Getting Started: Our Story

Last Fall, the (non-scholastic) chess club here (the only one in town of ~40,000) donated a total of 15 tournament-sized chess sets to the three public middle schools. At one school, the sets were used on a daily or nearly-daily basis; at another, the sets were used occasionally. In each case, the sets were all used at the same time in one group of kids. At the third school, the sets were dispersed to various teachers. We have no info re: the use of these sets.

Early this year, the chess club announced a tournament for Under 18 chess players (G30). The schools graciously allowed us to use the sets which had been donated to them. For the $10 entry fee, each player received a scorepad to record up to 50 games and a chess pencil in addition to the five games of the tourney. Each player had a chance to win $50 for 1st Prize, $30 for 2nd Prize, $20 for 3rd Prize or, barring one of these prizes, a chance to win one of ten Door Prizes. The Door Prizes were tournament-sized chess sets. We had seven players. We realized too late that the Saturday chosen for the tournament was far from ideal: the kids had no classes the day before the tournament, and again no classes on the following Monday. We suspect we would have had more competitors if we had chosen a more 'normal' Saturday. We thought the tourney went well: the kids showed good sportsmanship, and the parents were involved and expressed interest in having another tournament. The tourney was held at Collector's Corner, a comic book store which has been in town for nearly 20 years. The store owner has established Magic: the Gathering tournaments on an ongoing basis in his store.

Our second tournament was also held at this comic book store. We tried to choose a date which seemed to be a time when kids would be available. We picked the Saturday following the first full week of classes after the schools' Spring Break. At the time, we didn't know that this particular Saturday was also the first day of kids' soccer season. Even so, we were pleased to have ten players compete in our 2nd chess tourney. Same conditions as first, except that this time we made only three tournament-sized chess sets available as Door Prizes. Also, the prize fund was reduced to $30 for 1st Prize, $20 for 2nd and $10 for 3rd. Again we noticed that the kids showed good sportsmanship and that the parents were grateful that this was being done.

For each of these tournaments, the schools posted to their website a flier which announced the details of the tourneys. For the second tourney, some of the schools mentioned the tourney in their school announcements.

I think our next big step forward will be the addition of chess clocks. For this, we need our chess club members to make more donations. Then we will have the concern of what to do with the clocks when we're not having a tourney.

Also, we will likely have our next tourney on a Sunday. The town here has so many things for kids to do that it seems almost any Saturday is filled up with various activities. Sundays, hopefully, not so much. Perhaps we will move the location of the tourney as well, to the public library Lounge.

Holy cow! An ape plays chess here!

He's not a real ape, he's a teacher

"Take your stinking hands off me, you damn dirty ape!"  -Charlton Heston  

oo oo ah ah ah

Who is going to pick the mites out of my back hair? oo oo ah ah ah

^paging cjett

It is always nice to hear that another scholastic club starting up. Good luck with the future.

Good suggestions! 

Thanks for these suggestions; I will find out more about Quads.

Thank you for your long and detailed story . Participated in the children's tournament girls ?

It's really sad to see how sarcastic people can be, over someone who has just shared his story. Seriously, you don't have anything else to say?

Shadowknight, those were good suggestions! I've not heard of Quads before, but they seem interesting!

Nice stalemate.

Great!