Chess loses stigma as game for geeks
Fri, April 3, 2009
By JOE MATYAS
As a small group of boys and girls played tag outside Western Fair’s Progress Building yesterday, hundreds of grade school pupils were inside, focused on chess boards.
Those romping outside were early exits from the 17th annual Grade by Grade Chess Championship tournament.
The players still at the tables, kids such as Colin Carruthers, 8, were trying to win as many games as possible to qualify for playoffs in the afternoon.
By noon, Colin, a Grade 3 pupil at Wortley Road public school, had won 19 games and was in the playoffs.
“He’s an amazing player for his age,” said his father, David Carruthers.
Carruthers, who played hockey and other sports as a kid, said he was reluctant to admit he knew how to play chess back then.
“You were considered a major geek if you did, but it’s different now,” he said. “It’s no longer a stigma. It’s a big deal in schools now.”
Some London schools let pupils play chess once a week during math class, said tournament director Mon-Fai Lee.
And a lot of schools have active chess clubs, he said.
About 1,200 pupils from 40 public, Catholic and independent elementary schools played in yesterday’s Grades 3 to 8 competitions, Lee said.
Most were bused to the event.
The event started in 1993 when London teacher Anthony Van de Ven organized a tournament for kids to coincide with the Canadian Open Chess Championship held here.
The tournament grew bigger every year after that, culminating with 2,200 entries in the 2000 children’s championships.
“We wanted a big event for the millennial year, but that was too big,” said Lee. “We had to scale it back to keep things more manageable.”
Lee said he’s taught chess to London children for years — about 25,000 kids, he estimates.
“It’s a 1,300-year-old game yet they love it, even in the age of the computer. Did you know chess is the most popular game on the Internet?”
Here is the full article.
Impressive numbers. The USCF has nothing like that.
Vaseline is for Greeks.