Fall Chess Championships

Last Saturday at the Fall Chess Championships, held at Northampton Community College, I met the MS gifted teacher, Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith has been teaching chess during the activity period at the MS. As a result three students signed up for the tournament and he spent a good part of his Saturday morning and afternoon checking the event out and seeing how his students did. I appreciate and am glad to recognize his doing this for his students and hope he will expand the effort at the MS.

This was the fifth time I've attended with my daughter and I hope Mr. Smith felt, as I did, that this was a great event. Well coordinated, on schedule, and the kids had a great time playing their five guaranteed games and what seemed to be dozens more in-between rounds against one another.

There are US Chess Federation rated classes and unrated classes divided by age. Children as young as five and up to 14 can play in the unrated side. Trophies were awarded to age based winners and a medal went to 2nd place. Each child received a certificate for participating and there were raffle prizes before each round.

So long as your child knows the rules, they can participate. The tournament director and staff are excellent at reminding them of basic rules, helping when their are questions, and monitoring the games to ensure all goes smoothly.

A surprise for the participants this year was a visit by WFMZ Channel 69, who recorded a segment for the night's news broadcast.

I've also been impressed with East Stroudsburg school district, whose chess club brought over twenty students to the event this year. It would be great to see a program in Nazareth grow and develop to this level from elementary on through high school.