates against cases like ours. It also gives an unfair advantage to our competitors in private schools that have all K-8 students in one building and have NO geographic boundaries for recruiting their team. We are just a simple public school system that wants a chance to compete.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
David Monatelli
Stop spamming. People are less sympathetic to your plea when you do this.
Hi David Monatelli,
I would suggest you contact some of the top sites to see if they will blog on your issue. Susan is good about that so you would be better contacting her than posting a long off topic comment post.
chess.com, chessvibes.com, chessbase.com, chessdom.com, http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/, and there are a bunch more sites.
I love the international scene to develop these years. Now that Kasparov has gone the whole thing is more interesting, the games get more active and the young people take their chances.
So today a sympathize most with Grischuk. Hope he will win this tournament!
okay
“I love the international scene to develop these years. Now that Kasparov has gone the whole thing is more interesting,”
Of course, since today players are so lame that Kasparov used to mop the floor with them. The real reason he retired is because there was no competition.
Sorry, I didnt make the anonymous post. It looks like someone cut and paste from my web site or an email.
However information is correct.
Wish our 2nd graders luck as they will be the only all 2nd grade team (4 players) in the national K-3 championship section. In fact they are the only 2nd grade team in last 2 years.
Thanks for your support…
Sincerely,
David Monatelli