Sketch by Sofia Polgar

Kids make chess look elementary
6-, 7-, 8-year-olds add hardware to school trophy case

By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News
Published November 26, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Check us out, say the kids from Ricardo Flores Magon Academy, where chess is a passion, a metaphor and a reason to show off the medals on their chests.

Nine out of 10 of the students at the K-3 charter school near the Westminster-Denver border qualify for free or reduced lunch based on family income.

But that’s just one of many excuses they reject at the 2-year- old school as they strive for excellence on the chess board and in the classroom.

The 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds have finished second in the past two Denver Scholastic Chess Series tournaments against 20 other teams from Douglas County, Cherry Creek and other more affluent school districts.

That, despite the fact that four out of five of the players are just getting the hang of English, having spoken Spanish at home from the time they were toddlers.

“I’ve been playing for two years now, and it’s a very fun sport,” Shannon Montoya, 7, a second- grader, said Tuesday at a team practice. “It calms you down sometimes.”

Chess team members show up at 7:45 a.m., walk past the chess trophies in the trophy case, shrug off their jackets and sit down at a chess board for some serious play.

Dominic Martinez, who doubles as operations manager and chess coach at the school, talks to them for just a couple minutes about openings – freeing the bishops, working the knights.

The first one to get checkmate gets a piece of candy, so the play is intense, quiet and quick.

Sarah Griego, mother of second-grader Loiloi Griego, said chess has made a big difference for her son.

“It’s just been wonderful for him,” she said. “He’s made good friends. The girl he’s playing with now, Shannon, they’re best friends for life.”

Antonio Vigil, director of curriculum at the school, said chess develops cognitive and critical- thinking skills for the students: “It’s a metaphor for the choices we make in life. It teaches strategy and logic.”

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