Chess a big hit with many Kentwood students
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
By JULIE SMITH
With intense concentration, elementary-age children across the Kentwood school district gathered to put their strategic skills to the test.
Moving pawns, knights, queens and kings and gleefully exclaiming “checkmate,” over 40 students participated in the third annual district-wide chess tournament last Saturday at the East Kentwood freshman campus.
Students learn the game in weekly chess clubs at their respective elementary schools. Brandon Buitendyk, 8, attends the second grade at Glenwood Elementary School. He’s been playing for about one year and said the biggest challenge of the game is “trying to think ahead.”
Buitendyk also plays at home with his dad and said that’s when he realized how much he liked the strategy and concentration chess requires.
“Then I started to like it,” he said. “It’s exciting.”
Douglas Forsythe, recently elected secretary of the Michigan Chess Association, directed Saturday’s tournament. He said the Grand Rapids region, including Holland and Muskegon is in the top 50 in the nation in terms of the number of scholastic chess players.
“Chess is making a comeback,” he said. “Grand Rapids is starting to become a Mecca in the nation.”
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