For players of all ages, Louisville chess community thrives
Thursday, February 25, 2010
By Matt Ribar, Columnist
When people think of the city of Louisville, they generally think of horse racing at Churchill Downs, college sports or maybe even the thriving arts community we offer. Few would expect that here in Louisville we have one of the most active chess communities in the nation.
There are plenty of cities that offer tournaments, but Louisvillians have the opportunity to play in weekly tournaments that go on all year long.
If you’ve ever shopped at Barnes & Noble, you’ve probably seen a small café with seats and tables to read while enjoying your coffee.
Did you know that people play chess at those same tables twice a month? Players who are in kindergarten all the way up to high school play in what are called “scholastic tournaments.”
These weekly and sometimes bi-monthly events gather hundreds of kids and pit the best players in the city against each other. “You can hear a pin drop in a room full of 300 kids,” University of Illinois student Robbie Dreier said.
That is entirely true. All you hear at these events is the constant clack of chess clocks and pencils writing down moves on paper. People stay focused for hours at a time. “Louisville is a successful chess community because the players strive to get better no matter how long it takes. You see some rivals that first played in third grade playing against each other at the higher levels of high school.
The competition here is fierce,” Kentucky Scholastic Coordinator Allen Priest said. With a tournament you can play in every week, there’s always a person to play, and the consistency of events makes it easy to improve your game. Trinity is part of the Jefferson County High School Chess League, including itself among the 20 schools that compete for the city championship every year.
The high school league is a precursor to the real carnage that the regional championship annually brings.
Teams fight tooth-and-nail to finish as one of the top four teams and advance to the chess world’s version of Kentucky’s “Sweet 16.”
Soon Trinity will showcase what it’s capable of, and it all starts with the city championship. The competition is likely to be “fierce.”
Source: http://my.hsj.org
Nice.
Go Matt! Good luck at State.