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To have a chess club, it takes somebody who has a basic knowledge of chess and is interested in working with the kids, added the 69-year-old volunteer chess adviser at Perkins Local Schools.

The Milan Public Library will host a chess tournament featuring four area schools Jan. 25. The event starts at 10 a.m. in the community room and will run until about 4 p.m.

Its the first quad tournament for just four schools, said Balduff, who has coordinated tournaments for as many as 100 players.Perkins has had some tournaments that I have organized. Its been fun.

Students from Edison, Norwalk,Perkins and Western Reserve will be playing in Milan. Lisa Border, Western Reserve High School principal, said the chess club is new, but the students are enthusiastic and the game is popular in the district.

This (tournament) is just an opportunity for fun, Balduff said.There is no entrance fee; there are no awards. We will have three players from each junior high and each high school to play each other.

Chemistry teacher Jeremy Newton advises the Edison High School chess club, which has 25 players in its second year.

At Norwalk Middle School, social studies teacher Danny Helton is the chess club adviser. Balduff said Helton is known for working chess into his school lessons via stressing history, medieval lore and developing strategy.

Becky Molnar advises the NHS club.

In Perkins, the chess club at Meadowlawn Intermediate School started in 2018. There currently are about 20 fourth- and fifth-grade students who are participating. Balduff said the club has receivedgreat support from Principal Jeremy Hiser and his staff.

Briar Middle School started its chess club in 2017 and includes slightly more than 20 students.Balduff said he considers Principal Scott Matheny agreat supporter of chess.

The Perkins High School chess club also began in 2017. About 10 students meet during lunch periods in a room designated for the organization.Balduff said adviser Paul Sherwood has set up tournaments for Sandusky City Schools and the Huron Public Library and when he isnt playing chess,Paul is an avid bird-watcher.

While some of the various club members occasionally bring in chess pieces based on Disney characters and the Star Wars, Harry Potter,Pirates of the Caribbean andThe Simpsons universes, the students prefer using the Staunton style because they dont get the pieces confused,Balduff said.

The adviser was asked what life lessons the students can learn from playing chess. Balduff said they can learn about winning and losing obviously, but also developing strategy, fair trades, persistence andgood sportsmanship.

I encourage the kids not to quit, he added.

Balduff said its wonderful to see the players have ana-ha moment playing chess.

Its fun; its nice when things click for them, he said.

Excerpt from:

Chess teaches more than strategy - Norwalk Reflector

Viswanathan Anand will be appearing in the New Year episode of India Today Inspiration in which he will be talking about his future in chess, the talent emerging from India in the sport and much more.

(Photo courtesy: Boria Majumdar Twitter)

Five-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand is into his fifth decade in the sport but is showing no signs of stopping. Anand recently celebrated his 50th birthday on December 10th and also launched his book 'Mind Masters' just a couple of days later.

Anand, India's torchbearer in chess and the country's first-ever Grand Master, has inspired a legion of players over decades. But the fire inside him as a chess player is still burning and he is as hungry as ever to get back to winning the big tournaments.

2019 wasn't a great year for Anand and he himself was the first to admit that. He finished tied third spots in both the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee and also at the 2019 Gashimov Memorial chess tournament in Shamkir, Azerbaijan.

But the New Year promises a new start for Anand and he is looking forward to new challenges against much-younger opponents.

"Chess builds up a lot of tension, you are constantly lost in your own thoughts, you have a lot of negative and positive emotions sitting inside and they are just knocking around.

"Given the demands of chess today and the pace at which it's going, this is quite hard. I am still able to play and cope and it is satisfying that I do so," Anand told in the New Year episode of India Today Inspiration.

So where is the next Anand coming from and is he happy with the future of Indian chess?

"About Indian chess, there are things that I like very much and there are things that we need to work on. I would like to work with a lot of these youngsters and help them because in the future, I'd be very proud of someone that I helped went on to become a world champion," Anand said.

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Chess builds up a lot of tension, you are constantly lost in your own thoughts: Viswanathan Anand - India Today

Text size: campus

Dec. 30, 2019

For the 17th time in 20 years, The University of Texas at Dallaschess team will travel to New York to participate in the 2020 Final Four tournament. The finals berth comes after the team placed fourth in the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship this week.

The Presidents Cup, which is considered the Final Four of College Chess, will be held in April at the historic Marshall Chess Club in New York City.

The competition among the top collegiate chess programs has gotten fierce over the last few years, said Jim Stallings, UTDallaschess program director. For our chess team to make it to the Final Four tournament again is quite an achievement. Im very proud of our team members.

