Thirty-Five and Rainy is an annual chess team tournament held at Zion Lutheran School in Corvallis. Each round, four-player teams were paired against other teams, with match winners scoring one point. Team trophies were awarded to the top three teams in each section, with individuals on the winning teams receiving medals. Ties were broken by bughouse games.
With 19 teams, this year’s version was the biggest yet. Thriving new Corvallis chess clubs at Hoover Elementary School (four teams) and Ashbrook Independent School (three teams) joined the traditionally strong, established clubs from Delphian School (three teams), Cheldelin Middle School (three teams), and Pleasant Hill Elementary (two teams); smaller clubs Zion Lutheran School (one team) and Crescent Valley High School (one team); and two ad hoc teams of new friends from various schools.
While the chief TD scrambled to pull together ad hoc teams, determine section assignments, and make and board pairings, Lisa Still conducted a team name competition. The Epic Awesome Guy and His Minions from Zion Lutheran School emerged victorious from a strong field that included such powerhouse choices as the Flaming Headless Ashrooks, the Extra Large Donuts with Sprinkles, the Galapagos Meerkats, and a host of others listed in the results below.
The teams were divided into three sections: Advanced, Intermediate, and Novice.
Final team standings
| Advanced Section(four rounds) | School | Score |
| Winning | Crescent Valley High School, Corvallis | 4.0 |
| Purple Snorkling Galapagos Meerkats | Pleasant Hill Elementary, Pleasant Hill | 2.0 |
| Dragons 1 | Delphian School, Sheridan | 1.5 |
| Hoover Allstars | Hoover Elementary, Corvallis | 1.0 |
| Intermediate Section | ||
| Galapagos Meerkats | Pleasant Hill Elementary, Pleasant Hill | 4.5 |
| Terrible Turkeys | Salem and Corvallis schools | 3.5 |
| Dragons 2 | Delphian School, Sheridan | 3.5 |
| Epic Awesome Guy and His Minions | Zion Lutheran School, Corvallis | 3.0 |
| Stray Cats | Hoover and Delphian | 2.0 |
| Too Early | Chedelin Middle School, Corvallis | 2.0 |
| Flaming Headless Ashrooks | Ashbrook Independent School, Corvallis | 1.5 |
| Novice Section | ||
| Extra Large Donuts with Sprinkles | All Girls Team (CHM, MNE, ASH) | 3.5 |
| Hoover Knights | Hoover Elementary, Corvallis | 3.5 |
| Dragons 3 | Delphian School, Sheridan | 3.5 |
| Hoover Rooks | Hoover Elementary, Corvallis | 3.0 |
| Hoover Husky Queens | Hoover Elementary, Corvallis | 2.5 |
| Ashrooks of Ashbrook | Ashbrook Independent School, Corvallis | 2.5 |
| Queen Captures | Ashbrook Independent School, Corvallis | 1.5 |
| Hoover Hawks | new friends | 0.0 |
In the Intermediate section, the Terrible Turkeys (Max Franklin, Geordyn Allyn, Jeff Wang, and Mcya Allyn) defeated Dragons 2 (Jason Chen, Jessup Jong, Gabe Sanders, Dakota Rockl) in the bughouse tie-break playoff to win 2nd place, while the Dragons 2 team settled for third.
In the Novice section, there was a three-way tie for 1st-3rd. The tie-break playoff was a single elimination bughouse tournament with the computer tie-break winner Extra Large Donuts with Sprinkles getting a first-round bye. In the other first round tie-break game, the Hoover Knights defeated the Dragons 3 team. In the finals, the Extra Large Donut put on a great display of Chessic Girl Power to defeat the Hoover Knights and win first place.
Not all the players knew how to play bughouse at the beginning, but they did get to learn a great new chess variant they can teach their friends in chess club. Bughouse is so much fun, they may never want to play regular chess again (sorry about that, coaches!).
New chess coaches Bing Sun (Hoover) and Erin Kooyman (Ashbrook) took charge of the chaotic Novice room to help make the tournament run so smoothly. Lisa Still offered to get the Intermediate room up and running, while the chief TD wrestled with the complications of getting all the team and player information entered properly, including not just the standard player names, sections, and ratings but also the team names, team compositions, board orders, team pairings, and player matchups. It ended up taking two rounds or so, giving Lisa a golden opportunity display her legendary patience and good cheer, which she accomplished in impressive fashion. She then went a step further and offered to supervise the room the rest of the day. After all play had ended, she went even one step further and stayed to help clean up. A variety of parent helpers stepped up to help supervise the Advanced room, with new faces each round. A huge thank-you to all of you!
Finally, three friendly Zion women staffed an efficient and cheerful concession stand with pizza, hot dogs, chips, fruit, soft drinks, candy, donuts, coffee, etc. Thank-you! Your work is greatly appreciated by the kids, parents, and organizers.
Individual results and ratings have been submitted to NWSRS and will be posted soon. Stay tuned… are posted at NWSRS.
