Wood Sense: a BC chess blog

Children's Chess Club begins on Jan 21, 2012

2011-12-13T19:43:00.000-08:00

Hi chess friends. I may start a new blog but for now I just want to announce that I will be hosting a Children's Chess Club in Duncan starting on Saturday, January 21, 2012 at the Vancouver Island Regional Library ... time: 1145-1245 for now. Ages 6-15 and there will be lessons for those who don't know a thing about chess!

Best medicine in Mesa pediatrician's bag may be a chess set

2010-08-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

I read this article about the benefits of chess and thought I would keep a record of it and provide a link for those interested.

The gist of the article is about how a Doctor for children makes use of chess in his bag of tricks to help them get well. There are also some interesting quotes not related to the main point.

First of all, here is the link.

"The hospital is all about being healthy," Saba says, "and that means having a strong body and a strong mind. Chess is another way to help children be healthy."

It keeps their minds active and their stress at bay while they're confined to bed, "and they can play for their rest of their life," he says.

Fun may be foremost, but chess can be good for players in other ways. Its positive impact on brain fitness has been documented in numerous studies, and anecdotal evidence suggests it helps the rest of the body, too. With the social interaction inherent in matching wits with others, emotional health likely is another beneficiary.

The American Academy of Pediatrics' "School Health Handbook" includes a section on the benefits of chess, inspired by a resolution Saba wrote in 1999 when he was president of the academy's Arizona chapter.

Furthermore, the benefit is not simply mental ...

And chess master Leroy Dubeck, a physics professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, remembers research by one of his graduate students decades ago. It showed that competing in a chess tournament delivers a surprising workout.

"We did find," Dubeck says by e-mail, "that players hooked up to physiographs had their breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure, etc., increase (for some) as much as typically happens to a football player on the field."

There's more - including some romantic complications - but I will leave that to the readers of this blog to find out for themselves. What I do not want to leave alone is my own experience about the benefits of chess.

It's funny, really, that I didn't give chess credit for some of the health improvements in my own life. 37 years ago I was involved in a very serious motorcycle accident - a head on at speed with another motorcycle - that found me learning to walk again and getting rehab at what was then the Gorge Road Rehab Hospital in Victoria, B.C..

In my ward was a Yugoslav, Serbian I think, who had had his own horrifying trauma. He had one of his legs burned off just below the knee, serious burn injuries to one of his arms, in a construction accident in which he had been electrocuted with tens of thousands of volts. I think his name was Slavko or something like that. (I'd love to meet him again, if I could, and any Victoria chess player reading this might be able to help.) Anyway, Slavko and I played a great deal of chess in that hospital and, now that I think about it, that chess playing was the beginning of my road to recovery. It would be almost 20 years before I took up competitive chess seriously - much too late in life for really great results - but I see now that playing chess, long ago, with that burn victim, was a great help to me. My long walk to freedom had begun, I become oriented towards recovery, I walked again, and life went on.

Perhaps you, too, have a great, long forgotten chess story like mine. Such stories ought to be told for they form part of chess history and chess culture that has lasted for over a thousand years and will, undoubtedly, last another thousand years.

Long live our great and noble game!

Chess in BC public schools.

2009-11-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back. I've got something to write about. It seems that the efforts of Arnie Nermo, a teacher from the Okanagan who now teaches in Abbotsford, have borne fruit. Nermo, along with fellow teacher Luke Campbell, has finally had his chess course approved by both the School Board and the Ministry of Education of British Columbia. Says Nermo:

What is the significance? Now that Chess is listed as a legitimate BAA course in BC (course number YLRA-12F) any teacher can apply to teach it in their school district. It will still take some effort on their part but the precedent is set and so it will be a much easier road. Although the course is the first of its kind in Canada that I know of, it is my hope that teachers in other districts and provinces country-wide may use Luke Campbell’s and my experiences to use the course as a template for the introduction and teaching of Chess into their high-school curriculum too.

For those interested in the substantiation, from the educators' point of view, of chess as a high school course, the following is also of interest:

As to the question of whether Chess has a viable place in high-school curriculum, extensive research has shown it to be an activity where even the weakest academic students can match their wits with the strongest and beam with success. It is a proven and valuable self-esteem builder! In addition, Chess demands that participants exercise their best powers of planning, memory, decision-making, judgment, creativity, and concentration. Interestingly, chess is known to assist cognitive development for students in four areas– logic, memory, awareness/analysis, and pattern recognition (Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal WGCTA). The educational benefits of chess are already recognized by its inclusion in the required curricula of over 30 countries including Canada (Quebec and New Brunswick).It is evident that chess is more than just a game.

Here are a few links for further investigation ...

Nermo address fellow teachers through the BCTF website.

British Columbia Chess in Schools: World Chess Federation (FIDE) report

Chess Federation of Canada Discussion Board - Chess Approved as a High School Credit

Chess Kids Australia takes notice of Canadian breakthrough.

The Australian website is useful because it provides links to: (a) A Short History on How to Start a High School Chess Course (.pdf file), and (b) Chess 12 BAA [Board Approved and Authorized] Course Outline (M/S Word .doc file)

Susan Polgar thinks this is important as well ...

Chess in Moldovian Schools

Chess in Schools in the Philippines

"Chess is a game that improves individual organizational and analytical skills. Children when exposed to this game at an early age achieve academically better, or even faster than those who have not been engaged in the game. Likewise, chess is among the activities that help build memory skills, concentration, self-confidence, self-esteem and in making disciplined decisions. Playing chess provides opportunities to practice such values as perseverance, honesty, and sportsmanship," Secretary Lapus stated in the Memorandum.

The Department of Education (DepEd) shall adopt chess as another strategy to promote the development of higher order thinking skills and values among Grades 3 to 6 in the Physical Education department. Chess will continue at the secondary level....

In the Philippine public school system, there are around 35,000 Grade Schools and some 6,000 High Schools. There are over 2,000 private High Schools. Brother Dizon said they aim to train 35,000 chess teachers by November 2009.

This is good news for chess in British Columbia, in Canada, and in the wider world.

Jonathan Berry lecture at the Grand Pacific Open

2009-04-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

While I wasn't able to participate in the tourney, I managed to attend a chess lecture by Jonathan Berry on "A Few Endgames". The crowd was small enough to make it open and intimate.

Before I forget, I should add that Berry made mention of a very handy website for chess endgames. It's called an Endgame Tablebase and can be used for ANY endgame with six pieces or less. Basically, you place the six pieces or less on the board (including the two kings) , note which side is to play, and the website will churn out an endgame solution. There is a similar Nalimov Tablebase over here.

Jonathan Berry's endgames follow. I will add them as I am able.

I first heard about the Chess Viewer Deluxe on Susan Polgar's Chess Discussion Board. The Board was moderated by Nikolai Pilafov. Nikolai has obviously been doing some more work on his Viewer and you are seeing the results of those efforts. Now if I can just figure out how to display a game fragment or problem ... Here are Nikolai's instructions on how to publish a chess game on your blog if you are interested in trying the same thing on your own.

Firstly, an endgame problem that shows some basics from a simple king and pawn ending.

After that is a very long game (153 moves) in which rook, bishop and pawn prevail over rook and bishop. On 55... Rb2 check, it really looks as if White should settle for the draw by trading the rooks and so on. However, Kovalevskaya played on and managed, instead, to trade off the opposite-colored bishops for the win.

What's up with me?

2009-04-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

Hello again, friends. I haven't posted anything in a number of months. It had been my plan to teach a chess course at the local community centre in Duncan but, alas, not enough interest was shown and the course was cancelled.

My bad luck, however, was in contrast to the good work of Arnie Nermo from Abbotsford, B.C., who has helped towards creating a Canadian first ... the first Board of Education Approved Chess Course in a public school in Canada! Well done, guys! Arnie also provided a short history on How to Start a High School Chess Course.

I was down in Victoria this past weekend to check out the 2009 Victoria Chess Festival, aka the Grand Pacific Open, and to finally meet Jonathan Berry who was giving a chess lecture during the weekend. I was only able to attend the lecture. If I am able I will share my notes from Berry's lecture. He spoke on "A Few Endgames" and I also took the opportunity to purchase the first volume of "Chess on the Edge" from the Chess and Math booktable. Now I have another chess book that I haven't read. Heh.

P.S. to Chess and Math. Next time, guys, how about being organized enough to provide your customers with a receipt? I very nearly walked away from the amateurism of it all.

Jack Taylor Memorial 2008

2008-11-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

Photo shows: organizer Roger Patterson; Howard Wu, the winner; and TD Mark Dutton.

This is the second time in this tournament for me. The first time was back in 2001 when Pascal Charbonneau won the event. I was initially paired with Pascal, but the pairings were changed, and I lost the chance to play a Canadian GM.

This time around the TD was Mark Dutton and the organizer was Roger Patterson. Some of the photos I took can be seen on the website of the Victoria Chess Club. The crosstable and photos are over here.

My results were only satisfactory at best. I settled for a draw in the fourth round against a lower rated player, which gave me an easier pairing in the fifth round, and I also blundered in the two games I lost. Mind you, it's been a year since I played in a rated event so I shouldn't beat myself up too much. There is work to be done, however. I hope I can be ready for the big event in Victoria in April.

The Victoria club doesn't make a habit of publishing all the games, so if I want my games published I will have to do it myself.

More details about the event: the tournament was held at one of the Traveller's Inns on Douglas Street in Victoria. The location was great with one notable problem ... the "salon" we were in was right next to another salon in which a large meeting was taking place. The meeting and the goings-on could be clearly heard from next door. So, were were treated to the singing of God Save the Queen and O Canada by the United Empire Loyalist Association. In between the singing we heard the proceedings of their meeting. Not that they did a bad job, but it WAS a distraction.

Anyway, I played Harry Moore, Nikolas Milonas, Charlie Ozkan, Stewart Paulson, and Greg Herringer. Here is my game against Stewart Paulson.

Instead of playing 15. Be1, Stewart could have played 15. Qf3 and got himself a slight edge. In any case, 16 ... Ne4 was an awful move since I had 16 ...Qd4 to keep the extra pawn and the pressure on White. Having dropped the knight for a couple of pawns, I didn't feel so bad settling for a draw by repetition. Stewart and I had a nice, leisurely lunch prior to playing our 5th round games.

Here is a permanent link to the above game. I've struggled with a few game viewers, unlike this one, that allow annotations and variations. I will probably struggle some more until the problem is solved.

Gwyddbwyll is wood sense.

2008-11-22T10:17:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to start a chess blog called "Wood Sense" and, now that I have moved from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island, what could be a more appropriate title for a chess blog in this very wooded region of the country? Aren't the best chess pieces still made of wood?

Gwyddbwyll was the ancient Celtic chess-like game, mostly lost in time now, which translates as "wood sense". You can read a previous article about gwyddbwyll over at my Manitoba chess blog called Exclam! online .