The Tempe Chess Club meets Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8:45 PM at the Pyle Adult Recreation Center, the westernmost building at the Tempe Community Center complex on the SW corner of Rural and Southern in Tempe. Please contact Myron Lieberman at azchess@cox.net for more information.

Organizers of chess clubs in Arizona are encouraged to provide information about their clubs for posting on this site. To do so, simply send an e-mail to azchess@cox.net with an indication that the information is for posting to the arizonachess.org website. So far we have information confirmed for clubs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

The Mesa Chess Club is meeting Tuesdays at the Coffee Cove at 528 S. Gilbert Rd. in Gilbert in addition to their Wednesday meetings at the Mesa Borders Bookstore. The Coffee Cove is located just North of Warner on the west side of the street next to the Mathnasium, which is also a chess venue.

The Tuesday meetings feature 4 round Swiss System USCF rated tournaments. An announcement is attached. Please contact Rick Smouse at rick_smouse@yahoo.com for more information.

A very special chess event will take place on Saturday, July 11, 2009 at the Fiesta Inn at Priest and Broadway in Tempe.

Chess Stars For Children offers chess and fun for everyone. Grandmasters Yuri Shulman and Gregory Kaidanov and IM Ben Finegold will perform separate simultaneous exhibitions, including a Blitz simul by Gregory Kaidanov. Ben Finegold will sign copies of his DVDs and Yuri Shulman will sign copies of his scholastic chess book "Lessons from a Granmaster".

The event is in conjunction with the 2009 Summer Chess Academy, where all three chess stars are instructors.

Thanks to Alan Anderson and Checkmate Chess Instruction for organizing Chess Stars for Children. It has much of the same appeal and value of the New York Chessathons of the nineties.

The Mesa Chess Club meets at the the Mesa Fiesta Borders Bookstore, 1361 S. Alma School Rd., Mesa, AZ, 85210, each Wednesday evening from 6 to 10 PM.

The club, formerly sponsored by and located at the Mesa Bookman's bookstore, is now sponsored by Borders. Please visit the Borders website at www.borders.com.

Thanks to Justin McClure for starting the Bookman's club originally and to Rick Smouse for continuing and enhancing the club after Justin's relocation.

Their current flyer, which describes their Wednesday night tournaments and provides more club information is attached.

Please e-mail Rick Smouse at rick_smouse@yahoo.com or call (480) 390-9528 for more information.

Hello everyone,

Congratulations to IM Levon Altounian, who is the current Arizona State Chess Champion. A new event will be held in September to determine the next Arizona State Chess Champion, thanks to Joel Johnson.

Thanks to the interest shown by Joel Johnson, Bob Rowley and others we are trying to document the list of Arizona State Champions. USCF provided information dating back no longer than 1991.

Attached is the most recent list that we have but we need help. There are missing years and apparent missing people as well. Any help we can get is appreciated. We need the champion's name, the date (or at least the year)of the event that conferred the championship, the format, and any other pertinent information. Please contact Myron Lieberman at azchess@cox.net with any information.

The Arizona Chess Federation, Inc. (ACFI) will hold its annual meeting at 10 AM at the Mathnasium, located at 538 S. Gilbert Rd. in Gilbert, AZ.

The meeting is open to the public.

Congratulations to David Adelberg who won the K-12 section of the 2008 Arizona Scholastic Chess Championship with 5.5 points, to Ben Marmont whose 5 points earned him the right to be Arizona's Representative to the Arnold Denker Tournament of Champions and to Sayaka Foley who was tied with Ben Marmont at 5 points and earned the right to represent Arizona in the Susan Polgar Tournament of Champions for High School girls. Sayaka Foley, however, was also invited to participate in her tournament by Susan Polgar and therefore Arizona may send an additional representative to play in the Polgar tournament. The first alternate for the Polgar tournament is Amanda Mateer. A link to the entire rated crosstable for all sections of the 2008 Arizona Scholastic Chess Championship can be found in the results area of this site.

Proceedings Of and Follow-up to the April, 2008, ACFI Meeting

Thanks to everyone involved in organizing the 2008 Arizona Scholastic Championships.

A short ACFI physical meeting was held at the site of the 2008 Arizona Scholastic Championships at Mount Elden Middle School in Flagstaff on Saturday, April 26, 2008, at 5:30 PM. Board members who participated in the meeting were Robby Adamson, Kiki Huerta, Myron Lieberman, Spencer Lower, Kent Maneth, Marty Schneider, Lynn Schucker, and Will Wharton. Eight Board members were present for at least part of the meeting and a quorum of six or more was present throughout the meeting. Board members Michael Fitch, Ramie Jimenez, and Jennifer Shacter were not present. Among others who were also present for at least part of the meeting were Jon Coulter, Rachel Lieberman, Debbie Maneth, Karen Pennock and Gavin Wharton. Thanks to GPCA for providing meeting space in their team room. Recommended follow-ups are listed at the end of this document.

Treasurer Jennifer Shacter submitted the attached Financial report with ACFI's Annual Report for the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC).

She noted that the ACC only accepts credit cards with online submissions of Annual Reports. She put the ten dollar ACC filing fee on her own credit card and wrote a reimbursement check.

The ACC will require online submission after this year, so this is the first time but not the last.

Myron Lieberman