ACC’s Club Manager, George Supol, was recently interviewed by CTV regarding his thoughts about the Club and Joey Votto, an ACC Club member who’s also an MLB superstar.

Click on the CTV logo below to read this latest article.

A QUOTE TO PONDER (from today’s ACC RSS Chess News Feed):

“If you don’t understand how to practice archery in its true sense, then even though you practice very hard, what you acquire is just technique. It won’t help you through and through. Perhaps you can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow, you cannot do anything. If you understand the point of practice, then even without a bow and arrow the archery will help you.”

Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Monk 1904 – 1971)

CHESS PRINCIPLES

GM Alex Colovic says … (in his Chessable blog)

A very accurate thought expressed by a Zen monk. It perfectly describes the stereotypical chess player who “can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow […] cannot do anything.”

Read more …

We have now setup a temporary Guestlist registration site for ACC Chess Courses/Classes here. We’ll use this while we are building our new permanent membership/registration site.

You can now purchase individual in-person classes on an a-la-carte basis. We have separate Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced in-person courses for kids and adults that define their individually scheduled classes.

We also have an Advanced online course for both kids and adults together. All registered students are pre-screened for suitability.

Discount codes are available to ACC members for both in-person classes and online courses.

We think that the new registration site will help us reduce the lineups at the Front Desk on Monday evenings, and therefore reduce frustration for some students having to stand in line. Our administration will also be easier.

NOTE: In buying classes a-la-carte, say you jump in at week 4 of an 8-week Intermediate course. You could register now for weeks 4-8 (buy 5 classes) then register later for weeks 1-3 (buy 3 more classes) for the next iteration of the course (we run them continuously throughout the year). That’s because, generally the topics within a course are additive and not necessarily sequential. This allows for maximum flexibility, especially if you have a commitment one week and can’t make a class. You don’t use up one of your classes if you don’t show.

Below is a list of our latest selected RSS Chess News Feeds we pull in daily from internet chess news servers from around the world. You can click on any link to read the news feed or listen to the podcast. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s an easy way for you to keep up with news and information that’s important to you, and helps you avoid the conventional methods of browsing or searching for information on websites.

Our Daily Chess News Feed (10 posts in list format, latest on top):

The Chess News Feeds are updated on a daily basis. The selected blogs and podcasts do not necessarily publish every day, and some (e.g. ChessBase) are more prolific than others. Each day the list is auto-refreshed with new content. A copy of this ACC news post may also be found under our main NEWS menu as a permanent webpage.

Here is the list of the 10 blogs and podcasts that we presently follow:

1. Chessbase | Chess News
2. FIDE – World Chess Federation
3. Susan Polgar Global Chess Daily News And Information
4. Chess.com | Chess News And Event Coverage
5. The Week In Chess Magazine | Worldwide Chess News And Games
6. The Chess Improver | Nigel Davies And Friends On Getting Better At Chess
7. Chessable Blog
8. Ladies Knight Chess
9. Lichess | Free Online Chess
10. The Perpetual Chess Podcast

Coming to ACC for RSS Chess News Feeds to review means you don’t have to worry about managing those feeds in your email account, which can clutter things up.

Note: RSS Chess News Feeds is a feature we are adding to our new website/registration system presently under construction. Since we’ve already got it working, we decided to also start using it on our current website.

Annex Chess Club is pleased to announce a new initiative for online chess courses. We have decided to aim our initial online offerings at advanced students.

Here are the proposed elements for our first ONLINE ADVANCED COURSE:

Course Title: Better Openings Management for the Club Player

• 8-week course (1.5 hrs. per class), every Thursday evening starting next week—Thursday, February 9 at 7:30 PM.
• Single online advanced course for both kids and adults attending together in one class via Zoom. We think this is doable because it’s an advanced class and all players will be pre-screened through online pre-registration, which will start later this week. Course fees will not have to be paid until the player has been pre-approved.
• This course will be taught by FM Michael Humphreys.
• Maximum of 16 students per class.
• Cost is $288 for adults (and youth 14+) and $264 for kids under 14. Prices include HST where applicable. Open to the general chess playing public. This is the equivalent of $36/class for adults and $33/class for kids.
• 20% discount for ACC members (full + casual members) which works out to the following discounted pricing: $230 (adults) and $211 (kids). This is the equivalent of $28.75/class for adults and $26.38/class for kids.
• Recommended for students already playing in regular tournaments at any chess club and who can handle advanced chess topics. The sweet spot ELO is probably in the order of 1200 to 1800, though this is just a general guideline and we are willing to be as flexible as possible. The Instructor can always adjust the material to fit their group of students.
• Here are the course topics:

Topics Covered in This Course:

Lesson 1: Punishing Opening Mistakes
Lesson 2: The Battle of the Tempo
Lesson 3: Principles of Hypermodern Chess
Lesson 4: Recurring Themes in the Opening
Lesson 5: Modern Opening Strategy
Lesson 6: Methodology in the Opening
Lesson 7: From the Opening to the Endgame
Lesson 8: Psychology and Risk Management in the Opening

This is a great set of topics and we think the course will help players move their games to a higher level. We are very excited about this new development!

SPECIAL NOTE: As an experiment, a special 100% discount of the course fees will be provided to the first 3 ACC members who commit to helping the Club (as approved volunteers) setup and tear-down on Monday evenings. These members will be required to sign a form that outlines their commitment to help on 4 Monday evenings, both setup and tear-down, or some other combination of 8 individual setups/tear-downs. Approved ACC member-volunteers can start taking the course next week for free and satisfy their volunteer commitments over the next 6 months. (NOTE: THIS OFFER TO ACC MEMBER/VOLUNTEERS HAS NOW BEEN FILLED. THANKS TO THE PARTICIPANTS!)