Iowa State Chess Association

Ryan Mitchell Sweeps the Afternoon Swiss. And Check out returning to OTB Chess Drake Starr of West Des Moines last played a tournament in 2018. I think he has improved. Drake went 4-1 and placed 2nd. Tied for Second place is Shahrom Sayfullobekov who took the bus from Grinnell to attend. He stated that playing on Chess.com or Lichess.com is not the same as playing in person. Well stated. In the evening we had a tie bewteen Miles Howard and Albert Zhu. Both scored 2.5 o

I enjoyed the 18th rendition of the LTBL monthly chess tournament. This time we made it FIDE rated. I plan to do more, the next two are planned to be FIDE Rated and in December LTBL will be a Mini Qualifier. Ryan Mitchell won the Afternoon Session with a perfect 5-0 score and in the evening Kyan Preslar who drove from the Quad Cities was rewarded with an upset over Ryan Mitchell and won the evening session with a perfect 3-0 score.

I was pleasantly surprized with the Iowa Open this year. We knew GM Nakamura was not coming, I didn't hire a chess celebrity to come and yet still we increased participation by 20 players to 133. I had to get the hotel staff to get more tables!!!! I am planning next year to have the Iowa Open at the Graduate Hotel again, and plan for more players. Who knows if we can top this years totals? We had an amazing staff, Senior TD Mark Capron who has ran at least 10 or more Iow

A quick recap of Let There Be Light 17 on 22 Aug 2026. Miles Howard went 6-0 in the Afternoon Session. Shawn Kmetz Swept the evening section with a 3-0 score. I am happy to say we are back with monthly events as Christ the King Church's secretary retired and they hired a new one. In that time there was a transition period where it was more difficult to schedule events. But I hope to be back on a monthly basis. Eric The 71st Iowa Open is in 5 days!!!!!!

Chess 960 was introduced in 1996 by former world champion Bobby Fischer. He wanted a more dynamic game of chess with a random back rank, but included some rules like you had to have bishops on different colors and the king had to be between the two rooks, and within the rules there are 960 variations that can be created. So this month we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of Fischer 960 with a tournament at the Diversions Game Lounge in Coralville Iowa. one of the positi

Irene has punched her ticket to the big dance. In the last 7 days she has won the Iowa Girls Championship (Haring Qualifier for the tournament of state champions) but also earned her National Master title. Is there no stopping her. Strong Work Irene way to make Iowa proud.

Hello everyone! We officially have dates for the class and closed this year. The Class E Championship will be held Saturday April 4 at Hampton Inn & Suites, 6210 SE Convenience Blvd in Ankeny Iowa. Details will be posted soon. The Class Master/A, B, C and D Championships will be held Saturday April 18 at Hampton Inn & Suites, 6210 SE Convenience Blvd in Ankeny Iowa. Details will be posted soon. Annual Meeting will be held at 1pm at Hampton Inn & Suites, 6210 SE Convenience

Last time the Hawkeye Mind Challenge WIV was held was 2008. It was won by non other than Director of National Events Pete Karagianis. Running the event was Mark Capron. 18 years later, with a revived University of Iowa Chess Club we are back to run it again. We started on Friday evening with a 960 blitz event. 960 is the random back row settings that is gaining in popularity in recent days. It is wild with almost no opening preparation, pure tactics. Rei Zhang Univerity

Let There Be Light XVI was held on December 20th. Origionally was planned for November but was cancelled due to weather. Volodymyr Baranovskyi Wins the afternoon swiss defeating his traveling buddy Professor Ben J Darr in a fierce matchup. Ben returned the favor by defeating Volodymyr in the evening swiss. However Robert Reynolds was the big winner and went 3-0 and walked away with the win.

Bill Broich, NTD, IA Milwaukee ten-year-old Gurugrahan Gurumoorthi, a frequent visitor to Iowa chess events, secured a draw with...