Fall Chess Tournament

Today was the first chess tournament of the year. Originally only Julianne and Caleb were going to enter, but Igor and Elisa decided to participate at the last minute too. All four ended up with a trophy!


Elisa hasn't been playing at home lately, so her skills haven't really improved. She has a good understanding of how the pieces move, but still doesn't know how to strategize to checkmate her opponent. She came out with one win and four losses, but that was good enough for a 2nd place trophy for the K-1 division.

Caleb's skills are still sharp, and he easily defeated his first four opponents. (The above picture is one of his wins.) In between rounds he played football with the other boys, and was dripping with sweat during his chess matches. After four wins he went into the championship round against his friend, Matthew, as he has done in the past several tournaments. Brad and I watched the game, and Caleb was ahead early on and seemed headed for an easy win. However, he seemed very distracted--looking around the room and not giving much thought to his moves. Eventually, Matthew took advantage of the opportunity and captured Caleb's queen, leading to a win for Matthew and a second place trophy for Caleb.

Julianne played well, and came out with three wins and two losses. She plays in the upper division against middle and high school students. She took second place for the 7th grade division. The picture above is her securing a strong win.


Igor doesn't play much, but he is a strategic thinker and
always puts 110% into whatever he does. His first game took 90 minutes and gave him a hard-fought win. He had some tough competition, and one of his losses was due to "the stupid American rule that if you touch a piece, you must move it..." :-) He was surprised to wind up with a 2nd place trophy in the 9-10 grade division.

It was a fun day and we are very proud of them all!