2006 Class Championships

The 2006 Michigan Class Championship results were posted Monday. After scoring 5/5 and winning the Class B title, I was expecting a nice jump in rating. My previous high rating was 1815 after my 4/5 performance at the 2005 Bottom-Half Class Championships, which netted me the U1900 title. Anyhow, the results from Lansing easily bested my previous high, as USCF has calculated my current rating at 1865.

For 2005 my rating goals were to make 1700 by June and 1800 by December. I achieved the former goal in Toledo in February by scoring 3/4 with a lost to Gerard Jendras. My rating had landed at 1743 after this tournament. The latter goal was achieved with the aforementioned Bottom-Half result in June 2005, but I found that I was not able to sustain the 1800 rating. It was November before my rating resurfaced above 1800.

For 2006 my rating goals are to make 1900 by June and 2000 by December. These are lofty expectations, considering that in Ocotober of 2004 I was staring at a rating of 1562. However, I am hoping that I have neither plateaued nor peaked, and that I can continue scoring well in 2006.

Finally, I would like to credit master Fred Lindsay with helping me prepare for the 2005 Bottom-Half Class Championships and master Bill Calton for helping me prepare for the 2006 Class Championships.

In my next blog I will discuss one of my games from the Class B Championships played in Lansing on Jan 14-15.