The Spokane Chess Club will host a quad event at the Cheney Congregational Church in Cheney, WA. The one-day event will offer a twist on the quad format, and it will feature our newest site partner, Cheney Congregational Church.
The Club has been expanding its geography lately. In February, the inaugural Inland Classic drew a large and strong crowd to Rathdrum, ID. We hope our expanding territory will create more opportunities for new players to join us and help us find more partners where we can hold our events. For the Straightedge Quads, we are offering a discounted entry fee of $10 for EWU students with valid ID.
The Quads will be our first event held at Cheney Congregational Church, whose pastor has become a regular and entered competition as a strong Class B player (for now).
The format includes two separate round robins. In the morning, players will be paired according to regular quad rules, separating similarly rated players into groups of four. These Playoff quads will feature a dual-rated G30d5 time control, allowing the first quads to end before lunch. The second afternoon quads will seed top finishers into two Finals quads. The winners of each quad will be paired together, and the second place players of each quad will be paired. Adjustments to the format will be made best on entries and the laws of dividing by four.
Top finishers in the morning quad receive $15 and advance. Second-place finishers have to keep scrapping for their payout with the rest of the also-rans. The rest of us will go home a little poorer but richer for the experience. Free play available all day.
The format is inspired by my earliest days in chess. Back when clocks actually ticked and the best chess players were actually human, I attended a few sessions of a monthly quad event that featured a 40 moves/40 minutes time control in the morning, which seeded the afternoon long time-control event. Hosted in a church hall basement, it’s where I learned how chess is supposed to sound and smell. Though it would be 20 more years before I earned a non-provisional rating, I still think of these events as the pinnacle of weekend chess bliss.
Come to Cheney on 4/20, and make chess memories with us.