Breaking news! Team Washington just broke into the top 200 teams on Chess.com and made it to page 4 on the match leaderboard. In the process, we surpassed our regional group Team USA Northwest - at least for now. Team USA NW has actually its best year so far but it takes a bit longer to collect the points as the matches have more participants. If folks want to help out our regional group you can join here: http://www.chess.com/groups/home/team-usa-northwest.

The cheeky side of me is thinking of challenging our regional team to a match. Something like "Washington against the Rest of the Northwest". What do you guys think?

Also, Wisconsin has finally discovered their fighting spirit and has folks signing up. We still have many member without an opponent but at least there are 13 boards now with the top 7 evenly matched. We are slowly closing the gap in the NJ match but the match against B.C. is out of reach. I guess we have to ask for a rematch and get some revenge. Otherwise, it isn't easy to find suitable opponents as I have no interest playing the mega groups or the spam groups.

Our internal Team Washington tournament is in the final round with tough matches everywhere. Franktek150 is currently in the lead. To watch the action and cheer for your favorite player go here: http://www.chess.com/tournament/team-washington-invitational-open ..