Scholastic chess is alive and well

Chess team continues to shine

Thursday, February 4, 2010
By PATTY JILLSON
Correspondent

AMHERST — The town chess team seized two of three top honors at the seventh annual Amherst Scholastic Chess Tournament, held at Amherst Middle School last Saturday. The students’ next challenge: hosting the state chess equivalent of the Super Bowl on April 10.

“Scholastic chess is alive and well in Amherst,” said David McGrath, founder and lead coach of the Amherst King Bishops. “It gives kids a place to shine. If they’re really smart but they don’t play football or basketball, they can still go and win a state championship,” he said.

Collectively the Amherst and Mont Vernon kids on his team have done just that – many times over. Going into the tournament, the team already had an impressive track record: 16 team or individual state champion titles since 2003, with at least one win per year.

During this past weekend’s challenge, thirteen Amherst/Mont Vernon kids matched wits with 18 players from nine towns scattered throughout their home state and Massachusetts. Five local students earned medals for placing within the top five seats in their age- and ability-based divisions.

Mason Young secured the top Novice seat by defeating all four of his opponents. The Amherst Middle School fifth-grader, who has been playing since he was 4 years old, went home with a trophy from tournament organizers and a celebratory soda from his father. Other local players who placed in the top five Novice seats included fifth-grader George Carlson and fourth-grader Liam Earley.

JoLyn Ma, an 11th-grade Chinese foreign exchange student, nailed her first tournament stateside by going undefeated in the Open section. The Open section is for high school students and younger players rated over 1,000 based on past performance. Classmate Liam Murphy also secured a place among the top five Open finishers.

“I play because I enjoy winning, I like the game, and it sharpens my mind. Chess makes you think outside the box,” said Murphy, one of the founding members of the Amherst King Bishops.

Here is the full story.

http://www.nhchess.org/scholastics/scholastics.html