Chess Experts

Upcoming event: On November 16, 2013 the public can play against (and learn from) Denton High School chess club students at International Games Day @your library, 1:00-5:00 p.m., Denton Public LIbrary (North Branch).

For the last chess session for fall 2013, Greenhill School students received awards, ate food, and played bughouse and regular chess games. Dr. Alexey Root talked with parents and students, supervised games, and helped with clean up.

All three St. Vincent’s chess groups tried the Game Theory lesson from Thinking with Chess: Teaching Children Ages 5-14. Basically, the challenge is "whoever castles first wins." Dr. Root reviewed the rules of castling with the beginner and intermediate students beforehand. The advanced students already know the rules of castling.

Dr. Alexey Root taught Greenhill Chess Club students how to play bughouse chess. The first group of four to set up their chessmen became the models for how bughouse is played. Without clocks, all players playing White move, then all Blacks move, etc. As captures were made, Dr. Root explained that captured pieces could be placed on any empty square in lieu of a move.

Today at Denton High School chess club, Dr. Alexey Root taught the Benjamin Franklin lesson from People, Places, Checkmates: Teaching Social Studies with Chess to three students. Four students played timed and notated games in a separate room.  Seven students played chess for fun.

Beginners and Intermediates: After Dr. Root gave four examples on the demonstration board, the beginners and intermediates created positions for each other. The positions had to either be check, checkmate, stalemate, or none of the above. After creating the positions in small groups, one “visitor” from each group visited the other groups to figure out their positions and rate the groups visited on politeness.

At Greenhill School chess club on Tuesday, October 29, Dr. Alexey Root taught the Wolf and Sheep activity from Read, Write, Checkmate: Enrich Literacy with Chess Activities. For the beginner group, she taught the value of the pieces after the students experienced the power of the queen (9 points) against the eight pawns (each pawn is one point).

William R. presented his final round game from October 12 at the Denton High School chess club meeting. His win in that game got him first place, and the $1000 scholarship, in the Scott Watson Memorial Chess Classic. As he presented the moves and commentary, pairs of students followed along on their own boards.

At St. Vincent’s School chess club, Dr. Alexey Root had the beginners play “Wolf versus Sheep,” a drill from Read, Write, Checkmate: Enrich Literacy with Chess Activities. The intermediates solved up to eight problems from worksheets from Thinking with Chess: Teaching Children Ages 5-14.

All three Greenhill School groups (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) solved problems on different worksheets taken from Dr. Alexey Root’s book Thinking with Chess: Teaching Children Ages 5-14.

At Denton High School chess club, Alex E. showed one of his games from the Scott Watson Memorial Chess tournament to other chess club members, who followed along on sets and boards. Alex paused the game at key moments so that the pairs following along could figure out the best continuations. Alex E. was one of 7 Denton High players at the tournament. The team result was third place and one Denton HS player, William R., took first individual and the $1000 scholarship.

For the advanced and intermediate groups, Dr. Alexey Root taught the five types of draws: by agreement, stalemate, three-time repetition, 50-move rule, and insufficient material. For the stalemate, 50-move rule, and insufficient material types Dr. Root had students, in pairs, come up with examples of these draws.