OR Championship! – The Oregon Invitational Championship was contested June 13-15 and 21-22 in Portland. Radu Roua won the event 7-2 to repeat his victory of 2007. Landon Brownell and Nick Raptis tied for 2nd-3rd with 6.5-2.5. Please see the Portland Chess Club website for more information and results!

Rusty Miller reports on the Portland G/60 (May 31) – "22 players took part in the event held at the Portland Chess Club. As usual Nick Raptis was number one rated and won the event 4-0. A number of the players were high school students and younger. Neil Dale was the TD.
I played and did okay with 1 win 1 loss and 2 draws." Note: Nick also won the June G/60.

WA Open games are available on the games page in Chessbase and PGN formats.
Thanks to Drayton Harrison for compiling the available games. Games from the Washington Championship, Premier and Invitational are also available to download.

Washington Open was held Memorial Day Weekend (May 24-26, Redmond, WA). Congratulations to the winners: Open - Ignacio Perez, Nick Raptis, Michael Lee, Charles Cadman, Mark Naus, Andy May (4.5/6.0), Premier - Arie Milner, Peter Lessler (5.0/6.0), Reserve - Daniel Copeland (5.5/6.0), Booster - Quentin Chi (5.5/6.0).

33rd Keres Memorial (May 16-19 in Vancouver, BC) – Eighteen juniors joined this 79-player event, organized and directed by Stephen Wright with assistance from Katherine Davies and Lyle Craver. In Open section, FM Bindi Cheng tied first with IM George Orlov with 5.5/7.0. See http://www.bjdy.com/juniorchess/news.html for more info.

Inland Empire Open in Spokane (Apr 26-27) – Winner: Paul Bartron (4.5/5).

"BC's chess parents and junior chess organizers congratulate WA organizers, coaches/teachers, parents, and particularly these young chess players for their success: 1,414 players at 2008 WA State Elementary Chess Championships!" (Apr 26 in Redmond, WA.) See http://www.bjdy.com/juniorchess/search/index3.html.

Grandmaster and former US Chess Champion Hikaru Nakamura was at the championships, and was scheduled to take on a group of kids in a simultaneous exhibition!
See http://www.hikarunakamura.com/ for background info on Nakamura.

Portland CC Game in 60 (Apr 26) – Winner: Nick Raptis (4/4).

Clark Harmon Memorial Open in Portland (April 19-20). The winner was Radu Roua with 4.5 points, drawing IM John Donaldson in round 5. At 4-1 were John Donaldson, Nick Raptis, Steve Breckenridge and Michael Morris. There were 40 players.

WA-BC International Scholastic Chess Match, Vancouver, BC, Canada (Apr 19). Congratulations to the BC team, winning by a score of 32-20 over the WA state team.
See http://www.bjdy.com/juniorchess/news.html. New! See WA team photo album online.

Congratulations to Idaho state champion Jason Evers, winner of the 2nd Alzheimer's Benefit Chess Tournament in Bend, OR (April 13) with a perfect 3 out of 3 score. Your business manager, Eric Holcomb, finished in second place after a tie-break. Also see Sean Tobin's blog at http://cocjournal.blogspot.com/.

Daffodil Open was held in Tacoma (April 12-13). The winner was Mike Macgregor with 4.5 out of 5 points. There were 19 players, including some we hadn't seen in awhile!

OSCF State Championship (K-12), Seaside OR (Apr 11-12). The third annual Oregon Scholastic Chess Federation State Championship was a huge success! See www.oscf.org.

Seattle Spring Open (March 28-30). There was an excellent turnout of over 50!

Congratulations to Larry Ball, winner of the Portland Chess Club March G/60, with a perfect score of 4 out of 4!

9th North American FIDE Invitational was held in Chicago, Illinois, March 22 to March 28. See http://www.nachess.org/fide and http://www.monroi.com/wdc.

Report on the well-known “Amber Chess Tournament,” March 15-27 in Nice, where 12 grandmasters played the "two circles" system: one fast game and one blind game.

Portland Spring Open (Mar 15-16) and Spokane Uncle's Tournament (Mar 15).

All Economy! The Tacoma Chess Club experimented with an all-economy (no prize fund) tournament the weekend of March 8-9. There were 16 entries.

16th Dave Collyer Memorial, Spokane, WA (Feb 23-24).

New Champion! Washington State Chess Championship/Premier/Invitational concluded Monday, February 18 at the Seattle Chess Club. Congratulations to GM Gregory Serper, our new Washington State chess champion!! It was an exciting final game as defending champion NM Ignacio Perez tried an exchange sacrifice against Serper, but the GM met the challenge!!

Interesting! – Player "Blurbs" – Hear how the players got started in chess.

Woodpusher! Meanwhile your business manager, Eric Holcomb, won the "Washington Woodpushers" under 1800 tournament in Tacoma with a score of 3.5 out of 4. This event was incorrectly advertised in Northwest Chess with February 17-18 dates (instead of Feb. 9-10).

Updated! Games from some WCF events, including the 2007 WA Class Championships and the 2007 WA Challengers Cup. Games are available in Chessbase and PGN formats.

President’s Congress was held at the Tacoma Chess Club.

Nathan Lee won the WA Junior Open on Jan 21, 2008 after winning 2 playoff matches following a 3 way tie for 1st place. Nathan gets seeded into the WA Junior Closed and the WA Premier next year. We had 176 players for the largest turnout seen yet by WCF scholastic director David Hendricks. Thanks for your participation!

Seattle City Championship at the Seattle Chess Club (Jan 18-20). The 11 player top section was won by Dereque Kelley 4.5/5.0. In second place was Elston Cloy at 4-1. The 17 player reserve section was won by Drayton Harrison.

Portland Chess Club Gresham Open (Jan 5-6). Rusty Miller reports, "Paul Barton won with 4.5. Nick Raptis, Radu Roua, Andy May, Pablo Pena, Howard Chen, and Ethan Peake all finished with 4 points. 46 players took part. The playing site is one of the best in the NW!" By the way, Rusty has moved to Camas, WA near Portland.