Blog

Follow the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Tournament right here on MonRoi.com. Games are being broadcast live. And also look for my reports on it on Chess Life Online.

Friday, December 9, 2011 was our end-of-the-semester party for Denton High School chess club, as next Friday is early dismissal due to final exams. The party featured food, bughouse, and speed chess games.

I recommend FM Charles Hertan’s Power Chess for Kids: Learn How to Think Ahead and Become One of the Best Players in Your School (New in Chess, 2011). The organization of the book is stellar, the layout is cheerful (with cartoon-style characters), and the material is important for chess improvement.

I reminded students that UT Dallas Chess Coach Rade Milovanovic has chess team members show their games to the rest of the team. The team then comments on and analyzes those games. So I want to do that occasionally in our Denton High School chess club. I showed my win over Julie Wilson (published in Children and Chess: A Guide for Educators) on the Smart Board.

Information for the Second Koltanowski International Conference on Chess and Education (November 18-19 at the Hilton Anatole, Dallas, TX) is available HERE. Click on "Download the Official Brochure PDF" to download the program book. Within the program book are biographical statements and presentation abstracts, the form for Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented clock hours (Friday, November 18), and a Welcome message from Conference Chair Dr. Tim Redman.

Friday, November 11, 2011, was our Denton High School chess club field trip to UT Dallas for its Scholastic Affiliates program. Mr. Mueller (Denton High School chess club sponsor) and I drove 12 Denton HS students to UT Dallas. We met members of the chess team, toured the Activity Center and Student Union, and played chess with members of the UT Dallas “Student Chess Society” (chess club).  

Chess club members learned how to draw with black from this position: White: Ke3, Pe4 Black: Ke5. For those who missed the previous week, I taught how to win when White has a Ke3, Pe2, Black has a Kf5 and it is White to move. After promoting, then White checkmates with a king and queen against king.

I recommend the book "Developing Chess Talent: Creating a chess culture by coaching, training, organization and communication" by Karel van Delft and IM Merijn van Delft, with a foreword by GM Artur Yusupov. As I read this book, I keep sticky notes handy to mark passages. Here are four of those, paraphrased by me:

1      A chess training program is only effective if the trainee realizes its use and helps design it.

The Second Koltanowski International Conference on Chess and Education will be held in Dallas, at the Hilton Anatole, November 18-19, 2011. For more information, read my article on Chess Life Online.  I am Associate Chair for the conference.

Three of my Denton High School USCF-rated players know how to win king and pawn versus king, where White’s pawn is on e2, White's king is on e3 and Black’s king is on f5 with White to move. Each of them taught one small group (three to four other students) how to go from that starting position all the way to checkmate.

Denton High School (DHS) chess club members participated in the High School Open and non-rated sections of the Fort Worth Academy Scholastic Tournament on October 22, 2011. In the High School Open, the DHS team took first. Individual students’ results were: William Root, first place individual, 4.5 points out of 5; Austin McGregor, 3 points, Luis Guevara, 2 points, Alex Elizalde, 1 point.

I presented a problem featured in my forthcoming book Thinking with Chess: Teaching Children Ages 5-14 (Mongoose Press, 2012). Here’s the problem, which I borrowed from Guliev, S. (2003). The manual of chess endings. Moscow, Russia: Russian Chess House: White: Kg6, Ne6, Nd6. Black: Kh8. What is the result with White to move? Now insert a black pawn on a6, with all other chessmen the same and White to move.