Artwork by Mike Magnan
Chess kings in Central Falls? Check!
01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 26, 2011
By John Hill
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — It was a Monday evening, the first day of spring vacation and the sun was starting to set. Across the state, teenagers were congregating, savoring freedom from homework and studying, looking forward to a week of staying up late and sleeping in.
Not so for the half-dozen Central Falls High School and Calcutt Middle School students who gathered in a second-floor room overlooking Wayland Avenue. Instead of watching TV or hanging out, they were getting ready for up to three hours of sitting.
Members of their school’s chess team, they were in training for the high school chess equivalent of college basketball’s March Madness, the national high school championships April 29-May 1 in Nashville, Tenn.
If Mount Saint Charles owns Rhode Island high school hockey, Central Falls owns chess.
Since the 1980s, the school’s team regularly appears in the state championships. This year’s state champion team was 7-0-1. Monday night’s visit to Jorge E. Sammour-Hasbun’s Chess Master Connections on Wayland Avenue was part of their training regimen.
Math teacher Dan Amadio and history teacher Frank DelBonis, the team’s coaches, set up a two-stage training session for the evening. Team members got a half-hour session with Sammour-Hasbun, analyzing a game move by move.
Full article here.
Good coaching.