UT Dallas was among 63 teams participating in the Pan-Am tournament, which was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Dec. 27-30.

All credit goes to the guys for making the most of their chances when they came their way. While luck always plays a part in this tournament, our players were focused and ready.

UT Dallas chess team coach Julio Catalino Sadorra

The Pan-American tournament featured six rounds of play over four days. Some universities were represented by only one team, while others, such as UT Dallas, brought multiple teams to the contest. En route to its fourth-place finish, UT Dallas defeated teams from Webster University, the University of Missouri, Texas Tech University and the University of Pennsylvania.

The UT Dallas team consisting of Gil Popilski, David Berczes, Craig Hilby and Angel Arribas Lopez earned the Final Four berth for the University with a 5-1 record.

UT Dallas chess team coach Julio Catalino Sadorra said he was particularly pleased that one of the UT Dallas teams defeated the reigning Final Four champion, UT Rio Grande Valley.

All credit goes to the guys for making the most of their chances when they came their way, Sadorra said. While luck always plays a part in this tournament, our players were focused and ready.

The Comets will face Texas Tech, Webster and St. Louis University at the Presidents Cup tournament.

While the opponents are ranked higher than UT Dallas, Sadorra said he believes the team can again demonstrate a gritty, fighting spirit in representing the University at the Final Four.

On paper, our chances are lower. However, if we do what we did at this tournament, focusing on what we can control, we definitely have a chance to win, he said.

Media Contact: Phil Roth, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2193,[emailprotected]or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, [emailprotected]

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Chess Team Makes Right Moves at Pan-Am, Advances to Final Four - University of Texas at Dallas

Raunak Sadhwani gave yet another performance rating of above 2600 Elo points to make his mark in the World Blitz Chess Championship which concluded at Moscow, Russia, on Monday.

At an Elo of 2490, city's only Grandmaster was given a starting rank of 150. On his way to yet another performance like a strong GM, the 14-year-old finished the 21-round event in the Open category, where Magnus Carlsen emerged as the eventual champion, at a much higher 121st position.

Raunak surprised as many as eight higher ranked Grandmasters and held four rated opponents to finish his maiden World event collecting 10 points. In the shortest format, Raunak lost nine rounds.

The biggest upset the Centre Point Student did in his first open World Championship came in the very first round when he stunned 2657 Elo and 48th seed Alexey Sarana. Thereafter he suffered back-to-back defeats but brought himself back on track by stunning Israel's 52nd seeded GM Emil Sutovsky.

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Raunak shines in World blitz chess too, secures a higher finish - Times of India

A 17-year-old from Saint-Lambert, Que., is heading to Belarusin 2020to compete for the Women's World ChessCup,after winning an international chess competition in Mexico earlier this year.

Maili-Jade Ouelletis a CEGEP studentat Champlain College.

In November, she travelled to the Women's North American Continental Championship, an invitation-only tournament in Aguascalientes, Mexico and one of only two qualifying championships for the Women's World Cup in chess.

Ouelletwon it handily, beating the runner-up bya wide margin. She was the youngest competitor in the tournament.

"I was really surprised at first. I had set up goals for myself, but it was a bit unrealistic. I was disciplined throughout the whole tournament," she said. "I know I deserved it, but it was still really, really cool to win it."

Ouellet has been playing chess since she was five years old and competing since she was seven.

She and her family realized early on that she had an aptitude for the game.

"I beat my mom when I was only five, so that helped," she said. "And when I started winning chess tournaments, that, too."

"Chess is a game that leaves very little room for luck," said the Quebec Chess Federation in a statement, congratulating Ouellet on her recent win.

"Good mental discipline is a fundamental characteristic to succeed in chess. There's no doubt the new champion has this trait."

Ouellet was also awarded the St-Lambert prize in culture.

Ouellet is a regular competitor, both in Quebec and nationally, although since starting CEGEP, she's been focusing on her studies.

She organizes her life so that she does her school work during the week and is available to play chess on the weekends.

"It's not much of a hassle," she said. "It's more like I have my school schedule ... then I do everything around it."

She said her CEGEP schedule is actually more forgiving than her high school schedule. She's managed to do everything in part because she says she requires less sleep than others, sleeping about six hours per night.

Ouellet is looking forward to the competition next September in Minsk, Belarus, although she's not sure what will come of her chess-playing in the long term. She hopes to go into law.

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Quebec teen beat her mom at chess at age 5 and hasn't looked back - CBC.ca