The Championship Season
By Paul Anderson
Colorado Springs Chess Club President
October starts our Championship season at the Colorado Springs Chess Club!
October = 59th City Chess Championship
November = 2nd Quick Chess Championship
December = 30th Speed Chess Championship
It all started back in 1947 when the club was founded. The founding members didn’t have an annual tournament to decide a city champion. However, that honor was reserved for the highest rated member of the club each year. Who was the “top board” in which year is still a mystery, as all we have, as far as documentation, is a note on the first club plaque.
© 2025 Paul Anderson
It took 18 years for the club to come up with the idea of a championship event to determine the “best in the Springs” each year. However, the early winners could have included such Colorado Springs greats as the following:
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Carl Powers
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Herman Stine
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Juan Reid
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Jack Farrington
When and how the Colorado Springs City Chess Championship was originally run is also a mystery. However, by 1997, it had become an annual tradition as an October event. This was my first year playing. It was a month-long, 4-round, unrated, G/90d5 tournament. I ended up with +3-1=0 and tied for 3rd place with 4 other players. I felt that I was so close to winning a title that I decided to come back and win it the next year. Well, I did not. I repeated the +3-1=0 performance in 1998, 1999, and 2000. In fact, it took me 14 years to finally win my first title in 2010 to become the 33rd City Champ. You can view all the Champions on the club site:
https://sites.google.com/view/colorado-springs-chess-club/champions
In 2014, the City Championship became a rated event. In 2016, it became a 5-round event with a G/90+30 time control. In 2020 and 2021, the pandemic shut down our site, the Acacia Apartments, and the event was not held for the first time in 57 years. In 2022, it returned in November (due to November having 5 Tuesdays and limited time to create a truncated club schedule after the site re-opened) for the only time outside of October since my records began.
© 2025 Paul Anderson
The Speed Chess Championship started in January of 1996. It was a 2-week, unrated event with the time control of G/5+0. The first week was used as a qualifying event with a Championship and Consolation section the following week. When the pandemic hit in 2020, we had already crowned the Speed King for that year, and despite not having access to our Acacia site in 2021, we were able to keep the event going at COATI in downtown Colorado Springs. In 2022, we had to move the qualifier online and the OTB event to a site at UCCS Downtown in December to keep from missing a year. In 2023, we added a Challenger section to have OTB qualifiers for the next year. In 2024, Paul Anderson and Lawrence Scafuri became the first co-champions after Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi set the precedent by sharing the 2024 FIDE World Blitz Championship.
© 2025 Paul Anderson
Now that we had Championship events in October and December, I decided to fill the gap with my own creation: A Quick Chess Championship. I figured it was time for me to buy a plaque for the club, since, out of all the plaques and trophies the club has collected over the years, I picked out none of them. With the help of my Vice President, Clint Eads, we got the new plaque just in time for our 2nd year. Plus, I had run this club long enough that I thought I should leave behind some kind of personal legacy. Perhaps, in time, it will become like the Lombardy Trophy and be referred to as the “Anderson Plaque.” Well, maybe not.
© 2025 Paul Anderson
In 2024, we used an online qualifier to determine the first Championship section and copied the Speed Championship format of having a Challenger section. It was the first time we had to limit the number of entries, as the Acacia Apartment was renovating the Ballroom and put us in the smaller library. Fortunately, we didn’t have to turn anyone away as we had 2 seats to spare.
Since none of the newer plaques provide any room for a note about the history of the events, I thought it wise to jot down some of my recollections here before they become a mystery too.
Hope you can join us for an event that fits your speed during this year’s Championship season!
The Colorado Springs Chess Club is an affiliate of Chess.com & USCF and meets every Sunday night for online chess & Tuesday night for OTB chess. See the calendar for event details: