Beginners' Tournament

Jen here. What a weekend. Last Saturday Chess4Life put on a Beginners Tournament. The goal of it: to prepare students for tournaments, teaching them the basics. We had 45 students sign up: 14 kids ages 4-6, 22 kids ages 7-8 and 9 students ages 9-12.

Coach Roy, as I call him due to assisting him with Chess classes, was the TD of the tournament, as well as running the group of 7-8 year olds. I got the pleasure of working with the 4-6 year olds, and a new coach, Philip had the 9-12 year olds.

Every student played 4 games, which each lasted less than 30 minutes(some poor dears lost in but a few minutes...). And in between rounds we taught the students something new about tournament play: reading the pairing chart, recording your result, what to do if you have problems or questions, notating your game, good sportsmanship, etc. The students had new information to apply in each round.

Just before the tournament I taught a small Chess class (two kids) and then taxied with them to the tournament. These kids are adorable. They were so pumped for the tournament! Mom said they talked about it all week and looked forward to it so much. I tried to encourage them on the way to the tournament; they're young and new to chess. Some of the other kids have been taking classes from us since September and have learned quite a bit. These kids started a month or two ago.

Upon arriving to the tournament, I remembered one reason why we wanted to put a cap on the number of students allowed to register: the tournament venue was one primary school classroom, not exactly designed for 45 kids to play chess in, you know? We ended up using two classrooms and the small art room/lab connecting the two rooms. Guess where the little 4-6 year olds with Miss Jenny (or Coach Jenny) ended up? In the art lab. It wasn't a big deal...it was better to have the young kids in a contained area, and it felt cozy.

Short interruption here. Back in university, in my education classes, we talked a lot about flexibility. Teachers must be flexible. Well, being in HK with a husband teaching Chess, I've had many opportunities to be flexible and to grow. This being one.

The students were quite excited and wound up. Upon receiving the 1st round pairings, I started our first teaching lesson, and then began the round. Chess tournaments are supposed to be quiet, right? Yes. Lesson #1. But so many 4-6 year olds don't realize that their talking makes noise. I'm not sure they grasp whispering yet. My TDing in this room consisted of a lot of "shhh..Please stop humming. Remember, Chess tournaments are quiet places. When you check your opponent, you don't have to yell 'check' you can just whisper it. Billy, don't help David with his game, you can lose your game for helping another player. Oh, parents aren't allowed to talk with their kids while they are playing..." You get the idea. Many of the kids' parents were standing at the end of our room watching, which was tough, but good. They were all delighted to see their kids learning Chess.

Some of the kids are so young or have such a short attention span, I was worried they would never complete their games! It was humorous watching some of them play one another. One little 4-year old kept losing focus, or playing with the pieces like they were GI-Joes or something. Other students were able to checkmate their opponents or at least capture all of their opponents pieces--even the king! FYI, you're not allowed to capture the king in Chess. There was many a time when I had to ask a student, "Are we allowed to capture the king in Chess? No...that means your opponent played an illegal move. Let's go back and see what happened." Nevertheless, all of the kids are learning and growing in this area and it's exciting to see their progress.

All in all, the tournament went well. The kids were happy; they all received a trophy. And we finished on schedule. Praise God! :)