The Cupertino Courier
Education
Chess club has students making the right moves
By ERIN HUSSEY
Sixty students at Faria Elementary School are among the more than 600 million people worldwide who play chess. For them, the 16-piece board game represents a quest--place the opponent's king under immediate attack. Or, in chess parlance, in "check."
"It's a check! It's a check," shouts kindergartener Manish Kannan into Courtney Shinagawa's ear.
"Stop it, stop telling me," responds Courtney, a first-grade student who appears annoyed with Manish and the two other kindergarten boys who are acting more like football commentators than respectful chess spectators.
"Can't these people just go away?" she says, rubbing her forehead. Focusing on the black-and-white-checked board, Courtney slowly picks up a black pawn, places it back down and looks up with a grin. "Checkmate!"
Courtney's match is one of 30 that take place every Tuesday evening at Faria's Chess Club. This is first year the school has offered the club.
"Back in October, one of the teachers from my former school asked if we wanted to challenge them in a chess tournament," says Steven Woo, Faria's principal. "I put out a little notice, and then all of a sudden 40 or 50 kids came in with their own boards. I was really surprised."
Following the tournament, parents Ketan Bengali and Logan Palanisamy decided to form a chess club. When close to 120 students signed up, they decided to hold a tournament to narrow it down to 10 children from each of the six grade levels.
"The long-term goal is to make this the best school club in the Bay Area," says Bengali.
Chess has become increasingly popular for elementary school-aged children, according to Bengali. In addition to school clubs, there are numerous private clubs and coaches in California.
Jessica Xhu, a third-grade student at Faria, participates in her school's club and receives private chess lessons. She is currently ranked third in the world for her age group.
"My mom first gave my brother this little chess set and then I wanted to learn, so that's how I got started," says Jessica. Jessica's mother, Susan Liu, gave the chess set to her son Kevin for his fifth birthday. Two years later, Jessica, then 4-1/2, started playing.
"I practice everyday," says Jessica. "I do about 30 tactic puzzles and I also play about two games on the Internet everyday." Although she admits to rarely defeating her fifth-grade brother, she can beat her parents.
"My mom isn't very good," she says. "I can beat her really easily. My dad is slightly better. He's probably the same skill as me, but I'm a little better."
During chess club practices at Faria, Jessica and Kevin must alter the way they play to keep the games challenging. Kevin, who has a top state ranking, will play two games at once, usually without his queens. Instead of having one opponent, Jessica will face off against a team of two older students.
"It's like a sport, but you can't get injured," says Jessica.
Both Jessica and Kevin play in about two tournaments per month and say they enjoy chess because it is fun and challenging at the same time.
"For some kids during the weekend, because they don't have very many activities to do, they just play video games," says Liu. "For my kids, they can play chess."
At chess club meetings, parent volunteers provide 45 minutes of coaching and game analysis.
"I got very excited when I heard they were going to start a chess club here," says Bahjat Zafer, a parent volunteer.
Zafer started playing chess when he was a child growing up in Jordan. He coaches the kindergarteners through second-graders. Zafer says chess is a great activity not only because it is a fun and interesting game for children, but it also helps build a variety of useful skills such as logic and thinking in advance.
"You don't feel the change in one day, but overall it helped my way of thinking," he says. "I learned a lot from it, and I know it will do the same for these kids."
