Dr. Alexey Root

Thanks to Dr. Steven Dowd for donating 20 software titles and 4 books to the Denton High School chess club. His donation just arrived today, so chess club students will get to view it this afternoon.

Denton High School chess team competed in the Texas Scholastic Chess Championships February 18-19, finishing as the sixth-highest team in the high school championship section. At Friday’s chess club, February 24, William Root showed one of his games from the event.

Today was Darwin Yang day at Denton High School chess club, since Dr. Alexey Root found out today that International Master Yang would be participating in the Texas State Scholastic High School Championship section this weekend.

I presented "Battleship Chess" from Children and Chess: A Guide for Educators and "Wolf and Sheep" from Read, Write, Checkmate: Enrich Literacy with Chess Activities. Chess club students practiced these two drills, which will also be shown to the public at the March 19 Barnes & Noble Chess in Education event.

Dr. Alexey Root showed the first five moves of a game featuring the London System (chess opening) to Denton High School chess club students. The moves were 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 Nf6 3. e3 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nd2 Qb6. The game was V. Sergeev vs. L. Cernousek, Jirasek Memorial, Rakovnik 2008 featured on pages 49-53 of Cyrus Lakdawala's Play the London System (Everyman Chess, 2010).

Free seminars, sponsored by the Texas Chess Association, with door prizes (books) from the UT Dallas Chess Program! Two Thinking with Chess: Teaching Children Ages 5-14seminars will be presented by Dr. Alexey Root. Times are Saturday, February 18, 7:00-8:00 p.m. and Sunday, February 19, 1:15-2:15 p.m. in the Seminar Room at Texas State Scholastic, Dallas Sheraton, 400 North Olive Street, Dallas, TX 75201. You can attend both seminars, as they will not be the same.

Bruce Pandolfini will accept the Chess Educator of the Year award on February 23, 2012 at UT Dallas. Go to the UT Dallas Chess Program Web site for more information about this free event. Dr. Alexey Root will interview Mr. Pandolfini for Chess Life magazine.

Dr. Alexey Root showed a position from 1...d6 move by move (Cyrus Lakdawala, Everyman Chess, 2011, p. 13) to the Denton High School chess club students.

At the club meeting on Friday, January 20, Denton High School chess club members played notated games with each other. For the last 15 minutes of class, Dr. Root showed one of those games to the class, using the demonstration board. She pointed out good moves and mistakes. The students followed along on their own chess boards. Dr. Root had them pause at four different positions to find the best move.

At the meeting on January 21, Denton High School (DHS) chess club members discussed our goals for the rest of the year. DHS wants to have club T shirts, run a non-rated middle/high school tournament, donate chess books to the school library, and participate in a chess and education event at a bookstore (to be held alongside my signing my books). Also, students elected a new officer to replace the absent Treasurer.

On Saturday, January 15, 2011, six members of the Denton High School chess club traveled with chess sponsor Fred Mueller and volunteer chess coach Alexey Root to Lovejoy High School in Allen, TX for the Region III scholastic chess tournament. It was the first team competition ever for the DHS chess club.

The sixteenth meeting of Denton High School chess club for this school year was January 14, 2011. To get ready for the Susan Polgar simultaneous exhibition at the Region III championship on Saturday the 15^th, I played a simul against five of the players who would be attending that event. So they were ready to play in a simul…but none of them were picked in the raffle to actually play GM Polgar. Those attending the club also practiced openings and basic endgame checkmates.