Your Moment of Zen

This one goes out to Zack Fishman.

Pas de Deux

How many Ray School students does it take to change a light bulb? I don’t know, but it only takes two to win a team trophy in a major citywide chess tournament. That’s what happened today in the first tournament of the year at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club put on by Chess Education Partners.

Despite the surprisingly low turnout from Ray for a tournament in our own front yard, fifth-grader Andy Margulis and fourth-grader Phillip Parker-Turner combined to give our school a first-place finish in the Grades 4-5 team competition. Fresh from his triumph dowstate yesterday, Noah Weeks-Brittan of the Chicago Latin School finished first in the individual competition in that division.

More pictures here. Thanks to the efficiency of Tournament Director IM Jan Vander Mortel, the individual results are already available from the U.S. Chess Federation here. Here are the team results for the event, which drew almost 50 kids from around the city and suburbs.

Grades K-1
1. Western Avenue
2. Flossmoor

Grades 2-3
1. Chicago Latin
2. Near North Montessori
3. Andrew Jackson

Grades 4-5
1. Ray School
2. Sacred Heart
3. Dewey Elementary

Grades 6-8
1. Cook

And afterwards, they played Bughouse:

Thanks to Jan, Chess Education Partners President Zack Fishman, and Peter Cassel of the Neighborhood Club. Next tournament in Hyde Park: December 2.

Neighborhood Club to Host Chess Tournaments

CEP will hold meets in Hyde Park

Great news. Zack Fishman's Chess Education Partners (CEP), one of the leading organizers of scholastic chess events Chicago, plans to hold several tournaments right here in our neighborhood, at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club.

HPNC executive director Peter Cassel confirmed the schedule.
The first tournament will be on Sunday, September 30.

The new series is a natural outgrowth of a rapidly developing relationship between CEP and the Neighborhood Club. International Master Jan van de Mortel of CEP offered a chess class at the club last winter and spring, and the organization staged a tournament there last June in which Ray kids won big.

The new tournaments, which will be widely publicized and will draw players from all over the city, will be harder for one school to dominate, which means they'll be more fun. They will probably be rated tournaments for which U.S. Chess Federation membership will be required, and there will be an entry fee of $20.

More information as it becomes available. For now, please mark you calendar for September 30. Other tournaments are tentatively scheduled for November 4, December 2, January 6, February3, March 2, April 6, and May 4. Good turnout in the early tournaments will insure that the later ones take place, so please plan to attend some of these events. This is a great opportunity for all junior chess players in Hyde Park.

Home Court Advantage

Ray kids stand out at neighborhood tournament

The last chess tournament of the school year turned out to be one of the best, as Ray kids took advantage of their superior numbers at a meet held here in Hyde Park yesterday to win three team trophies with a clean sweep of all elementary-school divisions.

Chess Education Partners’ Zack Fishman with the trophy-laden Ray School team

In the first of what we hope will be many tournaments at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club conducted by Chess Education Partners, Ray took first place in the K-1, Grades 2-3, and Grades 4-5 categories.

Ray students also brought home eight individual trophies, a school record for a single event. Leading the way was Phillip Parker-Turner, who finished first in the Grades 2-3 division with a perfect five victories in as many rounds. Other Ray kids who won trophies were Allen Dai, Karen Dai, Sonam Ford, Gonzalo Higuero, James Liu, Nikolaj Reiser, and George Vassilatos.

Kids from other schools who posted excellent records included Mickey Li, Brian Lorenz, Noah Weeks-Brittan, Zackery Mateo Montes, and Stone Tao. See the complete results here.

It was a great way to finish up the season, and we didn’t even have to leave the neighborhood. Thanks to Zack Fishman, Jan van der Mortel, and Bruce Haffner from Chess Education Partners and to Peter Cassel of the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club for hosting the event. Look for more programs from CEP at the Neighborhood Club in the fall.

More photos here.

And don’t forget: We’ll be back playing chess again next Saturday afternoon at the University of Chicago. See you there.