Schenectady Chess now has a facebook page! You can go to the link below. The page will have events on there. Feel free to post your thoughts, questions and comments.
Blitz Tournament
20 AugOn Monday the twenty third of august there will be a blitz tournament under the marquee at Proctors. It will be five rounds using the Swiss System, with five minutes each on the clock. There are cash prizes, gift cards, and more! Boards, sets, and clocks will be provided. Come to the event and have fun! Regristration is completely free! Regristration is from 11:00 – 11:15 with round one beginning at 11:20. C ome on down and lets play some blitz!
Titled Players Present: NM Deepak Aaron
Proctors Chess
4 JunOk, so while we might have to work at chess for a while before we can successfully compete with the bigger cities, there is an event that anyone can go to. It is free, and it is at the Muddy Cup, Proctors, from 4:30-6:00 PM on Fridays. It will be a time of casual chess play, chess instruction, potential chess puzzle competition and chess tournaments. It is all to move forward with Proctors as a Chess Center in the World Chess Map while the local region has a positive impact! If you are driving through or live local, come and stop by! Hope to see you there!
Ideal Chess City
31 MayI thought you guys would find this pretty humorous. I know I did!
Now if Schenectady looked like this, that would be pretty cool!
Hello Schenectady Chess Players!
31 MayOkay, so even if you do not live local to here, thats ok. Here is a link to my blog that is actually on chess. (www.chesforkids.wordpress.com) So, if you want to learn about chess, click on the link. If you are interested in promoting Schenectady chess, then stay right here!
Ok, with the introduction down, lets get down to business. My name is Zach, and I am rated 1363. I am 13 years old and I am a scholastic chess player who is interested in promoting chess in Schenectady, NY. Currently, New York City is the city that grandmasters will go to when going through New York. Here is some of the attractions that New York City holds that will draw all the good players.
There are many parks in New York, and many of those parks have chess players there. By far the most popular one is Washington Square Park, as shown above. Not only is it amidst many other chess locations, clubs, and stores, but many grandmasters and prodigies have passed through there. Nakamura will still drop by. He was two time US Champion. Bobby Fischer played there as a kid. He won the US Championship at age 13, and won many other US Championships, over five. He was the eleventh World Chess Champion, taking away the title from the Russians. They hade been dominating the Chess world for many years, and he beat Boris Spassky to win the WCC. And then something scary happened. He died at age sixty-four, the number of squares their are on a chess board. And then Garry Kasparov went through Washington Square Park, and he was WCC for about twenty years. Maurice Ashley plays in the park a lot. He is the first and only black grandmaster of chess. And Joshua Waitzkin was a prodigy of his age, and became an International Master before, to the chess worlds dismay, quit the game. Jeff Sarwer also played in the park. Not to mention dozens of FIDE Masters, National Masters, and International Masters. Also, the park was popularized by the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer.
Tons of chess shops are all over New York City. And no, not a Barnes and Nobles or Borders with a few chess books and a Harry Potter chess set. An actual store with real sets, books, and other chess supplies.
The Marshall Chess Club is one of the only private chess clubs in the country left, and the only one in New York. The Manhattan Chess Club, unfortunately, had to shut down. There is a Schenectady Chess Club…In Niskayuna. They meet every thursday evening. The Marshall Chess Club is open 24/7. Not to mention the number of chess masters and grandmasters that are resident to New York. They put a lot more emphasis on chess then we do.
Okay, now for what Schenectady has.
Proctors hosts a lot of chess events. Every friday night, players meet from 4:30-6:00 PM to play chess. For a while GM Ronen Har-Zvi was a local resident here, and helped out a great deal with chess. He was all for promoting it. He was former world u-16 champion, and my coach.
Here, he takes on twenty-five boards at once. If you look very carefully in between the girl with the yellow shirt on and the man with the grey shirt on is my sister, Mari. The girl in the yellow shirt is her friend Deepti. The event took place inside Proctors in the Muddy Cup, a cute little cafe in proctors.
Here, Kasaun Henry, assistant to GM Maurice Ashley, helps Maurice Ashley teaches chess campers during MATCH (he is over to the right). MATCH stands for Maurice Ashley Teaches CHampions. This takes place in Proctors Basement.
Also, we have tournaments once a month and a chess meet every friday evening. New York City’s Marshall Chess Club is open 24/7, has the park for anyone looking to make (or lose!) a few dollars, and a shop to search for only the best and topmost quality chess supplies.
Are you starting to sense a theme here about where most chess activities in Schenectady take place? On one hand it is great, all chess activities and tournaments and simuls in one building dedicated to the arts but on another hand, most people view Proctors as a theatre. And although it is indeed a theatre, to us chess players it is the home of the arts, and the chess center of Schenectady. It is the only location where chess events take place. Now compare it to the locations of New York City. New York City has multiple locations, options, and events running at the same time. See what I mean? In my next post I am going to talk about possible ways to spread chess in downtown Schenectady. New York City can do it, why can’t we? New York City has had its turn at being the leading chess city in New York State. Now I, for one, believe it is Schenectady’s turn.
