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I am presenting twice this week at the Texas Library Association Annual Conference in Austin, Texas. Thousands of librarians and others attend this conference. You can download my presentation handouts. Look for the presentation titles “It’s All Games and Fun in the Library” and “Make a Bold Move: Chess in Public, Academic, and School Libraries.” The latter presentation is coming up Friday, April 15, 8 a.m. So if you are in Austin, come on by! I will also be signing my books 1-4 p.m.

On April 8, the chess club members took a Sample UIL Chess Test. One student finished in 11 minutes with a perfect score; some were still finishing at 55 minutes. Most students missed around 3-5 questions out of 20, but remained challenged and engaged.

As of April 8, 2011, I have a new article on Chess Life Online. It is an interview of author Robert Desjarlais.

For Denton High School chess club today, I wore my newly acquired (from Pep Rally on March 29) UT Dallas chess team T-shirt. One of my high school chess club students had on a UMBC (University of Maryland , Baltimore County) shirt! Was that his idea of an April Fool's joke? Also competing with UT Dallas and UMBC this weekend, April 2-3, are UTB (University of Texas at Brownsville) and Texas Tech. You can follow all the Final Four chess action right here on MonRoi. The high school students played ladder games after the T shirt showdown.

Alexey Root (that's me!) is quoted in a USA TODAY newspaper article about chess, published March 29, 2011.

Here is a photo of me (seated) watching the 2010 Pan American Championship-winning UT Dallas college chess team play an exhibition match on March 16 at their own Chess Plaza. Five out of these six students have taken my Chess Online courses. Because of the first place Pan Am finish, UT Dallas "A" team will compete in the Final Four of Chess, April 1-3, 2011. Pep Rally to support the "A" team is March 29, 2011, noon at UT Dallas.

Small attendance at the Friday chess club on March 25, 2011 due to many conflicting events for the Denton High School students, though there was a record 33% female attendance (2 of the 6 students attending were female). Some ladder games were played and analyzed; we’ll try again for ladder games next week.

The chess event at Barnes & Noble on March 19 was a success. About 25 people visited the chess tables staffed by Denton High School chess club officers. The officers taught activities from my books or played full games. I sold a couple of my books from my author’s signing table. Simon Halipir (photo by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) took my favorite photo of the event.

Chess Life Online today (March 14) ran my story about the upcoming Barnes & Noble Chess in Education event featuring the Denton High School chess club officers and me. READ MORE.

Denton High School Principal Darrell Muncy visited chess club on Friday, March 11. He was just in time to try on our new chess club T-shirts, designed by chess club member MariPen. Next week, during spring break, the club officers and I will host a chess in education event at Barnes & Noble bookstore in Denton.

On Friday, March 4, only five students attended, due to a tennis tournament and Calculus Bowl being held at the same time. Nevertheless, it was a productive chess club meeting. I worked with two students on the "king and pawn versus king win" from People, Places, Checkmates: Teaching Social Studies with Chess while two other students completed a ladder game. When the fifth student arrived, he helped the two groups solve the Eight Queens problem featured in my book Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving.

For March 2, I had two new boys for a total of 9 (7 boys, 2 girls). This is the lesson plan and also what actually happened today.

Objectives: Students will use algebraic chess notation to read and write chess. Students will propose a best move for presented positions from a game between two of their classmates and tell why they chose that move.