Welcome

Welcome to the second newsletter!  Our admin team thought that with all the new members and new activity in the club, we could help describe what happens here and what will happen in the future.

We compete in chess leagues, and vote chess matches. We also arrange 'friendly' matches to help ensure everyone who wants to play can do so. Signing up for matches is entirely optional, of course. If you do sign up, please check your game at least every three days so that your games don't time out. 

Team Matches

In Team Matches, the players on the teams are ranked in order of rating against each other. Some players may not get a board if we have less players registered than our opponents. Some matches are limited by your daily chess rating, for example "< 1400" or U1400 means the match is limited to players with a daily-chess rating of less than 1400. Click on the match name, and if your rating is such that you are eligible to join the match, a "Join" button will appear. Chess.com handles all this automatically. 

There is one 'friendly' team matches currently in registration: 

ADDICTS vs Latter-day Saint Chess Friends (U2000) starts March 25

29 matches still in play with half of them over 80% done. We are in the lead in 20 of them and 1 tied. Way to go team. Finish strong. Surfsnook does a great job of finding matches for us and usually they are exotic places.

Chess Leagues

Vote Chess Snow Dragon League

We are placed in the new Snow Dragon League. Play just started with our first match against Scary Ninjas. You can join the team here https://www.chess.com/votechess/game/137804. The next match will come in April.

Vote Chess

Vote Chess is a team game. Each move takes 3 days. You discuss the each move with other members for the first 2 days, and after there's been consideration of all the proposed moves, normally during the last 24 hours, the Vote Chess Captain will post the agreed move (or a few alternative moves if no clear advantage was shown). 

We have 4 vote chess matches in progress right now.  We’ve won half of our game and expect more to follow. One was the Evan’s Gambit and we took the attack to them and broke through with checkmate. Expect to see more Vote Chess matches in the future. They are good for those trying to learn to play better. We encourage beginners but strongly encourage questions and joining in the discussions.

You can join Vote Chess games at any time.  Click here to join or check on each game. Games can be found here https://www.chess.com/club/votechess/latter-day-saint-chess-friends.

Recruitment Update

We added 23 members since last update and currently have 107.  A warm welcome to all of you!

Please help by inviting fellow Saints on chess.com or those you play over-the-board or in local chess clubs to join. Just ask them to come to https://www.chess.com/club/latter-day-saint-chess-friends.

Top Match Players List

Top Match Players list can be found here: https://www.chess.com/club/leaderboard/latter-day-saint-chess-friends. Bishopskewer is in the lead but let’s push him for the top spot. How to do it? Play in more matches and win. 1 point per win and a half point for a draw. Or go for top win percentage. Snake Eyesaac is the new leader with 79.2% (10 game minimum).

Team Statistics

We have 29 matches in progress, but overall we have won 49% of our matches.  Both are improvements. Our ranking among all Clubs on chess.com has improved to #1320 of 33143 which is 96%. Vote Chess made a bit jump to #2345 of 31610 which is 95.7%. Expect us to keep moving up the charts.