MonRoi is delighted with the positive feedback received after the 2009 Canadian Open Chess Tournament, which was held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We thank the Canadian chess community and chess fans worldwide for their continued support. Below are a few comments from Chess Talk.
One way to celebrate your birthday with friends is to have a party at your local chess club. On July 6th at Denton Chess Club, we sang happy (18th) birthday to Julia Jones. Julia is pictured in the blue shirt in the photo. Julia will be one of the TX representatives at the Susan Polgar National Invitational for Girls (July 26-31 at Texas Tech). Then she joins the student body at The University of Texas at Brownsville as a freshman on a chess scholarship. Congrats, Julia!
On June 8-12, and again on August 3-7, I will teach chess to students who will enter grades 4-8 in the fall of 2009. The courses are part of MOSAIC. Find MOSAIC information by searching the Internet for the Coppell Gifted Association Web site. Students can sign up for chess or for a myriad of other courses (such as Puppetry, Calligraphy, Building Structures, etc.).
Publication in peer-reviewed journals is the gold standard of academic respectability. I have an article in the current issue of TEMPO, the peer-reviewed journal of the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented. Here is the citation and a description: Root, A. W. (2009, spring). Checkmating advisory and summer boredom. Tempo, 29(2), 10-14.
On Sunday, April 26, I visited the 2009 All-Girls National Chess Championships, held at the Hyatt Regency Reunion in downtown Dallas. My photo essay, which is linked to the tournament results, was posted April 27 on the Chess Life Online Web site. The South Texas Chess Center ran the chess bookstore at the tournament. Thanks to its proprietor Dan DeLeon for buying a copy of my third book Read, Write, Checkmate: Enrich Literacy with Chess Activities.
For those of you who are interested in following Ray's progress, I apologize that neither of us has had time to keep up with the news. Here is a summary of what's occurred since Ray's last entry:
Most serious games of chess are, and have always been, played using chess clocks. The main reason for using a chess clock is so that the game does not take an infinite amount of time to play. Even correspondence chess, played via regular mail or email, has a limit to the amount of days/weeks/months a player can use for moves to ensure a game does not go on forever.
Friday, April 17th, I attended the last UTD Chess Club meeting of the semester. I will miss the graduating seniors, pictured in this photo. Back row (left to right): IM John Bartholomew, FM Keaton Kiewra, IM Davorin Kuljasevic, IM Marko Zivanic
Photo of IM Marko Zivanic, UTD (back to camera), IM Jacek Stopa, UTD (standing, left), IM Sasha Kaplan, UMBC (seated), and UMBC coaches GM Sam Palatnik and National Master Igor Epshteyn. This photo was taken shortly after Zivanic won in the final round (played Sunday, April 5th), when the other three UTD-UMBC games were still going on in the President's Cup (Final Four of College Chess).
Bayaraa Zorigt participated in the Undergraduate Research Poster Competition on April 23rd. I am her faculty advisor. Her poster showed some aspects of the UTD Chess Program, such as the Chess Online courses.
I received my author’s copies of Read, Write Checkmate: Enrich Literacy with Chess Activities. Of my three books, this cover is my favorite. It shows tournament-style chess equipment. The boy in the emerald-green shirt is my son William. The photo is by Denton Chess Club President Michael Borys during a 2008 tournament at the Denton Public Library.
