Greetings chess lovers,
We would like to start this update by saying that 2024 was a great year of chess for our club. We’ve seen great checkmates, great defeats, games going down to the wire, and best of all, we’ve seen players stick around for three and a half hours during our tournaments enjoying this wonderful game. We would like to thank all who have taken part in our events. Without you, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy chess so much. We would also like to thank all who have joined our mailing lists, liked our posts online, and followed our social media accounts. Moreover, we would like to extend our thanks to Juneau Public Libraries for sponsoring and the Friends of the Juneau Public Libraries for funding the events.
2024 Recap
World Chess Championship
Not only that we enjoyed our club’s events in 2024, but we also had the pleasure of watching some great games in the 2024 World Chess Championship. There will be spoilers in this paragraph, so please skip to the next heading if you do not want to know who won or lost. Here’s a quick rundown of what happened: the match was between world champion Ding Liren and the challenger Gukesh Dommaraju. There were 14 games in total. Both players were tied with 6.5 points each. On the 14th game, Ding made a huge blunder and lost his title. Gukesh became the youngest World Chess Champion. You can check out this playlist on YouTube to see the games played.
Our own events
We had five awesome tournaments and three drop-in chess events in Juneau in 2024. Let’s take a look below at the winners and the stats for each tournament.
February 29, 2024
We had 22 players in total and there were 68 games played. The winners were: 
1st: Sam: $75 
2nd: Matt: $50 
3rd: Ira: $25.
June 6, 2024
On this tournament we had a fantastic turnout with 24 players, and a total of 86 games were played. The winners for this one were: 1st: Kevin: $75 2nd: Fin: $50 3rd: Drake: $25. The second and third place winners were determined in the second part of the tournament. The participants competing in this mini-tournament were Drake S, Eli G, Finn L, Allen L, Ira, and Drew B.
October 10, 2024
There were 20 players in total who played 70 games. The winners were: 1st: Henry with 7 points – $75 2nd: with 5.5 points – $50 3rd: Kevin and Mathew were tied with 5 points. Kevin won the tie break game. – $25
November 21, 2024
On the November tournament, 16 joined and played 53 games. The winners for this one were: 1st: Alex with 6 points – $75 2nd: Erik S. with 5.5 points – $50 3rd: John and Drake C. were tied with 4.5 points. Drake won the tie break game. – $25
December 19, 2024
This was the last tournament of 2024! We had a great number of 20 players who played 62 games. There were clear winners on this event and they were: 1st: Matt with 7 points (no games were lost by Matt. Great performance) – $75 2nd: Alex with 6 points – $50 33rd: Kevin with 5 points – $25
For more pictures, please visit the gallery page for Juneau.
Plans for 2025
We have gotten many comments and emails asking about organizing tournaments like these up in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Our goal for this year is to organize at least one tournament in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks. Please be patient as we finalize our plans and gather the funds to make that happen for our chess lovers in the north.
As far as Juneau is concerned, we will continue with tournaments as we’ve been doing. We will have a table during this year’s Platypus-Con (click for more info) at Centennial Hall. Join us and come play a game or two. We will also have a tournament on Saturday, February 22. More info about these events will be emailed to the Juneau list.
Stay tuned – greatness awaits!
Happy New Year,
Alaska Chess Club
PS – Here are some socials you might be interested in: Instagram, Facebook, and Discord.
PPS – Here are some of our favorite pictures of 2024:
