Blogging SuperNationals IV

The last time the U.S. SuperNationals were held, in 2005, chess blogging was still a hobby practiced by a few keen bloggers, many of whom have since abandoned their blogs for other pursuits, not necessarily related to chess. This time, the combined scholastic event for elementary, junior high, and high school competitors drew over 5200 young players, plus their coaches and parents, to the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, and the bloggers covered the gathering in force.

The official site for the tournament was SuperNationals IV and the de-facto official blog was the USCF's Chess Life Online (CLO). Most relevant posts can be found in the April 2009 archive, which I just linked, although it's worth checking the March archive as well.

On CLO, you can get a good feel for the ambience of the SuperNationals from Macauley Peterson's video posts -- Tornadoes and an Astronaut, Coaches Interviews, and Kosteniuk on 100 Wins -- as well as from Mark Schein's posts on A Parent's Perspective, This Time Supersized : Part I and Part II.

The event was covered by all the blogs where you would expect to find coverage, including Chessninja.com (see Nashville Gone Wild), largely because of the Kasparov angle. The former World Champion was the most notable of the numerous chess luminaries who made a guest appearance. Chessninja.com aggregated its posts into a single tag, Results tagged “Supernationals”, as did several other well known blogs with an emphasis on scholastic chess: susanpolgar.blogspot.com, scholasticchess.blogspot.com, and fpawn.blogspot.com.

A search on the usual search terms picks up a large number of posts by other blogs like Super Nationals - The Morning After (castlingqueenside.blogspot.com), SuperNationals on Fox17 News (jimwestonchess.blogspot.com), super nationals coming soon (lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com), and Supernationals 2009 (gettingto2000.blogspot.com), just to mention a few of those blogs that are favorites of mine.

Will the SuperNationals be held in 2013? Given the logistical complications, it's anyone's guess.