Chess News From Vlad

By , 12/04/2018

Dear Parents,

There were many chess events recently, that I couldn’t keep up with as our chess program expands. Some of the last ones were pretty significant that I have to mention them.

First of all, of course, the Chess celebration of 74 BSI students in our school on November 9th. who play/played for the BSI Chess Team. You should have seen how excited and proud our children were of their achievements. Our principal, Mr. Havlik, made an excellent speech to kick off the event. Also, the organization of this event was awesome. I can’t imagine what it takes to bring all these kids from their classes, how much effort and late night emails it took from Mrs. Moshura. We’ve seen tremendous support from our school administration. Ms. Olga, the BSI chess teacher, has been with our chess team at three tournaments already ( she will come to two more ) and it was a big help. She was analyzing games with our students all day long giving them invaluable advice.

The school is also working on a more formal way to form the team. Please be on the lookout for more info soon.

I can’t tell you all of the results from the past few months, but two stand out. First, on November 12th, at the Chess in the Schools Veterans Day tournament, our chess team in the super tough Reserve K-12 section (2d strongest in the tournament) became champions. Second, yesterday, at one of the most important city tournaments of the year – Mayor’s Cup- our team in the Elementary Championship section, ( Nicholas, Brandon, George, Alexey, Andrew, Jake, Katherina and David, who all qualified with their ratings) competed with 16 other qualified chess teams from the city. The pressure was really high with top juniors competing, every half a point counting, but our team, for the first time got second place and a beautiful trophy that goes to the school. It was really hard, just imagine, the team who got first place ( PS 77 ) lost only two points out of 16. We lost 3.5, but behind every game played is more than an hour effort of concentration, strategy, and patience from every child, (thinking of benefits of chess) :). Congratulations to the team!!!

One other thing I wanted to mention is our parents. They are simply amazing. Valerie and Anna Z., not just their children, who are some of the most dedicated members of the team, but everything they do from creating groups and schedules to choosing the color for team t-shirts, or Iouri who is documenting everything, or Maryana, Maryna, Marisa, Inna, Lidiya, Yura, Yana, Slava, Anna, Fred, Alex, Sergey, Oksana,Natalie, Ella, Tatyana, Nataliia and all the other parents. Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart!!!

Finally our plans:

From December 13-15, the BSI Chess team is going to participate in Scholastic Nationals in Orlando, Fl.

December 2nd. River Bank Chess tournament – http://chesstrm.org/NYC/

Avenues: The World School – http://avenues.gmchessacademy.com/home/index/2/1

December 8th. Brooklyn Friends school – https://www.events4chess.com/events/?event_ID=931

December 9th. Brooklyn Packer school – https://packerchess.wufoo.com/forms/packer-winter-chess-tournament/

Keep in mind two very important tournaments that are coming up:

January 5-6 Kasparov’s Greater NY Scholastic Championship – http://www.gnyscc.com/

and March 9-10 NY State Scholastic – http://www.chesstour.com/nyssc19.htm

There are many chess tournaments in NYC. if you need any advice please let me know directly.

You are always welcome to join our closed Facebook group Chess Club for BSI and Friends – https://www.facebook.com/groups/204131293400869/

Or follow our team page – https://www.facebook.com/bsichessteam/

Best,

Vlad