Yay, Mike...Congratulations! ----- Original Message ----- From: R Dinger To: chess Sent: Friday, December 31, 2010 1:27 PM Subject: [blind-chess] Announcing 2010 Ladder Champion Hello Chess Players, Please join me in congratulating Mike Gieschen for winning the 2010 Blind Chess Ladder Tournament. Although midnight has not yet arrived here on the West Coast, Mike's current challenger Randy is vacationing in sunny California until tomorrow so Mike's status as King of the Mountain at year end is not in doubt. So congratulations Mike for winning the 2010 Ladder Championship. Unless some additional game records are received later this evening, the final year end Ladder ranking is as shown below. Please remember the Ladder order is being reversed tomorrow so Mike will have nowhere to go but up starting tomorrow! New players may join the Ladder tomorrow after the year end order is reversed. New challenges will be processed tomorrow also if mailed after Midnight Pacific time. Challenges will be processed in the order they arrive in my mailbox. All games currently in-progress will continue until completed. Happy New Year to everyone. Draft 2010 Final Ladder Order and Player Status: Rank Name (color) status 1 Mike Gieschen (B) defending in Kruzeniski-Gieschen 2 Paul Benson (W) available 3 Randy Kruzeniski (W) challenging in Kruzeniski-Gieschen 4 Chris Chaffin (B) defending in Chaffin-Allain 5 Mike Allain (W) challenging in Chaffin-Allain 6 Stan Lovell (B) available 7 Connie Torrisi (B) available 8 Lewis Wallach (B) available 9 Allen Maynard (W) available 10 Edward Zolotarevsky (W) available 11 Dick McStraw (W) available 12 Ginny Alverson (W) available 13 Rebecca Blaevoet (W) available 14 David Rosenkoetter (B) available 15 Curtis Cockayne (B) available 16 Jessica Grib2 (W) available