Congratulations to Danny Rensch, who earned his final IM norm at the SPICE Cup.

The minutes are attached as a .pdf document

Congratulations to IM Levon Altounian for winning the 2009 Arizona State Championship, to Leo Martinez for his second place finish, to Pedram Atoufi for finishing third and having the only other plus score. David Adelberg finished with an even score and had the distinction of playing on Board 1 in the final round. Vaishnav Aradhyula also finished with an even score.

Thanks to all of the participants, to Pedram Atoufi for hosting the event at his Unity Chess Club, to Joel Johnson for organizing the event and broadcasting the games on ICC, and to Richard Smouse for directing the tournament. Thanks also to the runners and everyone else involved in making this a successful tournament.

The Biltmore Chess Club meets on Saturdays from 6 - 9 PM at the Paradise Bakery in Biltmore Fashion Park. The address is 2502 E. Camelback. It is next to Borders Books which originally hosted the club, which also met at the Coffee Plantation for years until it moved.

For more information please contact Joe Peck at biltmorechess@yahoo.com.

MAL

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.