Tri-State tournament teaches youth how to become chess masters
Participants compete, learn to focus, concentrate
By Garret Mathews
Evansville Courier & Press
Posted March 13, 2011 at 12:15 a.m., updated March 13, 2011 at 1:37 a.m.
EVANSVILLE — Tristan Kitch wanted to make one fact perfectly clear.
“Yes, I’m good at chess, but some people think being smart like that means I can’t play sports. That’s not true,” she said. “I’m on the baseball team, and I do OK.”
The 14-year-old youngster was one of 225 boys and girls from 25 schools who competed in the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation’s Individual Chess Tournament on Saturday at Ivy Tech Community College in Evansville.
“This is more than double the size of the previous biggest scholastic chess tournament in Tri-State history,” said Mike Maguire, one of the organizers and coach of teams representing Scott Elementary School and Oak Hill Middle School. “It’s the first year we’ve had middle school and high school kids along with the elementary school children.”
Maguire, a commodities trader, has been coaching chess teams for 14 years.
“I used to be real bad about playing chess on the Internet, sometimes for two hours or more,” he said. “I realized that was time I could be using to do things about the house, so I gave it up — first for Lent, and then altogether. Now when I play, it’s in a teaching relationship with the kids, and it’s not about me winning.”
He works with 35 youngsters at Oak Hill on Wednesdays and 70 boys and girls at Scott on Fridays.
Full article here.
It’s great to see kids play and learn.