Hello fellow Texas chess fans,
I hope that you had a wonderful summer and are looking forward to the cooler fall temperatures and the upcoming fall and winter holidays as much as I am. Thank you to all of our contributors, for sending in articles and photos; much of which was published directly onto the website. Over the summer we published the first online only edition of Texas Knights. We hope that you enjoyed it; please feel free to drop me a line at txknightsed@gmail.com with your feedback and/or ideas. Although we had a bit of a rough start (I missed a few features, and certainly regret the omissions) we should soon be able to fall into a normal quarterly publishing cadence. We are also looking to commission new additional features to appear in future editions of Texas Knights. So be on the lookout for those as well.
Personally, I had a very busy summer. In July, I was a Deputy Chief Arbiter, along with FA Robert Katende (you might recognize his name from the Disney docudrama “Queen of Katwe”), at the 3rd FIDE World Junior Chess Championship for Players with Disabilities held in Cherry Hill, NJ. This growing and very important tournament even received coverage from CNN’s The Good Stuff. Organized by IO, WIM Beatriz Marinello, this was an amazing event that I was privileged to be a small part of and hope to participate again in next year.
In August, I attended (and passed) the only FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar to be held in North America for 2019. This training seminar was held during the 120th Annual U.S. Open Chess Championship in Orlando, FL. While there, I was also able to serve as one of the delegates from Texas to the annual US Chess delegates’ meeting.
Additionally in August, I was the Chief TD for the 2019 Texas Women’s Chess Championship. This tournament featured two technological firsts for this event including a live Twitter feed as well the live broadcast of select games via Twitch including the all-important final round game which helped to decide the championship.
Finally, in early September, I was able to participate (as an arbiter) in my very first FIDE norm tournament at the 85th Annual Southwest Open. I cannot thank the organizers enough for giving me the opportunities to participate in all of these amazing events; it was truly an honor!
Well, that’s more than enough of my garrulousness. I hope that you enjoy this edition, and please remember to keep sending in your articles, photos and games. We sincerely appreciate your contributions which are vital to the continued success of Texas Knights.
Sincerely,
Louis Reed
