Covid Compatible Chess Board
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Club Update Fall 2020
Hello everyone. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we have suspended all chess club activities. The club meetings have many things working against us that prevent a safe and healthy environment including:
- Large numbers of kids in the same small room (library). The CDC still recommends ten or less people in the same space which we could never accomplish. We could hold meetings outside, with each chess board spaced out enough, but see the next item.
- Two players sitting less than 2 feet from each other hovering over a chess board. It is hard to play a game of chess without being very close to the other player. We could require all players to wear masks, but see the next item.
- Each player has to physically touch their chess pieces and the pieces they capture that have been touched by the other player. We could have the kids wear gloves and disinfect all the pieces before and after each game.
If we tried to implement the above measures to conduct a safe chess club meeting, it would look like this: We would setup outside perhaps behind the school on the concrete steps near the playground. All players and parents wearing masks and gloves, with parents who’s job would be to disinfect all chess pieces prior to each chess game and monitor the kid’s behavior to make sure no one violates our safety rules. Being outside would most likely cause a lot of distractions that are not conducive to focused game play.
So, I listed out the top three reasons we can’t provide a safe environment for the kids. While there are options we could employ to help reduce the risk of transmission, it just doesn’t make sense right now to try to force chess club meetings.
Another issue is that the school and the district probably would not approve any club meetings on campus anyway. All of the local chess tournaments have these same problems and that is why they have cancelled and not planned any new tournaments.
Our only option right now is to use online chess tools. The kids have their chesskid accounts from last year and while our annual membership has expired, we could consider renewing it, but we first need to know how many kids would actually use it to justify the high cost of the annual membership. I know with most kids participating in online school, adding another online activity might not make sense for many families. This of course doesn’t stop you from using your Chesskid account to play online games against other kids. The lapse in our Chesskid memberrship just reduces your access to the training videos they provide.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to email me
Thank you,
Chris Jones spicewoodeschessclub@gmail.com
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November 15th 2019 Club Meeting
Today we will show the following video about creating passed pawns.
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November 1st 2019 Club Meeting
Coach James will be reviewing the Scholar’s Mate with the Pawn group by showing the following video:
Coach Chris will be reviewing one of the most common opening traps called the Fork trick with the Knights group.
The Rooks and Kings groups will complete the last round of their club tournament and then start a lesson from our new Westwood student volunteers.
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October 25th 2019 Club meeting
Coach James will be reviewing the battering ram tactic to the pawns at this week’s club meeting.
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T-Shirt contest winner – Leonardo Fernandez
Our judges have voted and the winning design goes to 5th grader Leonardo Fernandez. His design has two cats or panthers playing Chess at a table with one standing up. Around it, text says “The Best Never Rest”
Congratulations to Leonardo who wins a $5 chess buck. And thank you to all the students who entered the contest this year. The design will be sent to our tshirt printing company for their graphic artist to clean up. We hope to have tshirts in November for everyone to wear and enjoy.
T-shirt Design Contest Entries
We received nine entries to our t-shirt design contest last Friday. Our parent judges are currently reviewing them all and we plan to choose a winner at this Friday’s club meeting. As soon as we have a winner, we will begin working with our shirt vendor to get the design touched up and finalize the shirt order. We hope to have the shirts finished and passed out by November.
Pizza Party November 2nd 2019
The Spicewood Elementary Chess Club is having a party at the Spicewood Elementary school on Saturday November 2nd from 10:00 to 2:00pm. The event is for 4 hours with pizza arriving around noon. We know Saturday’s are a busy day with lots of sports and other activities, so this event is designed for you to come and go as you please. Swing by for only 30 minutes or stay the whole time.
We will be playing Chess and having fun with our friends. We will have coaches available to work with the students. This is the week before the Casis Elementary Scholastic Chess tournament, so we will be helping the kids prepare for the tournament as well as have fun with our special chess sets including our light up chess boards, our 4 player chess sets, our Musketeer variant chess pieces (elephant, unicorn, dragon, leopard, etc)
We have also invited some of our friends from other local elementary Chess clubs as well as local chess teachers and experts.
The club will be providing Pizza and we ask parents to signup to bring other items needed for the party such as drinks, plates, utensils, etc. This is also a potluck, so we encourage parents to bring cookies, snacks, etc. There is a signup sheet for Parents to RSVP and let us know what item/items you can volunteer to bring. Please remember no food containing nuts!
Club registration is closed for the Fall 2019 semester
Registration closed on September 27th for Chess club. We will re-open registration for two weeks starting in January 6th for any additional students who want to join.
We have 109 students in our club this year. Half of those students are in Kindergarten or 1st grade, so we have many beginners this year. Here are some statistics:
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Short video on the history of Chess
Here is a nice animated video that talks about the origins and history of Chess. We recommend all students watch this and it is only five minutes long.
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